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In 1994, I bought my first car (thanks Cass & Ann) and it was a brand new Geo metro. That car had four doors, was green and got about 45 miles to the gallon, yes you heard right, 45 miles to the gallon, and only cost me about 8,000 dollars! I drove everywhere in that little car and it was wonderful! Unfortunately, a couple of years latter, I got in an accident and totaled it. Now that gas is so expensive, I have been thinking a lot about that little car and so I did a little bit of research about it and come to find out they no longer make them or the engines that they put in them. Finding this out really surprised me and made me scratch my head a little bit. Why in the world would they discontinue a car that got such good gas mileage, in fact the Geo Metro got better gas mileage than most Hybrids do and we all know how expensive hybrids are.
So while I am on the subject, I’m not sure that a lot of people know this but about ten years ago, GM developed a car called the EV1. The EV1 was a rechargeable electric coupe that could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than eight seconds. The little car would go 140 miles on a charge, but then the leaser had to plug it in and re-charge it over night. Almost 800 drivers signed up for the EV1, GM refused to sell the cars but leased them to the EV1 faithful. For some reason, GM decided to take all of the electric cars back when the leases expired and they crushed them! Every single one of them! Now why would they do something like that when every single one of the people who had leased the vehicles absolutely loved them and were completely willing to buy them? Did GM think that there wasn’t a market for them or was there an even bigger reason for them to want to get rid of them? Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Sounds like there is a lot more money to be made on the remainder of our fossil fuels and the people who own oil don’t want us to stop being dependant on it. What’s up with that?
So while I am on the subject, I’m not sure that a lot of people know this but about ten years ago, GM developed a car called the EV1. The EV1 was a rechargeable electric coupe that could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than eight seconds. The little car would go 140 miles on a charge, but then the leaser had to plug it in and re-charge it over night. Almost 800 drivers signed up for the EV1, GM refused to sell the cars but leased them to the EV1 faithful. For some reason, GM decided to take all of the electric cars back when the leases expired and they crushed them! Every single one of them! Now why would they do something like that when every single one of the people who had leased the vehicles absolutely loved them and were completely willing to buy them? Did GM think that there wasn’t a market for them or was there an even bigger reason for them to want to get rid of them? Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Sounds like there is a lot more money to be made on the remainder of our fossil fuels and the people who own oil don’t want us to stop being dependant on it. What’s up with that?
1 comments:
It's been a while since the original post, however... You are not the only one to notice this and there have been designs and plans that never left the "drawing board" because they would be bad for the oil market. In 1974 there was a young engineer that designed a car that would get 100Mpg and have a top speed of about 75Mph. The company that employed him took his designs and destroyed them and payed off the engineer 5M and had him sign a contract that stated he was never to design anything for any company again. He retired young though now he would be in his 70s...
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