Jumping Through Hoops for EV1
I must respond to the somewhat misleading May 24 letter from Ken Stewart, brand manager for advanced technology vehicles of General Motors Corp.
GM is fond of trumpeting how much money it spent to advertise the EV1, and then pointing to the small number of cars in service as proof of the lack of demand. This is entirely disingenuous. While the EV1 is a fine car and a technological tour de force, I’m afraid that the same cannot be said of the marketing efforts.
If you take a look at the ads GM actually ran, you will notice that at no time did most of them provide any information about where to go to see the car. Customers persistent or clever enough to track down a dealership qualified to lease the car were asked to make an appointment to take a test drive.
If they expressed interest after the test drive, they were subjected to extensive “qualification” screening. Then they were put on a waiting list, often for up to one year.
Now, I ask you: If you marketed any product in this fashion, and made potential customers jump through hoops, how many do you think you would sell?
It is a testament to the desirability of this vehicle that any were leased under such circumstances.
As a current Generation 2 EV1 driver, I applaud GM’s innovation in building this fine car. I applaud the company’s success in building a charging infrastructure and a fine service organization. However, it has utterly failed to make a credible effort to actually market and sell these vehicles.
MICHAEL J. KOBB
Belmont
Ken Stewart of General Motors said your reporter John O’Dell had failed to do his homework. I’ve done about 30 years of homework on GM, and I’d like to give an alternative view of electric cars and Detroit.
GM has made electromotive diesel train engines for 60 years, a hybrid technology in which a gas or diesel engine provides current for an electric engine, which powers the vehicle.
In an attempt to complicate the debate over electric cars, GM has always pretended that the issue is batteries, all the while knowing, as Honda has demonstrated with the Insight and Toyota is about to do with the Prius, that the hybrid is a simple, low-cost solution.
GM produced an electric car that it never intended to sell, only to use to show off how concerned it was for the environment. By pricing the car at $35,000, GM put it out of reach of the average consumer.
The crimes committed by the automobile industry against our government, the environment, our foreign policy and our lungs are unspeakable.
We are heading toward chaos and social upheaval because we are totally dependent on the internal-combustion engine. In these times, continuing this artificial dependence on oil amounts to treason.
JON HARTMANN
Los Angeles
It took two articles side by side May 17 (“Higher-Voltage Cars Could Jolt the Wallet Too” and “Clean Air: Shootout at EV Corral”) for me to see why electric cars aren’t selling. People are scared of them.
Ralph Vartabedian described how dangerous the upcoming 36-volt batteries could be in our gasoline-powered cars, with the potential for fires, people getting shocked and batteries exploding. If it is this bad with just one battery, imagine how dangerous it would be sitting atop an array in an electric car with a combined voltage of more than 200.
It sounds like our state government, with its zero-emissions vehicle mandate, wants us to drive electrical time bombs.
MICHAEL ADAMS
Pacific Palisades
* Address letters to Highway 1, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Via e-mail: highway1@latimes.com. Please keep letters brief; they are subject to editing. All submissions must include the writer’s full name, address and daytime telephone number.
