GM EV1

In 1990, I started working at the GM Advanced Concept Center (California) in Newbury Park.

Prior to my starting there, they had worked on a project with Aerovironment for an EV.

It was called the Impact and looked very similar to the EV1.

The EV1 is the production version of the concept vehicle that GM ACC and Aerovironment had worked on together.

When the EV1 was about to be launched, they brought one of the first "production" version cars to GM ACC and let everyone who worked there have a chance to drive it "around the block."

I got a turn in it and was pretty impressed (remember that this was over 30 years ago).  By the time everyone had a chance to go around the block, the battery (lead-acid) was just about drained!  It was probably about 20 miles of driving (a lot of it a t WOT!).

A side story related to Aerovironment.

There was enough money/time left in the contract with Aerovironment for one more project when I started working at GM ACC.  We had a meeting at Aerovironment to decide what the project should be.  

We (a few of us from GM ACC) sat around a large conference table with Dr. McCready (don't remember if I have the name/spelling right) who was the founder/CEO of Aerovironment and several of their highly educated (most were PhDs) engineers/managers.

The discussion was around what the final project should be.  There were three basic proposals.  (1)  super aerodynamic vehicle (2) very narrow vehicle (reduce congestion/parking/etc.) & the third one I don't remember.

They went around the table and each person picked their preference.  Other than Dr. McCready, I was the last one to choose.  Everyone before me had chosen (1).  I chose (2) and gave my reasoning.  Dr. McCready also chose (2) and gave his reasons.

Once Dr. McCready chose (2), pretty much everyone changed their vote and the final decision was to do (2).

In the Studio, the project was called the Narrow Lane Vehicle (NLV) and we did several 3/8 scale design models and different vehicle packages (drawings).  

We took the clay scale models to the Cal Tech wind tunnel and spent about a week fine-tuning the clays to see if we can improve the aerodynamics for Cd.

Me and one of the clay modelers did several changes around the A-pillar/mirror area and the rear of the vehicle (spoiler, sharper transition from the quarter panel to bumper, etc.).

I was surprised at how we were able to reduce the Cd significantly with these relatively small modifications.

Because the vehicles were very narrow (tandem 2 person seating), the frontal area was very small.

Overall aerodynamic efficiency was very high.

We also did an interior buck mockup (interior space, control ergonomics, tandem seating space, etc.).  Then we built two or three mock up vehicle (can't remember if it was 2 or 3) with low speed electric drivetrains (similar to an electric golf cart) with foam body mockups.  Max speed was around 25 MPH.

We shipped the crude, slow speed, mock up vehicles to the GM proving grounds in Arizona and spent a day test driving the NLVs with normal cars, trucks & busses to see what it would feel like in close proximity to some simulated "traffic" conditions.  (This was the one and only time I got to drive a full size bus!  Very sensitive air brakes.)

The whole project was a lot of fun.

Hard to believe I got paid to do that stuff!

Of course, like nearly everything I worked on at Ford & GM Design, the project never made it to production.

I remember being impressed with the EV1 interior.

Not because it had German level quality but it was a clean, simple and efficient design/execution.

It was narrow but perfect for me.

The driving dynamics were good as well as the visibility.

You could tell that the track was narrow (especially the rear) but didn't feel unstable.

All that heavy battery was mounted in the center console and very low so the Cg must have been very low.

I spent about 6 months at the Tech Center in Warren Michigan in the early 1990s (don't remember exactly when) working on trying to make a buildable package for the concept car we were working on (it ended up going on the show car circuit as the Pontiac Salsa).

During that time, I got to see an Impact body-in-white (basically the structure of the vehicle without the plastic skin on it).

The body-in-white was made of aluminum as was absolutely beautiful!  Such beautiful stampings and castings.

It looked better under the skin than the outside.

I remember thinking how fast this car would be with a small IC engine because of the light body and the slippery aerodynamics.

It would have gotten incredible fuel mileage too.

In the end, the cars were lease only with no option to purchase.

They ended up getting all the cars back to be destroyed.

Jill B., whom I worked with at GM ACC, ended up being the program manager for the EV1 when they were getting them back to be crushed.  They had trouble getting some of the cars back because some of the owners really loved the cars and didn't want to end the lease.

Such a waste of such high quality bodies (all that beautiful stampings and castings)!

Jill's husband, Jeff, was my manager at GM ACC for a few years.  They rotated through GM ACC (3 year assignment, I think) & went back to Warren and retired from GM.

After retirement, GM went bankrupt & messed up their pensions!  Jeff was so angry with GM.

When they came out of bankruptcy with a restructured retirement package for all the retired employees (much reduced), Jeff was so upset that he took the lump-sum payout (much less than what it could have been at the time of his & Jill's retirement) so that he could control the money instead of trusting GM.

Haven't seen or had contact in over 10 years...