BrightDrop's dead, the Bolt was loved and killed and brought back and killed again, they keep making questionable decisions with their infotainment and subscription models (no CarPlay, mandatory consumer Google Account and OnStar subscriptions), the best thing they even apparently sell right now has a Honda (re)badge on it...
I do wonder what the outlook for that is now, they were supposed to be a shorter term bridge until Honda had their own EVs but Honda recently killed a bunch of EV plans so maybe the GM partnership sticks around a while?
This is the one that I saw: https://evplay.io/shop/ev-play-lite-gm
It's kind of expensive, and there's a non-zero chance that GM does something to block it.
If GM tries to block it there are a number of ways a lawyer can fight back and likely win. The Magnuson Moss warranty act was historically written about car radios for starters. There are other consumer protection laws as well. You need a good lawyer, but I suspect they will take the case for the expected gains in the return lawsuit. If I were them I'd get a lawyer to write this up in a "white paper" - It would be a few thousand, but it is also something GM will likely see if they think about doing anything.
Android Auto is where you can connect your phone to the car and your phone projects onto the car's display with apps and navigation.
Android Automotive is when the car itself is running Android Automotive for its infotainment OS, meaning it has access to a limited Android App Store to install apps natively into the car's infotainment system and you can sign in with your Google account.
Some cars with Android Automotive also support CarPlay and Android Auto on top of it, but GM has decided to disable those features, meaning you have to use the built-in Android Automotive system to manage your media streaming apps and pay GM for the data access plan.
Those are sweet
Either that or everyone's just too engrossed in their phone to consider their ego at the stoplight anymore. I should have just bought a minivan, cars are over
Nowadays with automatic transmissions and EVs, you just buy something and step on a pedal, that's not much of a sport.
I've dealt with a lot of cheap android devices over the years, and GM did a good job with this one. It kind of sucks knowing that they could flip a switch and turn on AA/CarPlay, though.
I feel I want every car to have native google maps now.
CarPlay does this on my F150 Lightning. It manages state, preconditioning when routing to a charging stop, will suggest charging stops as I'm routing, etc. etc.
There's really nothing special about GM's implementation IMO, except that they charge you monthly to access it.
I'm a huge fan of the Bolt, and I love my 2019. It's a very practical car, and has surprisingly decent range.
https://insideevs.com/news/785214/2027-chevrolet-bolt-limite...
In the past, they would have wanted the motors disabled and the batteries incapacitated (if they weren't already, because half of them were trash), if they couldn't legally scare you into letting them scrap the car.
I kindof feel like there's some ulterior motive, like they want another museum piece for themselves, or sales are really hurting and they want to drum up some good will. Call me skeptical if you must, but they _really_ didn't want these on the road.
And GM could have crushed all of them, but apparently was proud enough of it and not afraid people would ‘discover its secrets’ and build a new EV, since they decided to just park a half dozen or whatever at schools for students to poke and prod at. I get that the optics of crushing them made them look like a villain from the “Captain Planet” cartoon, but it would have been foolish for them to do anything else.
It's eternally fascinating that people can't or won't grasp that the cars cost far more to produce than they could put them to market for, instead deciding that it was a big conspiracy.
It took until ~2015 for batteries to become practical for expensive mass market cars.
I guarantee you that these will increase as European manufacturers feel the pain.
I am not an expert but I believe that US regulations require that manufacturers make a range of vehicle types to sell on the US market. You don't need to sell a lot of, say, compact cars - but you need to offer a compact car in order to sell your cash-cow large trucks.
I use the past tense because the Trump admin has gotten rid of the fines for this regulation so it basically doesn't matter anymore (one of the few good moves it's done). It'll be interesting to see if small cars are able to make a recovery in the US, or if it's too late.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battery_electric_vehic...
Sounds line GM is taking credit for EV industry’s success after they recalled and sent to the crusher the very car model these people are trying to restore.
When the demand is sufficient, the cars will be sold in numbers to match it. Demand will increase as it becomes practical to own an EV for more people. This mainly has to do with charging infrastructure at every level, which is capital intensive for both individuals and governments.
> The EV1 introduced technologies that remain foundational to modern EVs
In this case, they took advantage of the fact the car was abandoned in Georgia and went to impound action, which let them buy it from the State with title, bypassing any potential agreement with GM.
I don't think there's anything nefarious here, they are just cultivating a particular image to try to sell cars. It's a reasonable marketing strategy, as marketing strategies go.
If they end up merely being the third richest generation of humans to ever live, is it really the end of the world? Did we think things would just always get better forever, without some force dragging us upward beyond fulfillment of our own basal desires?
And yes, as someone who races shitboxes as a hobby, they're more like 3k now.
In the end it worked because he put in even more money and was on the right side of history in regards to Lithium-Ion battery evolution.
I would also say that JB Straubel was CTO when they designed the LiIon battery backs and made them safe enough to use.
