Doug Korthof

Cashing In on the Electric Transport Boom

You are so WRONG. The EV1 was originally released on lead-acid batteries, not NiMH; and there were 650 in the original "1997" format. There were problems with failure-prone GM-Delco lead batteries, once they were upgraded to lead-acid PSB EV-EC 1260 batteries, they had a range of over 100 miles and never failed. In 1997, Toyota and Honda released NiMH EVs that were superior to the original GM EV1 and cost less.

It was 2000 (starting in Dec., 1999) before GM was forced, by CARB, to start releasing some of the 465 NiMH EV1.

Even though these had inferior GM-Ovonics NiMH batteries, they had an EPA certified range of 140 miles on a charge. With superior Toyota NiMH, such as are still running in the Toyota RAV4-EV (last sold in Nov., 2002), the EV1 would have had over 200 miles range.

Add them up: Lead-acid, not NiMH, over 100 miles range, the batteries were NOT the problem!!

And 650+465=1115, not "800". At least you don't repeat the GM lie that "nobody wanted them, they didn't sell".

Perhaps you should study more, then I'll read the rest of this puerile article.