Problem with EV1 or GM ?... GM !

  
An Electric Vehicle's Shocking Problem
by Chris Yoder
From Cranky Customer
http://www.crankycustomer.com/an_electric_vehicles_shocking_problem.html

CrankyCustomer.com

Hello, my name is Chris, and I am addicted to oil. But there was a
time I tried to do something about it: I had the opportunity to drive
a much more environmentally friendly vehicle.

For six glorious years my wife and I had an electric car -- a General
Motors EV1. Driving the EV1 always put a smile on my face. It always
felt fresh and 'new'. It was fast and fun to drive (a little too
fast -- I managed to get my only speeding ticket of the last 20 years
having fun in it).

Driving the EV1 was like flying some kind of space ship: With no
shifting transmission, and a faint jet-like whine in the gearset,
when you dropped the accelerator peddle to the floor it felt like you
were about to take off. The gauges were all digital, the glass
radically curved, and you were seated low next to a tall center
console.

It got more attention than anything else on the road, even in car
crazy Los Angeles where I live. I was constantly being stopped and
asked about it. Once somebody actually rear-ended me because they
were "so busy looking at the car."

But there were a few problems -- not with the car, but with GM.

First, getting one was not easy. You couldn't just go down to the
local Saturn Dealer and say: "I'll take the red one." Instead, you
had to go to the local Saturn Dealer and ask them to send the EV1
specialist over. A week or more later, the specialist would come over
to tell you everything wrong about the car and "pre-qualify" you and
the place you lived. If you still wanted one, and you were lucky,
several weeks later, after a special charger box was installed at
your home, you would get your car. It was like they were doing their
level best to keep you from it!

Second, in December of 2002 I had to give it up! I wanted to keep it,
as did a very high percentage of the people who got to drive one, but
GM refused to sell them -- you could only lease them. We tried to
extend our leases, but GM refused to extend any of the leases. They
insisted that we give the car back and even threatened to charge us
with Grand Theft Auto if we didn't.

What were they doing with the cars? Crushing them! Really. We wanted
them, but they wanted to destroy them. And they did.

But what really makes me a Cranky Customer is that a few weeks after
turning it in, we got a call from GMAC saying that we owed $430 in
damages for the car that they were going to crush! Over several
months we had the following conversation: "But wait, there was no
visible damage!" I claimed. They said that the underside of the front
fascia was cracked. (The front end was pretty low and easy to hook on
a parking stone when you backed out of a space.) "OK, then let me buy
the lease out." Nope, can't do that. "You're just going to crush
it!!!!" No answer.


We weren't alone in this, just about every other EV1 turned in during
this period was hit with these damages (usually the front fascia
being cracked on the underside), nor did we get the largest bill (I
know one person who was billed over $1,600!)

I could go on, but there's actually a movie called Who Killed the
Electric Car? that tells the story quite well (and it's entertaining!)

These days my wife drives a RAV4 EV -- Toyota actually sold their
RAV4 EVs to the public in 2002-2003. New, they were $45,000, with
$9,000 of incentives for a net cost of $36,000. Just over three
months ago a used RAV4 EV sold on EBAY for $67,300 -- double
the "new" price for a vehicle with 60,000 miles on it! I replaced my
EV1 with a "gas-guzzling" Prius hybrid -- and feel the angst every
time it goes into pure EV mode and every time I have to pull into the
toxic waste dump on the corner to fill it up.

Chris Yoder is an I.T. professional. He works for the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

Hezbollah funding plot?

  

In order to finance the training of these *volunteers,* as well as the seemingly endless barrage of rockets that have rained down on Israeli cities, Hezbollah has established an extensive fundraising infrastructure in the United States, as well as in Canada, South America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Supplementing the nearly $100 million Hezbollah reportedly receives from Iran, Hezbollah operatives in the U.S. have engaged in a litany of criminal activities, including credit card fraud, cigarette smuggling, counterfeiting, drug running, and organized retail theft, that provide millions to the Shiite terrorist organization.

*snip*
Despite Al-Mabarrat-USA’s direct link to a Fadlallah-controlled organization, to date, the U.S. branch continues to operate unfettered.

In fact, the organization appears to have gained a level of credibility in the U.S. as the Detroit Free Press reported earlier this month that *many Muslims in the region have donated to Al-Mabarrat.*

MyRepublicanBlog

= TG

Who killed the electric car?

  
Toyota RAV4-EV
More my style.
Jeep-EV, where are you?

Electric Car Wins in Speed Race Against Ferrari & Porsche
Watch TV coverage by Bay Area KRON4 of the Wrightspeed showdown
Low resolution for Real Player (1MB) or High resolution for Windows Media Player (11MB)
[ Find this at ... PluginAmerica.com

Finally, a website where all my bros live. Where all my arguments are made. Where all my wishful statements turned out to be true.

