book on history of GM's EV1

[bradford]

i'm half-way through an great library book on EV development history, "the car that could, the inside story of gm's revolutionary electric vehicle by michael shnayerson.
really interesting blow-by-blow inside scoop on the compromises/decisions that were made. not unlike, i'm sure, what the leaf engineers went through.
probably 'old-hat' to the avid EVers but very interesting to me (a regular old guy).

i suggest anyone ck it out if you like this kind of thing.

enjoy....

 

[evchels]

I second that! It's a fascinating book- over the years I've come to know many of the people in it, and none have ever suggested Schnayerson's portrayal wasn't accurate. Knowing what goes on inside these companies at that level of detail, it's amazing we ever see these cars at all.

 

[darelldd]

Amazing to me is how it ends on such an amazingly happy, upbeat note. This car was going to see the light of day, be mass produced and change the world.

 

[evchels]

Yup- it leaves off right as we were all hired to (we thought) do exactly that.

 

[evnow]

Yup- it leaves off right as we were all hired to (we thought) do exactly that.

As I was reading about Honda's EV announcement - it struck mehow things changed. First half of the decade - all auto majors wanted to kill the electric car. Now every auto major has announced plans to sell EVs in the next 2 to 3 years. This is really the revenge of the elctric car ....

 

[retrodog]

Yup- it leaves off right as we were all hired to (we thought) do exactly that.

As I was reading about Honda's EV announcement - it struck mehow things changed. First half of the decade - all auto majors wanted to kill the electric car. Now every auto major has announced plans to sell EVs in the next 2 to 3 years. This is really the revenge of the elctric car ....

I attribute a large part of it to the movie. It definitely got me more interested.