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| Car That Could:, The: The Inside Story of GM's Revolutionary Electric Vehicle | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Shnayerson
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
Buy New: $27.10
Buy New from $99.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  (12 reviews)
Sales Rank: 440995
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 295
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 067942105X
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.2293
EAN: 9780679421054
ASIN: 067942105X
Publication Date: August 27, 1996
Release Date: August 27, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Unprecedented secrecy surrounded the early development of General Motors's Impact. Shnayerson watched the story unfold from a position of access never granted a reporter before--literally from the inside of the pace-setting GM Impact program. This is the first book to penetrate the silence surrounding GM's risky and successful decision to become the world's first mass producer of the electric car.
Amazon.com Review
The story of General Motors' first mass-produced electric car, the EV1 (at first, unfortunately, named the Impact). This project was decades in gestation, the early dreams of pollution and noise-free vehicles taking a long time to progress beyond visionary prototypes. This was partly because of opposition to the concept from oil companies and the automotive industry. Eventually a combination of government prodding and technological advances in battery design made it possible. Schnayerson describes the supportive role of GM chairman Robert Stempel and the tenacity of a group of true-believing engineers who kept the idea alive after Stempel was ousted.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
The Sunraycer January 18, 2008
The dream of the electrical vehicle was first inspired by the success of the sunraycer, a vehicle capable of 41 mph and able to traverse the US on five gallons of gas. EV technology faced two signicant barriers: the DC to AC inverter and the 100,000 mile battery life. AC motors were lighter and but the electricity had to be chopped or inverted. Alan Cocconi had built a inverter for his SunRaycer and also designed and built regenerative braking. At Aerovironment, Brooks used the Sunraycer power design and built an EV with a more power inverter and AC motors and battery pack. Cocconi built two inverters which each powered a 50 kilowatt motor.
The GM impact prototype solved both of these problems. Alec Brooks was assigned to study Paul MacCready in the offices of AeroVironment and his efficient motors. MacCready had built an Electric Vehicle prototype for GM - with its streaming lines; the initial idea was too make the rear wheel base shorter than the front creating a tapering effect. The car was to be built from aluminum rather than steel. The Impact had a fiber glass body.
It was Baker's job to bring the EV car to market. Baker reluctantly took the task, a task he dreaded because of early failure with the electrovette.
Lead Acid batteries were a problem, but they were cheap and they worked. Lead acid batteries needed water replenishment; engineers tried to devise methods and these batteries could not be 100% discharged and recharged for a 1,000 cycles. Heat and cold affect the electrical output of the battery. The batteries weighted about 900 pounds. Nickle Metal Hydrid was proven but not used immediately; Baker didn't want any delays; Baker needed to get the EV quality to production status: heater, air conditioner, radio, and suspension system.
The impact could accelerate from 0-60 seconds in 7.9 seconds reaching a speed of 75 mph; it could travel 124 miles at 55 mph and in city reach 300 mile range.
Great book, but the story ends prematurely November 4, 2007
This is a great book. The author follows the tangled story of how GM developed the first production electric car... but he went to press just a year or two before GM sent it to the crusher. See the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? for the sad end to this story.
For contrast, google for the on-line copy of "The Prius That Shook the World". While Schnayerson was following GM he was totally unaware of the development of the Toyota Prius. Like Shnayerson's book, the Prius book takes the development of a new car from a clean sheet of paper to production. From reading both, Toyota seems to have much longer term plans and much less in-fighting. GM changed it's mind with every new CEO.
By coincidence, neither book has a single photo in it (aside from the cover) and lots of personalities. But from 2007 looking back the Prius story has a much happier ending.
The real story of GM's EV1 (as opposed to the film Who Killed The Electric Car?) November 28, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
The book "The Car That Could" tells the story of GM's EV1 much better than the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?". The book tells the story of the EV1's birth. That is of course a more hopeful story than the EV1's death, which the film covers. And that fact alone makes a big difference in the impact of the story that is told.
But there is another difference. "The Car That Could" tells the inside story of how the EV1 came to be. People within GM make a huge effort to give birth to the car. This was no sham attempt to live up to the California Air Resources Board mandate to put electric cars on the road. GM clearly had its technical and marketing people do their best work. And they did build a great little car, a car that could.
As we know now, though, GM's EV1 did not live very long. The passion of those who put their money down to lease the cars could not make up for the fact that they were few in number. When the California Air Resources Board's mandate went away, that spelled doom for the EV1.
No new EV1s were made. Those that had been made were crushed. A sad end for the car that could.
But though the film "Who Killed the Electric Car" implies that GM killed the EV1, the reasons for its death were more complex than that. And the real story of its death has not, I think, been told. Certainly not as well, and with so much insight, as the story of its birth.
But the story of the electric car has not ended. And there may be some hope for a happy ending. Recently GM's CEO Rick Wagoner has said that he regrets the decision to kill the EV1. And GM promises to come out soon with a new series hybrid electric car. That may put GM back into competition with Toyota and Honda, and their parallel hybrid cars. If so, maybe we will see another, more successful version of a GM car that could.
Michael Shnayerson did a great job researching and writing about the birth of the EV1. Many of the insights written into the book will help those thinking about electric cars today.
So in my mind, "The Car That Could" should be required reading for anyone who wants to participate in the electric vehicle industry. Copies are hard to find now. But if you are interested in electric cars, find a copy and read it. "The Car That Could" makes the must-read list; "Who Killed the Electric Car?" does not.
