ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996 TAG: 9612100072
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DETROIT
SOURCE: DONALD W. NAUSS LOS ANGELES TIMES
IF THEY WORK, THE VEHICLES have "the potential of being a revolutionary step.'' If they fail, "it could kill electric vehicles for the future.''
In November 1989, two months before the Impact electric car was unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show, General Motors ordered some film footage of the battery-powered vehicle cruising around an Arizona test track.
As the team of Southern California engineers who designed the tear-drop shaped prototype looked on, the Impact was wheeled out with a license plate that read: ``The Future is Electric.''
But before the cameras were allowed to roll, a frantic GM official ordered the removal of the plate. ``He said, `It's too strong a statement!''' recalled Alan Cocconi, an engineer who help build and design the concept car.
Such equivocation has been the hallmark of GM's approach to electric cars over the past decade as California first agitated for and then demanded zero-emission vehicles.
While the world's other major automakers have held their electric-vehicle cards close to the vest, GM has left at least some of its cards showing. But its on-again, off-again production stance amounted to a confusing public display of corporate schizophrenia.
So it is with equal parts surprise and skepticism that the world is again watching GM as it becomes the first major automaker in nearly 80 years to build electric cars from scratch and sell them to the public.
With the flair of a Hollywood movie premier, GM's EV1 - a sleek, $34,000 sports coupe derived from the Impact - was delivered last week to consumers at 24 Saturn dealerships in Southern California and Arizona. As the EV1 is driven off by the likes of actor Ed Begley Jr. and Baywatch star Alexandra Paul, GM is undertaking an ambitious push into a new era of automotive transportation.
The stakes are enormous. If the vehicle succeeds, the hegemony of the internal combustion engine could be broken. Gas-powered cars will be with us for decades to come, but EV1 could legitimize a whole new approach with vast potential for cleaning the air and easing the need for oil. It could also lead to a wave of alternative-fuel vehicles using fuel cells, flywheels, ultracapacitors and other technologies still under development.
``This has the potential of being a revolutionary step,'' said John Dunlap III, chairman of the California Air Resource Board.
If the EV1 bombs - and there is no shortage of doubters - it could relegate the electric car to the compost heap of history once and for all, while setting back alternative-fuel vehicle development for decades.
``It's not the right time or technology,'' said Lester Berriman, head of Drivers for Highway Safety, a small group of California engineers expert in auto issues. ``It could kill electric vehicles for the future.''
For California, the arrival of the electric car is a vindication of a controversial regulatory gamble - mandating zero-emissions vehicles as a way to solve the state's severe air pollution problem. Even though the mandate was pushed back last year from 1998 to 2003, state regulators can now point to the EV1 as proof that electric car development has been advanced by their prodding.
For GM, the EV1 has been a catalyst for change. It provides GM, whose innovations have ranged from the automatic transmission to the catalytic converter, an opportunity to recapture the crown as a technology leader lost to the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. The vehicle also has been a laboratory for changing GM's corporate culture - from that of an arrogant, stodgy behemoth producing clunky cars to a leading-edge company open to new technologies.
Most important, the EV1 is an opportunity to learn whether the public wants such a machine. Consumers ultimately will decide the future of electric vehicles by their willingness to buy them despite their initial, and sizable, limitations.
Of course, GM, which invested $350 million in the EV1, is not the only automaker scrambling to position itself for an electric future. Its U.S. competitors, and automakers in Japan, Europe and Korea, are deep into electric vehicle development as California regulators tinker with their zero-emission deadlines into the 21st century.
To its credit, GM is first off the mark. The traditionally lumbering, insular auto giant went outside its walls to find inspiration, then returned to Detroit where some in-house dreamers brought it to life. The birth was long and hard. The EV1 was kept alive even when GM's own survival seemed in question. And it was shaped by the rugged crucible of California's environmental politics.
``It stands as a triumph of the visionaries,'' says Roland Hwang, transportation project director for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The California Air Resources Board had long regarded electric vehicles as the magic bullet to improving the state's air quality, the nation's worst. Half the state's air pollution comes from car and truck exhaust.
Automakers had always argued that electric vehicles were impractical, the technology not advanced enough. Now GM was singing a different tune, and the ARB started to hum along. Before the year 1990 was out, the ARB had adopted a zero-emissions rule that in essence required 2 percent of cars sold by the state's seven largest auto retailers be electric powered as of 1998.
GM felt the mandate made it impossible to make a profit selling electric cars. It required production of more vehicles than GM knew it could sell, and brought six new competitors into the market. Still figuring it had a big lead, GM resolved to bring the Impact to market by as early as 1993.
To do the job, GM turned to Kenneth Baker, a passionate, ambitious career engineer who had run the ill-fated Electrovette program. He was skeptical of GM's resolve but put aside his doubts. ``I saw it as a chance to make history,'' Baker said.
GM's board had given Baker $32 million to produce 50 Impacts for test purposes. He used 30 to provide two-week test drives to consumers in 12 cities. GM was unprepared for the public reaction.
In Los Angeles, more than 10,000 people signed up.
Consumers gave the Impact glowing reports. They were surprised by the Impact's zip, going from 0-60 mph in less than nine seconds. It was quiet. It was fun. Drivers left the car wearing what GM staffers came to call the ``EV smile.''
Even as the Impact made the rounds, GM kept a lid on its plans to actually build and sell it. The secrecy was imposed for two reasons: GM didn't want to tip off rivals, and it was determined to roll back the mandate.
At the 1996 Los Angeles Auto Show, GM CEO Jack Smith - like Roger Smith six years earlier - came before reporters at the L.A. Convention Center on Jan. 4 to announce that GM would begin selling the EV1 this fall.
``It is time to get the electric vehicles out of the lab, into the showroom and onto the road,'' he declared.
GM doesn't expect to make money on the EV1. But it figures profits will come with follow-up electric cars and components as technology improves, volumes increase and costs come down.
GM also hopes to reap the benefits of just being first. As the EV1s silently hit the road Thursday, GM is making automotive history by retailing the first purpose-built electric - that is, not a gasoline-powered car converted to electric - in modern times. But the EV1 is pricey and probably could not be leased to more than a few hundred wealthy hobbyists without its local, state and federal subsidies, which can lower the price by $8,500.
``Why should the taxpayers pay for the Beverly Hills elite to drive what amounts to a rich man's toy?'' asks Anita Mangels, president of Californians Against Hidden Taxes, a group funded by the oil industry.
But electric proponents say these arguments miss the point.
The EV1 is not meant to be a vehicle for everyone, or designed to replace the internal combustion engine any time soon. Rather, GM's imperfect electric car, and others soon to appear, are important steppingstones to the next level of clean personal transportation, whatever form that might take.
LENGTH: Long : 140 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Technician Robert Easley checks the fluid levelsby CNBon an EV-1 at a Saturn dealership in Torrance, Calif. color. 2.
Scott Hankinson of Solectrica Corp. displays a Soletrica E-10, a
battery powered pickup truck, at a dealership in Arlington, Mass. It
averages 60 miles per charge.