Who Killed the Electric Car Essay Example for Free

Who Killed the Electric Car Essay The electric car introduced in 1996 and was popular in California. The car was quiet small and produced no exhaust; it was a product that was loved by consumers and eco-friendly. This idea of the electric car was not one that was recent in implementing; about 100 years ago there were more electric cars than there were gas cars and they ran really well and quiet. The problem was that after long term use the car would get slower while the gas car was fine as long as there was enough gas in it and they were fast. Over time the air in California is very toxic due to over use of gas cars; 1 out of 4 from the ages of 15-25 have respiratory Issues in Los Angeles; there were 41 stage 1 smog alerts and 19 pounds of Carbon Dioxide was in their atmosphere. Car companies needed a change and wanted to be the first to revolutionize the car industry and introduce the electric car. In 1987 General Motors won the world’s solar race in Australia and started to do research on building a car model for everyday uses. To encourage the advancement in the car industry the state of California passed the Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate in 1990. The mandate states that if dealers want to sell cars in California some of the cars had to produce no exhaust. This was hard to do because the electric cars were so expensive and many people had to lease the cars because they weren’t up for sale. The car was extremely popular to people who were eco-friendly however the car had very little advertisement and supports started to lose interest. In a survey taken 4000 people said they would try the electric car but when those 4000 were called only 50 ended up signing a lease for the car. The electric car wasn’t doing too good in the sales department. Because the demand seemed to be very low for electric cars GM suffered in sales and because the car was so expensive to produce it was hard to keep on the market. Things changed in 2003 when the government joined the Car Industry to improve the environment. Their involvement didn’t stop the car from being taken off the market and in the early 2000s the Mandate was revoked. At this time all electric car users had to return their car or face legal action and this incredible idea was gone. Nobody knew what was happening to their cars and one day on Californian Green it was shown that the EV was being shredded. It turned out that all these cars faced the same fate. Activist found another location where a few EV electric cars were located and they raised 1. 9 million dollars to buy the cars but there attempts were futile, they had been declined by GM losing their electric cars for good. I think that there was a combination of consumers, GM, and the government who killed the electric car. Consumers could have shone more interest in the vehicle by leasing more of the car and even though the car was expensive it was worth the investment in the long run and had people given the EV a change they would have known that. GM was not very big on advertising for the car and they didn’t really enjoy losing money but it seems as if they didn’t even want to support the EV and go the extra mile to promote it. And finally the government, they should be taking control of the car industry and focus more on producing eco-friendly, environmentally safe vehicles just like they take control of economic regulation. They work hard for everything but the environment. The EV the first efficient electric car was not only a work of art but a step into the future and had consumers, GM, and the government took more interest it wouldn’t have died so many years ago.