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Old 01-27-2020, 02:59 PM
 
Location: Metro Detroit Michigan
6,977 posts, read 5,337,327 times
Reputation: 6431

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GM to invest $2.2B in Detroit to build electric vehicles
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/...tric-vehicles/
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Old 01-27-2020, 04:09 PM
 
Location: Suburbia
8,817 posts, read 15,255,356 times
Reputation: 4512
Is this a result of the strike? I’m just wondering if this would have occurred otherwise.
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Old 01-27-2020, 04:26 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
11,299 posts, read 16,599,958 times
Reputation: 13291
Now they're serious!!!

GM could have owned the EV world, but someone there screwed up bigtime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

Who killed the electric car

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRnUY6V2Knk
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Old 01-27-2020, 04:40 PM
 
1,863 posts, read 2,205,173 times
Reputation: 3032
I think they're about 8 years too late, but I guess better late than never. GM tried with the EV1 back in 1996, in fact it was used in an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, and was a very costly endeavor that was abandoned after much progress. The car started with lead-acid batteries, but shifted to Ni-Cad then NiMH before it was axed...which was groundbreaking technology back in the 90s. According to Wikipedia, the first battery weighed 1,175lbs and was good for 16.5kWh, while the latter NiMH pack weighed 1,300lbs and good for 26.4kWh. That's a 10% increase in weight for 60% great energy capacity with greater cycling and lower "battery memory." Unfortunately the cost was too great in an era when gasoline was $.99 a gallon before the recession hit.

Compare that with Tesla's advanced in 2012 with their 1,200lb Li-ion battery pack good for 81kWh with even greater cycling and much faster charging. In my opinion, Tesla's success is 90% luck that they emerged out of the Great Recession and enjoyed an improbable 12 year bull-market run. There were many times when financing and customers would have dried up if the economy took a dive, never mind all the financial engineering, sovereign fund money, government subsidies, etc. Bob Lutz was trashing Tesla for pretty much the last decade until recently.

For GM to succeed, I think they are better off spinning-off and partnering with other companies that have expertise in the EV world. I would love to see more competition in the EV space, but I don't want to a wasted effort for GM. They built a pretty good 2nd gen Volt & Bolt, but completely failed to market the vehicle for sale. They were perfect bridge-vehicles from ICE to BEV.
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Old 01-29-2020, 07:42 AM
 
29,008 posts, read 14,345,745 times
Reputation: 14235
Quote:
Originally Posted by camaro69 View Post
Now they're serious!!!

GM could have owned the EV world, but someone there screwed up bigtime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

Who killed the electric car


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRnUY6V2Knk
After watching that movie, I would love to get the GM management team of then, in the same room with todays GM management team. They are dumping enormous amounts of cash into Zero/Zero/Zero and would have had a huge head start had they kept the direction of the EV1 team.
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Old 01-29-2020, 07:43 AM
 
29,008 posts, read 14,345,745 times
Reputation: 14235
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwong7 View Post
I think they're about 8 years too late, but I guess better late than never. GM tried with the EV1 back in 1996, in fact it was used in an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, and was a very costly endeavor that was abandoned after much progress. The car started with lead-acid batteries, but shifted to Ni-Cad then NiMH before it was axed...which was groundbreaking technology back in the 90s. According to Wikipedia, the first battery weighed 1,175lbs and was good for 16.5kWh, while the latter NiMH pack weighed 1,300lbs and good for 26.4kWh. That's a 10% increase in weight for 60% great energy capacity with greater cycling and lower "battery memory." Unfortunately the cost was too great in an era when gasoline was $.99 a gallon before the recession hit.

Compare that with Tesla's advanced in 2012 with their 1,200lb Li-ion battery pack good for 81kWh with even greater cycling and much faster charging. In my opinion, Tesla's success is 90% luck that they emerged out of the Great Recession and enjoyed an improbable 12 year bull-market run. There were many times when financing and customers would have dried up if the economy took a dive, never mind all the financial engineering, sovereign fund money, government subsidies, etc. Bob Lutz was trashing Tesla for pretty much the last decade until recently.

