Did politics kill the electric car or the sale of NIMH Batteries from GM To Chevron

"Who killed the electric car" is a question that supports the advertisement of the documentary more than it supports my interest. Although that movie is what opened my eyes to forced us to ask the following in order to figure what killed the electric car:

The question itself becomes difficult to answer unless you ask yourself, yet, even more questions.

• Why was the EV1 project started?
  

  In 1993, with the Clinton Administration's US$1.25 billion funding and equivalently matched funds from United States Advanced Battery Consortium, the PNGV program ( Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles ) was born as a cooperative research program between the U.S. government and major US auto corporations whos aim was create and market vehicles the were highly efficient ( Up To 80 mpg ). Including 8 federal agencies, the national laboratories, universities, USCAR, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, and GM. Reaching many of its goals and producing a waiting list demand of vehicles including GM Precept (80 mpg diesel-hybrid), Ford Prodigy ( 72 mpg diesel-hybrid ), Chrysler ESX-3 ( 72 mpg diesel-hybrid ), and GM's EV-1, the vehicles were deemed that the vehicles were too efficient ( Oops... in too low of demand and unsafe ).
  
  At the automakers request, the program was cancelled in 2001 with a new horizon of the FreedomCar Parnership, a technology that was to be a car of the future, available only in the future.

• What is the FreedomCar Partnership?
  
  In 2002, under the Bush Administration, the FreedomCar Partnership was born. Its goals, much were similar to those of the PNGV program, however, the cars in the study would support hydrogen instead of rechargeable electric vehicles. This new alternative fuel program would provide:

1. Freedom from dependence on imported oil and pollutant emissions.
2. Freedom for Americans to drive vehicles any anywhere, through a national infrustructure through a affordable refueling locations
3. Freedom to use plug-battery technology in PHEVs for up to 40 miles in electric driving range.
   

Interestingly enough, the partners were first the US DOE and the big three automakers (USCAR); however, in 2003, the partner list extended to include BP America, Chevron Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Shell Hydrogen LLC, and the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR)—a legal partnership among DaimlerChrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors Corporation.

You will notice the oil companies on the FreedomCar partner list which were not included on the original PNGV program list. What you may overlooked is Chevron, the patent owner of NIMH batteries.


• How is Chevron actually an equal partner in the Freedom Car Program?
  
  To my understanding, it would seem that a partner would be encouraged to further develop the battery technology of NIMH for practical and affordable use. Although what had happened is that Toyota and GM recalled and destroyed all but a few of these orginal plug-in vehicles.
  
  This suggests one of two possibilities:
  
  
• Toyota and GM, after the sale, were infringing on patents rights and threatened by lawsuit
• The vehicles with this technology were deemed too unsafe and the possibility injury to drivers and passengers were likely.
  
  
• What government encentives were available to explore electric vehicle technology?
  
  
As stated above, the Clinton Administration funded US $1.25 billion funding to the program. Ralph Nader called PNGV "an effort to coordinate the transfer of property rights for federally funded research and development to the automotive industry". Interestingly enough, from research to production, GM concludes that the EV-1 technology cost them less than 500 million dollars.



 

• How was GM stock performing before and after the sale of NIMH batteries to Chevron?
  
  I do not have the answers to this, but I am sure the answer will reveal that their stock holders did very well after the sale of the battery technology. With that in mind, one really has to ask themeselves "Who was really the intended customer of the electric car, consumers or Oil Companies?".
  
  
• Why was the PNGV program goals of the pilot program and what was acheived from it?
  
  
  • The goals were to acheive an efficient vehicle that exceeded 80 mpg with a distance equivalent to average gasoline passenger cars but the technology in batteries never came about.
  • Some of the technologies that came out of the program include:
    
    
    • Development of carbon foam
    • Near frictionless carbon coating, even than better Teflon
    • Clean Diesel technology
    • Compact microchannel fuel vaporizer to convert gasoline to hydrogen
    • Treatment devices to remove nitrogen oxides from diesel exhaust with 90 percent efficientcy
    • Improvement of the overall efficiency and power-to-weight ratios of power electronics
    • Cost reduction of lightweight aluminum, magnesium, and glass-fiber-reinforced polymer components to less than 50 percent the cost of steel
    • Reduction in the costs of fuel cells from $10,000/kW in 1994 to $300/kW in 2000
    • Substantial weight reduction to within 5 to 10 percent of the vehicle weight reduction goal
      
      
• Why is there more of an tax benefit to buying oversized SUV vs. an electric vehicle?
  This is a good question although we do not care to express our opinions on this.
  
  
• Undoubtably the electric car that came as a result of the Clinton Administration was gaining a widespread acceptance in California, so why would the program and the funding in that program end in 2001? What was so significant about that year? Who benefited for the failure of the electric car program?
  
  
  • The automakers may have become aware that less service and repairs are required for an electric vehicle which would cut out a huge segment of their business.
    
  • It may have concluded that the creation of the electric car would have a negative effect impact on economics of too many established segments of the market.
     
  • The oil companies may have realized that that change to electric drastically cut them out of the loop.
  
  

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The original PNGV partnership was a success in regards of what was needed to accomplish with the exception of the EV-1 being removed from the marketplace. The interest, however, gets focused on the GM's EV-1, but what about the other cars in the program?





Chyrsler created a hybrid car, based off of what looks like as the intrepid, that achieved 72 mpg.






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Ford Prodigy was created as a result of the program and it was deisel hybrid that acheived 72 mpg.




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The 80 mpg diesel-hybrid GM Precept.





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  Why do you think the EV-1 Project and other projects were defferred?


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