No one would mistake Chris Paine for a General Motors shill. In his 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, the filmmaker laid out a damning case against GM for unplugging the EV1, the electric vehicle it manufactured in the 1990s and then discontinued in 2003, preferring instead to produce high-margin but gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. "They were a technological leader, and they fumbled that leadership away," Paine says. Ask him about the U.S. carmaker now, though, and Paine sounds almost admiring. "Their new hybrids are making a difference, and their plug-in technology is a real advance," he says. "GM is making some really good moves now."
It's been some time since anyone accused GM of making a good move. The company surrendered its title as the world's top-selling carmaker to Toyota this year, in part because GM underestimated drivers' appetite for leaner, greener cars — a desire filled spectacularly by Toyota's Prius. GM is still weighed down by health-care costs and other legacy issues, but the Detroit giant is finally getting serious about hybrids. After dismissing them for years as a niche unworthy of attention, GM will release an average of one new hybrid model every three months for the next two years, beginning with the industry's first full-size hybrid SUVs late this year. "GM has really stepped up to be the standard bearer for the industry," says Philip Gott, director of automotive consulting for the research group Global Insight. "Toyota stole the limelight the first time with nice technology and a brilliant marketing strategy, but I think GM will take the ball back."
In a way, GM never really lost the ball; it just forgot how to play. For all its recent struggles in the marketplace, GM has always been a leader in pure research and development, spending $6.6 billion in the field in 2006. "They've dwarfed the rest of the industry in what they can put into it," says Dan Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis. In the late 1980s, GM produced concept cars like the Sunracer, a sleek solar vehicle that can still inspire wistful sighs in green geeks of a certain age. But too often the good stuff stalled between the lab and the showroom. "There is a myth out there that GM is a technological laggard, but that's not true," says John DeCicco, senior fellow for automotive strategies at the advocacy group Environmental Defense. "They just chose not to emphasize those kinds of products in their corporate strategy." Nevertheless, GM's cautious approach stranded its brands in the past while its competitors positioned themselves as smarter and greener.
Nowhere was that clearer than in GM's foot-dragging on hybrids, which use combination gas-electric engines to reduce fuel usage an average of 45%, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "Hybrids are an interesting curiosity," said Robert Lutz, GM's vice chairman of product development, in early 2004. "But do they make sense at $1.50 a gallon? No, they do not." Lutz was right then, and even with gas prices closer to $3, midsize hybrids are expensive and may not save most drivers much money. But to consumers, the equation was simple: hybrids = environmentalism.
GM just didn't get it. "GM took a gamble that hybrids weren't going to be important," says Eric Noble, president of Car Labs, an auto consulting firm. "That turned out to be a very bad bet."
Even while its image became defined by Paleolithic SUVs, GM was quietly making green investments. The company began producing hybrid buses in 2004, using the technology to boost fuel economy on those big, inefficient vehicles where it would have a big, immediate impact. By the same logic, GM has put its first real hybrid engines not in a midsize sedan like the Toyota Prius but in its jumbo suvs, the GMC Yukon and the Chevrolet Tahoe. The 5,000-lb. (2,300 kg) vehicles will run on a new two-mode hybrid system developed by GM with Chrysler and BMW. The power train will use two electric motors — one to assist city driving, one for highways — giving it up to 40% better fuel rates than conventional models' for city driving. "It's a piece of art," says Mickey Bly, GM's director of engineering for hybrid vehicles. And with a towing capacity of 6,000 lbs. (2,700 kg), the fuel economy doesn't come at the expense of power.
GM hasn't won over all the skeptics. Sticking a hybrid engine in a jumbo SUV is "putting lipstick on a pig," says Ronald Hwang, vehicle policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who argues that if GM is green serious, it should give up SUVs and build more efficient cars. But other activists welcome the effort. "I'm an equal-opportunity environmentalist, and I'll take carbon reductions where I can get them," says DeCicco. They agree, however, that GM passed up a chance to cement its green rep by failing to support efforts to tighten the federal corporate average-fuel-economy standards. Green darling Toyota has also opposed the proposed new rules, which call for a 35 mpg. (6.7 L/100 km) standard by 2020.
The best way for GM to answer its critics is with a green leap forward — and the company is working with every available technology. GM presented the Chevrolet Volt — a plug-in hybrid that can run on battery power, biodiesel or gasoline — as a 2007 concept car. The company will soon roll out Project Driveway, a consumer test of more than 100 hydrogen-fuel-cell cars, which convert hydrogen to energy and produce no harmful emissions. "No other company has such a broad array of green technology," says Tom Stephens, GM's vice president for global power train. "I intend to lead on this."
Chris Paine will be watching. His next film is titled Who Saved the Electric Car?, but there's one obstacle. "We have to find out if someone actually is saving it," he says. It might just be GM. What better hero than a reformed villain?
Before the electric car became the transport of tomorrow, it was the horseless carriage of yesteryear. At the turn of the 20th century, electric-powered cars were more popular than their noisy, smelly, gasoline-fired cousins, which had to be started using a hand crank that had a tendency to backfire. Among the best selling, and most basic, were the Columbia Runabouts, produced by the Hartford, Conn., alliance of Pope Manufacturing and the Electric Vehicle Company. Aside from the Deep Space Nine-style name, the Mark LX Electric Runabout could boast a top speed of 15 mph and a range of about 40 miles per charge — coincidentally the same distance Chevrolet's futuristic 2007 Volt can cover before requiring a refreshing plug-in.
