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by nubinetwork9 hours ago |
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upvoteby xp848 hours ago|
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I don’t think it was all that mysterious, or even sinister. The car was a compliance car, it was mandated by the state to exist, and was not at the time a profitable model. All of them were leased. When the mandate expired or whatever, selling the cars instead of taking them back would have meant supporting this very different car for a long time with parts and repair service. This would have been a huge headache, and not worth it by any measure. Yes, they could have attempted to make BEVs happen for the mass market in general, but every carmaker was free to do so and they all seemed to agree that it wasn’t a good risk until Tesla came years later and made that bet with the S and the 3. But that was 15 years of advancement later.

And GM could have crushed all of them, but apparently was proud enough of it and not afraid people would ‘discover its secrets’ and build a new EV, since they decided to just park a half dozen or whatever at schools for students to poke and prod at. I get that the optics of crushing them made them look like a villain from the “Captain Planet” cartoon, but it would have been foolish for them to do anything else.

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upvoteby legitster4 hours ago|
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It's not just that the car was a compliance car, it's that these were experimental models. They were not able to be registered by individuals because they didn't go through all of the mandated safety regulations that normal models do.
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upvoteby arcfour3 hours ago|
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So the state first mandates the cars exist, then mandates the cars be destroyed. Truly this is government efficiency at its finest.
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upvoteby maxerickson7 hours ago|
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Was it even a compliance car?

It's eternally fascinating that people can't or won't grasp that the cars cost far more to produce than they could put them to market for, instead deciding that it was a big conspiracy.

It took until ~2015 for batteries to become practical for expensive mass market cars.

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upvoteby aeturnum7 hours ago|
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> Was it even a compliance car?

I am not an expert but I believe that US regulations require that manufacturers make a range of vehicle types to sell on the US market. You don't need to sell a lot of, say, compact cars - but you need to offer a compact car in order to sell your cash-cow large trucks.

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upvoteby ndiddy6 hours ago|
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CAFE didn't work like this, it was a lot dumber. Basically it weighed the fuel economy for vehicles under 6000 pounds between two categories: passenger cars (sedans, coupes, wagons) and light trucks (vans, SUVs, crossovers). Passenger cars had an MPG target of ~8 MPG higher than light trucks. Car manufacturers that couldn't get their MPG (weighted between sales of the two categories from that manufacturer) below the targets were fined. Essentially this incentivized car companies to sell fewer passenger cars and more light trucks so their target MPG was lower. This is why crossovers have basically taken over the market in the US. Car manufacturers modified their designs to count as light trucks (lowering the MPG by 1-2), but since the target for light trucks is 8 MPG lower than passenger cars, they look more compliant on paper. We've gone from passenger cars making up ~50% of US car sales in 2000 to ~20% of car sales today.

I use the past tense because the Trump admin has gotten rid of the fines for this regulation so it basically doesn't matter anymore (one of the few good moves it's done). It'll be interesting to see if small cars are able to make a recovery in the US, or if it's too late.

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upvoteby aeturnum6 hours ago|
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I am sure it'll be a few years as manufacturers will worry that a future admin (if we get such a thing lol) could un-remove the fees - but it would be wonderful to see actual small trucks again.
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upvoteby nickff4 hours ago|
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CAFE wasn't 'dumb', it was designed to prevent the 'big three' from manufacturing (new generations of) small cars outside the USA (i.e. in Mexico), with non-UAW labor. CAFE was not designed to protect the environment or reduce emissions; that was just a PR veneer to make it more palatable. You're completely correct that it led to strange designs, perhaps most notably the PT Cruiser (which was classified as a truck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_PT_Cruiser).
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upvoteby cucumber37328424 hours ago|
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And it killed a bunch of useful smaller truckish vehicles because they scored poorly. The Ford Ranger, the Chevy Astro, the Crown Vic and every other sedan with a big ass.
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upvoteby bluGill7 hours ago|
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California not US regulations in this case.
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upvoteby aeturnum6 hours ago|
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ah! thank you
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upvoteby ryukoposting7 hours ago|
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And even now, the fantasy of the $30,000 EV hasn't really been realized. In the US, your only option right now is the Leaf, but good luck finding one for under $32,000.
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upvoteby xp845 hours ago|
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If that was the fantasy even 6 years ago, the fantasy should have been updated for inflation to a $40,000 EV. I don’t even mean to exaggerate — that’s how much inflation we’ve had since 2020. We have plenty of sub-$40k EVs.
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upvoteby monocasa3 hours ago|
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Meanwhile Europe has access to $30k EVs because they didn't stock a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. Hell, a leapmotor to3 is almost down to $20k.
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upvoteby slackfan1 hours ago|
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To be furiously pedantic: I can walk into my local GM dealer down the road and buy a 2027 Bolt for 29000~ right now.
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upvoteby criddell6 hours ago|
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I thought they destroyed them all because they didn't want to have to provide the legally required parts and service for them. Now that they are in classic car territory, those requirements no longer exist.
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upvoteby RealityVoid6 hours ago|
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I find the obsession with ev1 very US centric. There were many many other electric cars released before EV1. I think that documentary is to blame for this, GM was not the only company exploring EV's and there were other players as well. They just, for some reason or another, did not commit to it fully.

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

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upvoteby bluGill8 hours ago|
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This is common for all cars of all makes. You want people to buy new ones so there is an areg where old cars are a liability. People buying new cars trade them in after three years, so you want some value left so they can afford that, but you want them to wear out in about 12 so that people have reason to keep buying more instead of keeping the old. Then after about 25 years it is a collectors car and you can be proud of the few left - they are not impacting new sales much (if any) and give people reason to dream about cars.
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