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HEY GM, BRING BACK THE EV1

A decade ago General Motors put one of the coolest cars of all time on the road, the EV1. While there were a number of hard-core EV enthusiasts who became passionately committed to the car, it never caught on with the masses. But that was then and this is now. GM should seriously consider putting the EV1 back into production.

John McElroy is host of the TV program "Autoline Detroit". Every week he brings his unique insights as an auto industry insider to Autoblog readers. Follow the jump to continue reading this week's editorial.

The General Motors EV1 has turned into one of the largest scapegoats in the automotive industry. Many people believe that the futuristic electric car was put to pasture long before its full usefulness had been met, a controversial viewpoint supported by the Chris Paine film, "Who Killed the Electric Car." To those conspiracy theorists, Angus MacKenzie at Motor Trend has another take to offer: blame CARB. While the California Air Resources Board has been blamed for many things, the death of the electric car is not often one of them. But MacKenzie quotes Howard Wilson, a man deeply involved in the EV1 program, as suggesting that the engineering team wanted to make the electric car a hybrid using a small gas turbine engine which could make enough electricity for the electric motors without a large battery. This could have reduced the weight of the vehicle and increased its range exponentially. Why didn't they do it? CARB had mandated that the automakers needed to offer at least two percent of their fleets as zero emission vehicles, which effectively sealed the fate of the hybrid EV1. These happenings left the door wide open for other companies, Toyota in particular, to carve out the hybrid niche for themselves. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Source: Motor Trend]