More interesting GM decision failures

[Beavker]

If you're into that sort of thing, the EV1 decision (From "Who Killed the Electric Car") was the 2nd time GM made a poor decision on which direction to take it's technology (or the Oil Lobby AGAIN was in their back pocket).

From EV WORLD:
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: (Sorry, not sure how to get the photo's to paste, it's a Gremlinesque little car) GM's XP-883 was its first plug-in hybrid, developed in 1969. While small and sluggish in performance, its lead-acid batteries could be charged with 115 volt household current. The idea was to drive in the city on electric power and on the highway using the car's tiny two-cylinder engine. Top speed was 60 mph but it took 28 seconds to go from zero to 60. Imagine where we'd be had GM engineers kept improving on the technology.

http://evworld.com/insider.cfm

[zipplewrath]

1. They've been around for a long time

Hybrids have been around for a long time. I can remember in the '70s there were articles in magazines like Popular Mechanics about how to convert a car to a gas/electric combo. Back then the intent was to have an electric with few batteries and create low mpg. The problem of course was that the added mass of two redundant engines inhibited the efficiency of the car. But for them the concept was that you could "tune" the engine for a particular speed and get maximum efficiency out of the engine. The electric was just a conduit for the power. The batteries were just a energy buffer between the two.

In the '80s I started advocating that they were missing the point. The batteries were the whole schtick. The point would be that with a vehicle on the market that needed/used better batteries, the incentive would be there for them to be developed since they could go into the market within a year once developed. As they improved, the motor would be used less and less and ultimately would become much like the "temporary spares" we have today. There for serious emergencies, but nothing else much.

When the Civic hybrid came out I was frustrated because they had it backwards in my mind. Once again it was an attempt to reduce fuel consumption through efficiency. The primary motor was the gas engine, the electric and battery was just a power buffering device. FINALLY the Prius came out and I think folks have begun to see the light. The clamoring for "plug-in" capability isn't to improve fuel efficiency, it is to REPLACE the fuel. The greatest efficiency is not to use the darn stuff to begin with. And the car companies are dumping large amounts of money into battery research. Thank god the research was already started for, of all things, the laptop industry.