How is it that so few of us are aware of the many choices of Electric Drive vehicles... ?

Look at the see-through drawing of the RAV4 EV and ask yourself why this SIMPLE machine should cost more than 50% of the stupidly complex oil burners we still drive today?

No engine block, valves, lifters, cam shaft, pistons, rods and the machining they require. No water jacket and radiator, no gas pump, oil pump or water pump. No transmission, tourque converter or power train.
No ignition timing. No fuel mixing. No fuel injection. No air filter. No oil filter. No muffler, No catalytic converter. No anti-freeze, no waterpump lubrication. No poisionous monoxide gas and no noise.

There is more of this troublesome junk you don*t have to pay for or repair with an Electric Vehicle, but you get the idea. = TG
PS > What are you going to do with the $75 a week you do not spend on gas?
=
Very Fast Black EV
The Tesla Roadster You can buy one but you can*t *floor it* unless you get LeMans training and take time off to visit the Arizona salt flats.
Tesla Roadster
640HP surprise

EV-1 Electric Car GM elegance

   This is a link to more photos / info about the**The Electric Car Movie**
And the

**Very Fast EV**

Who killed the electric car ?

  Ok, this is my old Jeep Wagoneer and not the EV-1, but it could be an electric car. There is no need for an electric car to look ugly unless the maker wants it to fail. TG
[ Like Ford and Volvo for example ]

Why did GM kill the EV-1

CBC Radio One 8:30 am Friday July 14th/06 on **The Current**

Who Killed the Electric Car ?– Film Director
No gas, no oil, no tune-ups, no problems. It's the story of the EV-1, General Motor's ill-fated electric car.The EV-1 cruised the California roads in 1990, when 800 of the cars were leased to customers eager to drive a zero-emission automobile.
But despite rave reviews from the few who drove it, GM shut down the production line in 2003 and recalled every single one of them. Most of the fleet was shredded, crushing consumers' hopes that the electric car was here to stay.

========= TG
You could only lease the car, never buy it.. Every last car was re-claimed by GM.. Drivers loved it, yet GM claimed only 800 were in use and demand was too low to warrant production. I think they saw it would eclipse all other auto products and snuffed it out before it could be discovered by the public
========= TG.

One of its fans was filmmaker Chris Paine, who was once a proud driver of an EV-1. And now, the story of why General Motors decided to short-circuit the production of the electric car is what powers his documentary, appropriately titled, Who Killed the Electric Car? We reached Chris Paine by telephone in Los Angeles, California.

GM Response
While there may be plenty of blame to go around in Chris Paine's documentary, in the end, it was General Motors's decision to discontinue production of the EV-1 electric car.
To find out why, we contacted Dave Barthmuss. He's the manager for public policy, environment and energy for General Motors North America, and he was also in California.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2006/200607/20060714.html

==[ UPDATE ]==
Excellent full info at =CBEV.org

**The Huffington Post**

============ TG
**Very Fast EV**

Good News not via MSM

  
Theft without permission of DrD*s comment:

One must stoop to low grade theft to bring wider focus on the fact that educated minorities in countries like Iran and Afghanistan want to be free of fundamentalist oppression.

In this case the Ayatollah Khomeini*s own grandson!

===DrD says===
How unpopular is the United States in the Middle East--especially Iran?
Maybe not as unpopular as the MSM might lead us to believe.

It seems Hossein Khomeini,
the Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson
==================
is calling upon the United States to invade Iran and free the country from the theocracy created by his grandfather. Google his name and follow the Daily Telegraph and BBC links among others.
Posted by: DrD at July 9, 2006 09:42 AM
==================

OK, here, I*ll do it for you…
http://www.slate.com/id/2089329/

**This is a historic question in the strict sense, because we will not know the true answer for some considerable time. But that does not deprive us of some responsibility to make judgments in the meanwhile, and we have good reason to know that the region can't be left to fester as it is.
=========== [ Exactly! TG ] =======
On my own recent visit to Baghdad, Karbala, and Najaf, as well as to Basra and then Kurdistan, I would say that I saw persuasive evidence of the unleashing of real politics in Iraq and of the highly positive effect of same. Conversation with Khomeini suggests to me that in at least one other highly important neighboring country, the United States has also managed to get on the right side of history, as we used to say.

http://www.mirrashidi.com/sfdays/archives/000068.html

TG

Willows Douglas and Cedars

   The property is larger than it seems. It extends from the corner back to the cedar tree behind the power pole.

Trees 12th and Fitzgerad

 Renovations underway, but still very park like and the cool is priceless during these hot summer days.