DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The Chron published a nice post-mortem on the electric car industry: Owners charged up over electric cars, but manufacturers have pulled the plug

The story, in brief, is that the Califoria Air Resources Board passed a law in the 1990s that required all manufacturers to produce some small percentage of zero-emissions vehicles every year. Electric was the only way to achieve true ZEV.

The automakers turned out some great solutions, like GM’s EV1 and Toyota’s RAV4 EV. But the laws changed, and one by one the big automakers pulled the plug on their electric-car programs.

GM had not sold any of its über-sexy EV1s; rather, they’d leased them. One by one, as the leases expired, GM collected the vehicles — ignoring hundreds of requests from owners who wanted to extend leases or purchase the ZEVs outright — trailered them to the desert, and crushed them.

Is that the most astoundingly evil and stupid thing you’ve read all day? It gets better. Or worse, depending on how much oil-company stock you own. Here’s the explanation for GM’s abandonment of its EV1 program, as reported by the Chronicle:

GM stopped EV1 production, spokesman Dave Barthmuss said, because “after spending over $1 billion over a four-year time frame, we were only able to lease 800 EV1s. That does not a business make. As great as the vehicle is and as much passion, enthusiasm and loyalty as there is, there simply wasn’t enough at any given time to make a viable long-term business proposition for General Motors.

“If we’re really going to make a difference in environmental auto issues, we have to be able to see vehicles in the hundreds of thousands of units, instead of hundreds,” Barthmuss said.

Asked why GM didn’t just sell the cars to the clamoring motorists, as Ford finally did with the Rangers, Barthmuss said that “parts are no longer available.” Even though buyers might waive the right to sue GM over any design or production defects, he said, “in today’s litigious society, there is no such thing as no liability.”

The explanation smacks of greenscamming. Let’s dissect it.

Barthmuss claims GM was only able to lease 800 EV1s. How does he explain the long waiting lists of would-be EV1 owners? GM has been under-reporting the demand for electric cars ever since they cancelled the program.

Barthmuss implies that the few ZEVs they sold were not making a great enough impact on the environment, but he doesn’t explain how selling fewer would be an improvement.

Addressing the question of why GM recalled all 800 EV1s, which were only about 2 years old at the time, and destroyed them, Barthmuss claims, “parts are no longer available.” Even if this were believable, it’s irrelevant; I’m quite sure GM’s high-powered attorneys could craft an end-of-lease transfer agreement that releases GM from the responsibility of supplying parts in the future.

For that matter, what car has ever come with a guarantee that parts will always be available?

Moreover, if GM had done a better job of putting EV1s in the driveways of the folks who were waiting in line for them, there would be enough customers to support an aftermarket parts manufacturer.

Finally, Barthmuss said something that is true — but still fails as an explanation for GM’s awesomely wasteful and short-sighted ZEV-crushing. He said, “in today’s litigious society, there is no such thing as no liability.”

GM sells something like 8 million vehicles every year. The 800 EV1s they managed to lease constitute about one-one-hundredth of a percent of the total. How much liability could there possibly be? Compared to the cost of cancelling leases, collecting and dismantling and crushing the EV1s, and enduring the ongoing public relations challenge of explaining the whole mess, I can’t help but think someone slipped a digit.

Maybe I’m an optimist, to think that GM could spend a billion dollars and come up with something fun and safe and eco-friendly and life-affirming, something to pay back a little of the negative karma they’ve developed by selling the hell out of those road-mashing Escalades.

At least Ford learned from GM’s mistake.