Tesla is a study in basically doing everything wrong except having the general right idea for the future, Li-battery electric car. Its pretty clear they had no experience with cars or manufacturing.
Interesting… if removing subsidies has caused Ford to write off 20 billion and Honda to announce they took a 15 billion dollar loss mainly on EVs… maybe something is wrong?
I’m in this industry, it’s going to get worse. We’re looking at 2034 vehicles now, and surprise, they’re ICE.
I agree the comment seemed out of place and I’m speculating about why they put it in, but that’s one reason I would do so. Someone who does a Nazi salute on TV with a bizarre smile on his face is not just another business guy.
Lee Iacocca didn’t get those comments.
Yes. These people can literally not fucking help themselves.
I personally see it as a pettiness and weak character that they cannot let ideology drop from the foreground even for a second.
Again, I’m in this industry. There was a marketing push because they saw a way to easily sell new and second cars even to people it doesn’t work for. Marketing pushed so hard that there’s an equal pushback from reality.
Nothing to do with Elon or Trump.
Everybody who thinks that we need heavy-handed mandates and to fully eliminate ICE vehicles is just setting themselves up for disappointment.
Oh, and everyone who couldn't afford an EV complained about the subsidies.
The easiest way to make EVs more attractive is taxing carbon.
The EV1 was a evaluation exercise/hedge against regulation; the impetus was a lunatic assertion in 1990 by the CA gov't: they wanted 10% of cars sold in the state by 2000 to be electric. Nobody outside of Sacramento thought this would be doable, but it was an excuse to do some useful R&D, as well as to demonstrate to lawmakers the difficulties involved.
As for the Prius-the Gen I Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive cost $380 million in 1990s dollars for R&D. Anybody at GM trying to spend that kind of money on an experimental(!) powertrain for a low-volume(!!) economy(!!!) car would've been fired. At Toyota, Shoichiro Toyoda was supportive of such an idea, despite the limited opportunity for near-term profit; and if you have that last name at that company, nobody's gonna fire you.
If you had to defend it to a roomful of the guys who would be writing checks for the program (and who, incidentally, decide what your annual bonus will be...) what would that sound like?
tl;dr You're right :)
The conspiracy about GM killing the EV1 is very hyperbolic and the documentary is mostly a fantasy.
Carmakers releasing test cars to markets and then destroying them was a common practice - GM did the same with their hydrogen cars, the famous turbine engine cars, and even large scale prototypes like the Aerovette. In many cases they were only able to circumvent safety/testing regulation because these were not registerable cars.
Even if the market tests were successful, the only placed they planned to sell them was California as a compliance car for CARB. No matter how you try to spin it, a lead-acid battery powered car was not ever going to be the car of the future.
It's a pretty decent approximation to say that the battery is the only problem for EVs. Everything else is either standard car stuff, or small/cheap/simple enough not to be a major problem. Nearly all of the progress in EVs that we've seen since the EV1 has been down to battery improvements. Take the EV1 and give it a modern battery and it'll be pretty decent. Take any modern EV and give it a 1999 battery and it'll be absolutely awful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_au...
Yet another example of why intellectual property and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
The EV1 wasn't just a "test car". It was a production vehicle which was built (as you said) to comply with the California ZEV mandate, which GM also spent millions lobbying against, and eventually defeating, while they were contracting with an outside engineering firm to design the EV1.
TTBOMK, GM didn't spend millions lobbying against turbine engine and hydrogen fuel cell tech.
It was never a true production car - none of the cars GM leased were registerable because they did not have a finalized production design submitted to safety or (ironically) EPA standards.
Technically GM did lobby against hydrogen fuel cell tech at the same time because the ZEV mandate specifically also included hydrogen as a potential solution. But no one is accusing GM of also killing the hydrogen car just because it made it less far along the development process.
I know it's the real controversial opinion - but nobody was wrong. The experience of CARB more or less proved that a successful EV was not immediately available. But mass hybridization probably resulted in more measurable emissions savings than the original 10% ZEV goal ever would have.
Do you know how many more EVs would be adopted if they weren't marketing iPads-on-wheels to the masses? It's the biggest hindrance to the industry behind lack of charging infra.
Pity that the electric engine in it is gutless. It was designed to have a rotary range extender, but not many of those actually shipped. The actual driving experience is really nice anyway; the flappy-paddles on the wheel control EV regen braking aggressiveness, ranging from a very aggressive Tesla-style single-pedal-driving to full freewheeling; the latter of which most EVs will not do without shifting into "neutral", and definitely opens up far more hypermiling potential.
I look forward to seeing what they do if they ever come out with something a little more, well, Zoom Zoom.
What people need to understand about electric cars is they are heavy. Very heavy. It will never be a roadster, but can be "oh sh*t that was fast!"
I think Volvo does a good job of working with that. Mercedes also. Companies known for lighter handling cars like BMW struggle more, IMO.