Girls dig electric cars. At least that was the marketing message back in 1915, when petrol-powered autos were beginning to decisively pull away from electric ones. Battery-powered vehicles retained popularity among female drivers in cities, who valued them for their reliability — they wouldn't blow up, as gas cars were known to do on occasion — and ease of use. Clara Ford, wife of Henry, whose Model T all but decimated the electric car, drove a 1914 Detroit Electric. (What her husband made of the fact that she wasn't driving a Ford is lost to history.) The Detroit models could run 80 miles on a single charge, with a top speed of about 20 mph. Pokey, but this was before the age of Danica Patrick.
When people think of electric cars as glorified golf carts, the CitiCar may be what they have in mind. Brought out in the mid-1970s, during the height of the oil crisis, the CitiCar could top 30 mph and had a reliable range of 40 miles — in warm weather. The cars were priced to be competitive with the Volkswagen Beetle, and by 1975, Vanguard-Sebring was somehow the sixth largest automaker in the U.S. But the tiny, tinny CitiCar suffered due to safety concerns — it had all the crumple resistance of a beer can — and the model didn't outlast the 1970s, where it definitely belonged.
The Prius has shown us that futuristic cars should look like they're from the future — and no electric car's form better followed its function than the super-sleek Solectria Sunrise. But it wasn't just the space-age frame that made the Sunrise a hit. Founded by the young engineer Jack Worden in his Massachusetts basement, Solectria began by putting electric engines in the chassis of uninspiring gas-powered cars like the Geo Metro. But Worden wanted to build an electric vehicle from scratch, a design that became the much-loved Sunrise. Worden's baby had the rev of a sportscar and set a record for the longest drive on a single charge: 375 miles. And it looks like it should come armed with blaster cannons.
The tragic hero of the electric car narrative, GM's EV1 seemingly had it all: finely tuned engineering, the best battery technology and backing from the biggest car company in the world. Produced by GM in response to California's 1990 zero-emissions vehicle mandate, the EV1 is widely considered to be the best electric vehicle to ever make it into production. But the car itself was wildly expensive to build and the battery only functioned well in warm weather, finally prompting GM to end the EV1 in 2003, bitterly disappointing its legions — ok, large circle — of fans. How great was the ardor of EV1 devotees? In 2006 the model resurfaced again as an untimely murder victim in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? — not something you'll likely ever see with the Vanguard-Sebring CitiCar.
If any car company could produce a workable electric vehicle, it should be Toyota, maker of the world's most ubiquitous hybrid car. And indeed, the RAV4 EV — an electric version of the Japanese company's popular light SUV — was a good try. It had a top speed of 78 mph and a range of up to 120 miles on a single charge. But charging the RAV4 EV wasn't as simple as plugging in your cell phone. Drivers had to purchase a separate wall-mounted, 6000-watt charging unit, which helped keep the car's cost above $40,000. In 2003 Toyota discontinued the RAV4 EV and began recalling the vehicles, but hundreds of drivers have held onto their cars, and have event taken to trading customization tips online.
You know what happens when Daffy Duck gets caught in the gigantic steel press and gets squashed flatter than a dime? The Commuter Cars Tango looks something like that. At 69 in. long and 29 in. wide, the Tango has anorexic proportions, with a jumbo-sized price tag of over $100,000, at least for now. But shape is function. The Tango is the perfect urban car — thinner than a motorcycle, it takes up one-quarter of a normal parking spot. It can hit 0-60 mph in 4 seconds, with a top speed of 150 mph, 10 times as fast as the old Columbia Mark LX Electric Runabout. And let's not forget the most salient fact: George Clooney, who helped promote the two-seater Tango when it was launched in 2005, is apparently a fan.
Gas beat battery power decades ago in part because petrol-fueled cars could deliver significantly more zoom for the boom. But Ian Wright is changing that. The New Zealand native and Silicon Valley mainstay designed and built the modestly named Wrightspeed himself. It looks like a Formula 1 racecar and is faster than a Ferrari, but it runs on an electric battery. The impressive X1, which has yet to move into production, has a range of 100 miles per charge — a distance that it would cover at top speed in less than 40 minutes. You can burn rubber without burning the Earth.
There hasn't been a successful start-up car company in the U.S. since, oh, Ford. But more than a few entrepreneurs believe that with the auto industry on the brink of a technological revolution, now is the time for new players with radical ideas. Michael Marks founded Tesla with the plan of creating an electric car that doesn't sacrifice performance for fuel economy — and by all accounts, the red-hot Roadster succeeds. Not only does the Tesla accelerate from 0-60 in four seconds, its battery has a range of 245 miles, making it six times as efficient as the best sports car on the market. But if you want one, you better get in line just as quickly — there's already a waiting list, and the first production models won't be available until 2008.
After killing the EV1, GM has a long way to go to earn back the trust of electric-car lovers. But the Volt just might do it. Introduced as a concept car in early 2007, the Volt is a next-generation hybrid, a plug-in. It can travel up to 40 miles on its electric motor — long enough for most daily commutes — and an additional gas engine can extend that range up to 640 miles, with fuel efficiency that's equivalent to 50 m.p.g. That extra engine can be configured to run on ethanol or biodiesel, further reducing carbon emissions. It's a dream car, but the best part about the Volt is that it's no dream — GM expects to begin production of the Volt, at less than $30,000, within a few years.
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