alt Hacker NewsThis statement doesn’t really seem supported by facts. Battery technology just wasn’t able to make this car for the mass market 25 years ago. GM continuing to keep this very low-volume car in the showrooms for 15 more years at an unattractive price point would not have changed anything. Even if GM had produced a car like the Model S around the same time that Tesla did in our timeline, that would not have guaranteed them anything, nor would it have constrained Tesla’s founders from taking the risk to start that company and succeeding.
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If they hadn't lobbied to make small cars more expensive because the margins were lower, they could have built a model that was capable of being EV or gasoline, to get economy of scale for most of the vehicle. Well, worked with Daewoo to make a nicer version of the Chevy Aveo which could be a 4-seater gasoline car or 2-seater EV... Well, problem with that idea is the EV-1 was only popular with Hollywood types because it was a statement vehicle, so everybody knew what you were doing. I guess the dual-purpose vehicle would not.
tl;dr You're right :)
That's an old argument. The Prius hybrid was already running around with the same battery technology. They could have shifted. They could have pivoted. They could have done a very low volume production. The car was killed.