Updating the EV1

[david_42]

A friend of mine leased an EV1 back when and would have been happy to buy it, but GM crushed most of them. Just out of curiosity, I ran some calculations on what updating the EV1 would mean. Most of them had lead-acid batteries that weighed 594 kg and stored 18.7 Kwh. It had a range of 161 km. If you dropped the P85 battery into it, the weight would have gone down 54 kg and the range would go up to 732 km! That doesn't consider the improvements in motor or controller technologies.

 

[glhs272]

Too bad there is only a few left in existence. Some 40 or less were spared from the crusher. Now all are in museums and research universities. I bet one would be worth a lot of money to a private collector.

 

[postpast]

A carbon fibre custom replica with a Tesla battery would be ultra cool. Could you image the attention you would get pulling into a car show with that.

I hate the argument thar "GM killed the electric car." Battery tech sucked then, and if GM had sold the EV1, electric cars would have been seen as impractical and useless. GM did a great service for the devolopment of EV's by showing that an EV was possible and then hiding that they were totally inpractical( with the tech of the time)

 

[glhs272]

I fondly remember the EV-1. It was the first time I had ever seen a real electric car. This was way back when...I can't remember the exact year, maybe 1999. I was with my family visiting my Grandma in Palm Springs California. We were driving down the road heading to the Palm Springs Air Museum. My Dad pointed it out. Silver metallic blue color. I thought it looked cool, even if a bit funky. We rolled our windows down so we could hear it. It had a distinctive "whine" to it. Also, it was quick. Easily scooting past us in our rental gas burner. Really a shame they all got crushed. But, I think if it weren't for GM crushing the EV-1s, I likely wouldn't have a Tesla Model S sitting in my garage.

 

[EVie'sDad]

Actually, my first all electric car experience was back in the mid 70's, an electrical engineer friend of my fathers (if I recall correctly, he was a scandanavian from either Norway or Sweden) wired up a dozen or so car batteries in the trunk and back seat of a dark green datsun b210, and drove it back and forth to work for a few years. It never topped over 40mph and the range was something on the order of 30-50 miles, but wow..it changed my idea of what was possible forever.

 

[BluestarE3]

I had looked into the EV-1 when it first came out because I was interested in electric cars and tired of paying for gasoline. However, my daily commute back then was 80+ miles each way, so I would not even have made it to work on a single charge. Now, my daily commute is 0 miles (retired) and I'm going to get an electric car with 215 miles per charge.

 

[CuriousG]

Too bad there is only a few left in existence. Some 40 or less were spared from the crusher. Now all are in museums and research universities. I bet one would be worth a lot of money to a private collector.

In an episode of Jay Leno's Garage, Leno went to Francis Ford Coppola's vineyard to show off his collection of cars. One of the cars he had in possession was an EV-1. When he heard GM was destroying them all he hid it.