I apologize, I was unclear. When I said "accident" I did not mean
"routine traffic collision". I meant catastrophic failure of the
vehicle itself due to one of the radical design elements failing.
Nightmares like a carbon fiber chassis delaminating with age and then
the whole car literally coming to pieces when hitting a bad pothole at
freeway speed. Or the brakes responding surprisingly badly to deferred
maintenance -- deferred *because* parts were unavailable.
See, the EV1 was a unique *chassis*. It deliberately employed a variety
of "never tried before on production automobiles" tchnologies
specifically to test them for use in future EVs. It was a testbed, an
open beta. The idea was always that GM would take the cars back to
study and/or retrofit. That's why they were leases. Am I wrong about
that?
My impression is that powertrain failure mainly results in you stopping.
Chassis failure can lead to a serious accident.
So on that basis, I'm calling Charles on his claim that Toyota selling
RAV4s and GM selling EV1s was an equal liability. The EV1 chassis was
far more experimental than the RAV4. The RAV4 was a production car,
evolved from the Corrola. Millions are on the road and NAPA stocks
parts for them.
Zeke, your '48 Ford it was a conventional, common car built with
ordinary technologies *at the time*. The long arm of product liability
isn't that long. But it certainly is long enough to give us Pintos and
"Unsafe at any speed" by Ralph Nader, and which company was burned by
Nader? Once bitten twice shy.
Now, I am not trying to defend what GM did. Nor am I saying they
crushed them for liability reasons. My opinion is that they crushed
them and placed smashed parts in the beds of various CARB
administrators, a-la the Godfather. However I believe the liability
issue on the chassis would have certainly prevented their outright sale
to consumers.
I also believe the Japanese automakers are equally culpable with GM.
They too leased (for far shallower reasons than GM). They too crushed.
I am sick to death of GM being singled out for criticism by people
blinded by some sort of "halo effect" by which, in their eyes, the
Japanese can do no wrong!
If you're going to criticize automakers, do so fairly and equally.
That's all I ask.
Charles, I tried to answer the question you asked. You dismissed it as
non-relevant, whilst Dan Frederickson out and out called me a liar.
That surprised me, as I thought this list had higher standards than
that. Am I misinformed about those standards? I mean, hey, I own the
mud, but it tends to make the good people of the world leave the list.
Now let me try to answer your question better. Wikipedia says the EV1
program was canceled in 2003. The BYU racer was donated in 2002.
http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/39888So my guess is it predates the "donate but don't drive" policy.
Robert
Charles Whalen wrote:
> Not any more than it does for, say, ... hhhmmm ... how about Toyota?, for
> example, ... which produced the RAV4-EV at the same time that GM produced
> the EV1. Only difference being that I happen to own two RAV4-EVs, along
> with 337 other RAV4-EVs also privately owned and operated as daily drivers,
> compared to exactly none in the case of the EV1. Why? Because Toyota
> decided to take all of those kind of liability risks that you speak of,
> arising out of all of those unknowns and uncertainties you mentioned,
> whereas GM did not.
>> What a horrid day for EVs if one was publicly involved in a freak
>> accident!
>
> Hhhmm, ... somehow I don't think so. RAV4-EVs are, unfortunately,
> occasionally involved in accidents (just like any other make and model of
> car), some pretty bad in which the insurance companies have made initial
> determinations to "total" the car. ... "A horrid day for EVs"? No, not by
> any stretch of the imagination. ... A horrid day for that particular
> RAV4-EV owner? Yes, absolutely! That it is not "a horrid day for EVs" is
> evidenced by the fact that you and most others on this particular list have
> probably never even heard of such accidents, which however are discussed on
> the RAV4-EV list. There is enough overlap of subscribers between the two
> lists, but I have never seen anyone come running over from the RAV4-EV list
> to the EVDL making a big deal about a RAV4-EV accident and exclaiming "what
> a horrid day for EVs".
>
> None of which, however, is very relevant to nor answers the simple question
> I asked.
>
> Charles Whalen
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert MacDowell" <
[hidden email]>
> To: "Charles Whalen" <
[hidden email]>; "Electric Vehicle Discussion
> List" <
[hidden email]>
> Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 9:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [EVDL] GM reacts to the WWU EV1 Resurrection. (or did they)
>
>> Liability. They're an automaker, and I'll bet that changes their product
>> liability picture *dramatically* as compared to you and I.
>>
>> What's more this is a completely NEW car with totally new technologies no
>> one had built before. They weren't just slapping Optimas and a Zilla into
>> a Camaro. Most of the features on this car, nobody knew how this stuff
>> would age. Would the frame deteriorate over time and shatter on a pothole
>> on the 101? Would corrosion in the controller cause traction current to
>> be exposed to the driver? What if a future owner took one to road-salt
>> country? Nobody knew. This car is a wild weasel of liability risk.
>>
>> So cut GM some slack on this one. What a horrid day for EVs if one was
>> publicly involved in a freak accident!
>>
>> Now the EV1 race car is a different thing. People expect race cars to
>> explode in a ball of flames. Nobody sues Ford when a Mustang dragster
>> blows up because the racer is expected to modify every aspect of the
>> vehicle for racing. Plus I believe this donation was prior to the others
>> (Sept. 2002)?
>>
>>
>> Robert
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Charles Whalen wrote:
>>> IIRC, I believe Brigham Young University has run their supercap-powered
>>> EV1
>>> down dragstrips around the country for a couple of years now, including
>>> at
>>> PoDC in Hagerstown, as I recall. I would think that a dragstrip could be
>>> considered a "private road", and in addition to that, is certainly a very
>>> public setting. Does anyone know if BYU has ever received such a phone
>>> call
>>> from GM anytime in the last couple years reminding them of the same
>>> agreement that *they* signed with GM when GM gave them the car as a gift?
>>>
>>> Charles Whalen
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