The EV1 was the first electric car produced by General Motors in the United States. It was leased (but never sold) and serviced by Saturn but bore the "General Motors" badge - the only vehicle in the history of the company to bear that marque! They were only available in California and Arizona and could only be serviced at designated Saturn dealers. Only a few thousand cars were produced - a first generation using lead-acid batterybatteries in 1996 (as model year 1997) and a second generation batch with nickel metal hydride batteries in 1999. As cars came off lease they were refurbished and upgraded to second generation. The program was stopped in 2003 and the cars were destroyed.
The cars got 55 to 95 miles (90 to 150 km) per charge on lead-acid batteries and 75 to 130 miles (120 to 210 km) on a charge with nickel-metal hydride batteries. Recharging took as much as eight hours for a full charge. The battery pack consisted of 26 12-volt lead-acid batteries holding 67.3 MJ of energy or 26 13.2-volt nickel-metal hydride batteries which held 95 MJ of energy.
A modified EV1 prototype set a land speed record for electric vehicles going 183 mph (295 km/h) in 1994.
The price for the car used to compute lease payments was $33,995 to $43,995, which made for lease payments of $299 to over $574 per month. Price also depended on available state refunds. The cost for the electricity used to power the car was computed to be 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of the equivalent amount of gasoline.
EV1 wait anxiously for ABC news crew to publicize the danger, but it was in vain.
Those EV1 drivers who lost their "non-upgraded" EV1 were put at the top of the list for getting a 1999 Nickel Metal Hydride ("NiMH", 160 mile range) model, when and if they were ever released.
GM had dismantled the EV1 supplier and manufacturing plant in 1998, it was reported by GM insiders; the only question was who would be allowed to lease the already-built EV1.
In brief, the EV1 was "conceived" in a moment of passion, but suffered a protracted gestation period that nearly saw it still-born on more than one occasion.
The EV1 can be pushed close to 100 miles, but this dangerously depletes the batteries and shortens their service life.
While most EV1 owners, like actor Ed Begley, Jr., find the current range of the car adequate, especially with more than 300 charging stations now operational in the LA basin and 40 in the Phoenix area, GM plans to introduce the advanced nickel metal hydride batteries sometime this fall, effectively doubling its range.
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