Did GM really want to build an electric car? Here's your answer. September 18, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating inside story about the development of electric cars in the early '90s.
GM unveiled a prototype electric car in 1990 and conveyed the message to California (and other states) that they could develop such a vehicle for consumer use. California shortly thereafter adopted standards requiring the top 7 car manufacturers to sell emission free vehicles totalling 2% of sales in 1998, increasing to 5% in 2001, then 10% in 2003.
GM proceeded to lose enormous sums of money in the early 1990s. But they still worked to develop the electric car for two reasons. One was to be able to meet the California standards. The other was hoping they would be ahead of the curve and make money on the new technology.
But many technical issues needed to be resolved to bring the car to market, the biggest being batteries. Developing batteries capable of providing adequate storage capacity for a reasonable amount of driving was (and remains) a monumental problem.
At the same time GM was developing a marketable electric car, they (along with Ford, Chrysler, and Big Oil) lobbied hard to eliminate the emission free mandates, claiming the technology and consumer demand wasn't there. What did GM want to happen? It seems that they didn't really know, in part because they were bleeding money.
California blinked in the 4th quarter of 1995 and eliminated the mandate. Then, in January 1996 GM unveiled the EV1, a 2 seat electric sports car.
For a follow-up on the "success" of the EV1 and other EVs, I recommend the movie "Who killed the Electric Car?". Disturbing.
The Story Behind the Most Successful Modern Electric Car September 17, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Shnayerson tells the story up to when the GM Impact was introduced. The film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" got me interested in electric cars. The GM Impact (EV1) was the most successful modern electric car, but it disappeared into the crushers shortly after its introduction.
His story is that of a dedicated crew inside GM working against budget cuts and management changes to make the car. It is a good read.
A shortcoming is that there are so many major characters-- A new one on each page in some chapters. One is Ken Baker, who runs through the whole narrative, as do Roger Smith (yes, that Roger) and Robert Stempel, one a former GM Chairman.
Another major character doesn't appear until chapter 20: Stan Ovshinsky. The 12 pages describe his career and the Ovonic 12-volt NiMH battery, and the test on the track at Mesa, Arizona, where his batteries powered the test Impact EV 201 miles on a single charge.
All of these 100+ GM execs and engineers were heart-and-soul dedicated to making the EV succeed. One cannot read this book and feel that GM was against the electric car. Shnayerson is an outsider, and was in no way a mouthpiece for GM or an industry apologist. When he tells of GM execs moving their families to Lansing or to Troy so they can work more on the Impact, you get a strong feeling that GM wanted this car to happen. GM sunk a few billion dollars in it.
I could have done with fewer pages of office drama and a new character on every other page, all of whom "exuded midwestern charm," and less about whether so-and-so was "on the fast track to a senior vice-presidency."
I would have preferred line drawings of new assemblies, for example, regenerative brakes-- a first by GM. I wanted more technical details! Cut a couple dozen pages of drama and give us line drawings! For example, in one of the few technical discussions; Setting a standard for EV chargers, page 223, after 3 years and $10 million, GM accepted Hughes's inductive 220 volt charger. Ford stayed with the basic prong-and-socket conductive charger. I wanted a line drawing of each, a photo of each, a short description of each.
Shnayerson gives an objective account of politics, noting the reelection of California Governor Pete Wilson in 1994, and Republicans unseating Democrat governors, and Republicans making huge gains in Congress in Nov 1994-- as a factor in reducing the auto industry's motivation to push the EV. That political revolution is missing in explaining the death of the EV in California in "Who Killed the Electric Car?" where the government villians are made out to be Bush, Cheney, and Rice. Shnayerson suggests that a Republican sweep in 1994 may have been the bigger factor, with a repudiation of 25 years of environmental legislation.
We humans may be incapable of analyzing economic factors, but we always emphasize political factors. This mental shortcoming has to do with the Availability Bias, from cognitive psychology: We overestimate factors easy to imagine or remember (like political figures we don't like) and ignore factors difficult to imagine or remember (like anything to do with economics). So when GM cuts funding in 1992 for the Impact, everyone, like director Chris Paine of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" screams out that there is a giant conspiracy by bad guys in Oil, but few recognize that when a company has a loss of a billion dollars, they need to cut back somewhere.
Shnayerson spends only a few pages on Japanese electric cars: All four major Japanese carmakers had cars to show at the Anaheim California December 1994-- EV Symposium 12. Mazda had an EV Miata. In France, residents were paying for the privilege of test driving 50 Peugeot-Citroen ZX and 105 model prototypes. If Big Oil, Autos, and the U.S. Gov killed the GM EV, who killed the French and Japanese EVs? Which brings up the Big Red Cars in Southern California.
Did Standard Oil and GM and B. F. Goodrich destroy Henry Huntington's Pacific Electric, the world's best electric car system, with its more than 1000 miles of standard gauge track? Or rather than a giant conspiracy, is the fault in the hands of my mother and father and thousands like them who destroyed the Pacific Electric-- they purchased a shiny new 1949 Nash, instead of spending that money on tickets to ride the Red Cars. We blame the "greedy" oil companies, but we don't think about tens of thousands of Southern Californians ready to buy that status symbol, their own auto, after years of rationing during and after World War II.
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