alt Hacker NewsThat'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.
Replies
NewJazz • yesterday at 6:17 PM
Yeah if the volt was released a decade earlier they'd have been a frontrunner in the pure ev space in the late 2010s.
It's the correct argument. Bob Lutz deals with it in one of his books.
The EV1 was a evaluation exercise/hedge against regulation; the impetus was a lunatic assertion in 1990 by the CA gov't: they wanted 10% of cars sold in the state by 2000 to be electric. Nobody outside of Sacramento thought this would be doable, but it was an excuse to do some useful R&D, as well as to demonstrate to lawmakers the difficulties involved.
As for the Prius-the Gen I Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive cost $380 million in 1990s dollars for R&D. Anybody at GM trying to spend that kind of money on an experimental(!) powertrain for a low-volume(!!) economy(!!!) car would've been fired. At Toyota, Shoichiro Toyoda was supportive of such an idea, despite the limited opportunity for near-term profit; and if you have that last name at that company, nobody's gonna fire you.