1,000 Consumers Will Test GM’s Electric Car Next Year

In the biggest test yet of Americans’ interest in electric cars, General Motors Corp. and a group of major U.S. electric utilities today will announce a program giving ordinary drivers the chance to try out GM’s sporty Impact, by most measures the best electric car the big U.S. auto makers have ever produced.

“This is a probe of a very uncertain market,” said Jean Crocker, GM spokeswoman for electric vehicles.

In announcements in Los Angeles, Detroit and Harrisburg, Pa., GM will offer 1,000 consumers across the country the opportunity to “live with” the cars for two to four weeks. Southern California will be the first area to receive the cars, beginning next spring.

GM will pick volunteers from the utilities’ customer lists; key legislators and others may also get a chance to drive the cars.

“This is the real test,” said Diane O. Wittenberg, manager of electric transportation at Southern California Edison Co., one of the participating utilities.

Edison recently gave a handful of customers the chance to test earlier-generation, lower-performance electric cars. “But the Impact is designed for the personal car market, as opposed to fleets,” Wittenberg said. “It won’t be giving someone a converted truck and saying, ‘How does this compare to your Lexus?’ ”

Prototypes of the Impact--a fast-accelerating, two-passenger coupe--have been displayed at various auto shows since GM announced in 1990 that it would market the car to U.S. consumers beginning in the mid-1990s.

California air-pollution rules require all major auto makers to sell zero-emission vehicles beginning in 1998. Practically speaking, that means electric cars and trucks. But GM and other auto makers have worried that consumers won’t buy electric cars. They fear buyers will be put off by the cars’ limited range and probable high purchase price compared to gasoline-powered autos--no matter their expected lower operating cost and environmental benefits.

In December, GM withdrew its pledge to mass-market the Impact by mid-decade, announcing that it instead would build only 50 Impacts by then, all to be used in testing.

Paul Wuebben, clean fuels officer at the South Coast Air Quality Management District, noted Tuesday that since 1988, California has collected 86 million miles worth of experience with non-petroleum-powered cars and trucks, including natural-gas and methanol-fueled vehicles. “And one of the lessons we’ve learned is that you learn a lot more in a real-world situation than on a test track,” he said.

Veteran auto industry executives said GM can also expect to learn a lot about selling electric cars.

“The whole concept of an electric-powered vehicle is strange to the producers as well as the consumers and the dealer,” said Ray A. Geddes, chairman and chief executive of Unique Mobility Inc., a Golden, Colo., manufacturer of electric engines, including one for BMW’s prototype electric car.

California utilities that will join GM and its GM Hughes Electronics subsidiary in backing the program include Edison, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, San Diego Gas & Electric Co., the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Pacific Gas & Electric Co.