For GM to succeed, I think they are better off spinning-off and partnering with other companies that have expertise in the EV world. I would love to see more competition in the EV space, but I don't want to a wasted effort for GM. They built a pretty good 2nd gen Volt & Bolt, but completely failed to market the vehicle for sale. They were perfect bridge-vehicles from ICE to BEV.
They have, Honda.

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/...t/1003-gm.html
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Old 01-29-2020, 08:55 AM
 
Location: Raleigh
13,649 posts, read 12,298,450 times
Reputation: 20079
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwong7 View Post
I think they're about 8 years too late, but I guess better late than never. GM tried with the EV1 back in 1996, in fact it was used in an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, and was a very costly endeavor that was abandoned after much progress. The car started with lead-acid batteries, but shifted to Ni-Cad then NiMH before it was axed...which was groundbreaking technology back in the 90s. According to Wikipedia, the first battery weighed 1,175lbs and was good for 16.5kWh, while the latter NiMH pack weighed 1,300lbs and good for 26.4kWh. That's a 10% increase in weight for 60% great energy capacity with greater cycling and lower "battery memory." Unfortunately the cost was too great in an era when gasoline was $.99 a gallon before the recession hit.

Compare that with Tesla's advanced in 2012 with their 1,200lb Li-ion battery pack good for 81kWh with even greater cycling and much faster charging. In my opinion, Tesla's success is 90% luck that they emerged out of the Great Recession and enjoyed an improbable 12 year bull-market run. There were many times when financing and customers would have dried up if the economy took a dive, never mind all the financial engineering, sovereign fund money, government subsidies, etc. Bob Lutz was trashing Tesla for pretty much the last decade until recently.

For GM to succeed, I think they are better off spinning-off and partnering with other companies that have expertise in the EV world. I would love to see more competition in the EV space, but I don't want to a wasted effort for GM. They built a pretty good 2nd gen Volt & Bolt, but completely failed to market the vehicle for sale. They were perfect bridge-vehicles from ICE to BEV.
Everyone forgets that GM was the first to market with a competitive, viable PEV in the US, the Chevy Volt. They beat Tesla and in some ways it was a more practical car than Tesla.

So GM hasn't been makign Suburbans with their head in the sand. They've been making Suburbans while they plan and develop electric cars.
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Old 01-29-2020, 09:41 AM
 
Location: Newburyport, MA
12,082 posts, read 9,139,543 times
Reputation: 15495
So GM gets credit for trying with the EV1, and it may have been a technical success, but it was a market failure. They were selling fewer than 500 units per year.
General Motors EV1 US car sales figures

The Bolt-EV program was far more successful, and at its peak, sold nearly 25,000 units per year. But even that didn't set the world on fire.
http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales...rolet-bolt-ev/

Hopefully their next attempt is more successful yet. Just paying for the design, R&D, manufacturing development and marketing costs will take pretty strong sales I imagine. As a consumer, I'd like to continue to see more options and ever-better options in the EV marketplace, so I am rooting for them.

Last edited by OutdoorLover; 01-29-2020 at 10:10 AM..
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Old 01-29-2020, 12:56 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
11,299 posts, read 16,599,958 times
Reputation: 13291
Quote:
Originally Posted by OutdoorLover View Post
So GM gets credit for trying with the EV1, and it may have been a technical success, but it was a market failure. They were selling fewer than 500 units per year.
General Motors EV1 US car sales figures

The Bolt-EV program was far more successful, and at its peak, sold nearly 25,000 units per year. But even that didn't set the world on fire.
http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales...rolet-bolt-ev/

Hopefully their next attempt is more successful yet. Just paying for the design, R&D, manufacturing development and marketing costs will take pretty strong sales I imagine. As a consumer, I'd like to continue to see more options and ever-better options in the EV marketplace, so I am rooting for them.
The EV1 was never sold to the consumer, only leased and I think only in California.
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Old 01-29-2020, 03:04 PM
 
Location: Fuquay Varina
6,424 posts, read 9,747,057 times
Reputation: 18295
I think that Tesla's success took the auto industry by surprise. So many poopoo'd on Elon Musk since he wasn't one of them lol

Its a good thing that more Ev's are coming to market. Hopefully they will get better and more affordable for everyone.
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