GM Officials Say Company Is Still Committed to EV1

General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman Harry Pearce said Thursday that the auto maker has not pulled the plug on its electric car program even as it experiments with hybrid-powered vehicles.

Media reports last week out of the Detroit auto show had GM, the world’s largest auto manufacturer, ending production of the EV1 as it showcased a concept car powered by a fuel cell. This infuriated environmental groups, which are bracing for auto and oil industry lobbying campaigns this fall when the California Air Resources Board reviews requirements that 10% of new cars sold in the state by 2003 be zero-emissions vehicles.

Roland Hwang, transportation programs director for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Berkeley, said his organization and other environmental groups “were really upset when this came out because we had no choice but to view it as a political maneuver rather than a marketing decision.”

But GM on Thursday said the published reports were the result of long-held misperceptions about how it makes electric cars and what its goals are for the program.

“The headlines . . . suggested that we were shutting down the EV1 program, and, quite frankly, nothing could be further from the truth,” Pearce said.

In particular, Pearce and Bob Purcell, GM’s director for advanced technology vehicles, disputed media contention that the acceptance of electric cars has been disappointing because little more than 600 EV1s are on the road today.

“You’ve got to put a program like this in a different perspective. The issue is not how many you sold in the last 10 days; it’s the next 10 years,” Purcell said.

What’s more, technology pioneered in electric cars is now being used in some conventional GM vehicles, he said.

Electric cars are not produced continuously, the way conventional vehicles are, Pearce said. GM made the first batch of 500 EV1 cars with lead-acid batteries and recently followed with a batch of 500 cars equipped with nickel-metal-hydride batteries that double the range to 120 miles or more per charge.

GM could produce more EV1s but currently has no need because it has 400 of the second-generation EV1 cars ready to lease, the executives said.

The initial three-year leases are now ending and GM is refurbishing and re-leasing those cars at reduced cost, which should bring in new customers, Purcell said.

Hwang said his group is “going to take GM’s word for it, that this was all a big misunderstanding. . . . I want to believe that GM is not trying to intentionally undermine California’s air pollution laws.”