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Originally Posted by Cancer
Agreed... but here's the thing. The EV1 gave us a HUGE headstart in terms of advancing electric technology AND consumer acceptance. Had they had continued to produce the EV!, or at least not make the car totally disappear from the public radar, we'd be alot closer to general public accpetance of EV's and would probably have some infrastructure to match (ie, plug-in stations in public garages for example ....just as aside the only ones I know of are on the Apple Campus ...why? because of the EV1). We could have avoided the mad scramble to change over to hybrids like we're seeing now.
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Unfortunately GM was hemorrhaging money on the EV1 and they're a business not a charity. It was only going to get worse as maintenance costs went up as batteries started to degrade over time. The technology was simply not ready at the time. It was a losing business proposition so they pulled the plug. Pretty straight forward.
Oh and on battery cost, I can't find a definitive figure on the replacement cost but the number I have seen repeatedly is $20,000, not $10,000.