this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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We were easy marks.

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[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Your story with GM is... false. It's just false.

People were literally lining up at dealers trying to buy the EV1. Their waitlists overflowed.

GM produced that car because of the California Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate (which yes, existed in the 90s). But they didn't quietly roll over and accept the mandate, they also, in parallel, mounted huge legal and astroturf battles against the law.

Which were successful. The law was killed. And what did GM do with their backstock of vehicles? Did they go down those waitlists and sell off the fleet? No, they packaged them onto car carriers with people literally camped out at dealers to buy them, watching and crushed them.

They had a successful plan to sell profitable EVs that people wanted. It wasn't nearly as profitable as selling ICE vehicles, but they knew the changing regulatory structure in CA would change that and hedged the bets. But also invested heavily in killing that regulatory change, and the moment they did, they intentionally killed the car to stop more consumers from having and liking them.

Wagoner has said the biggest mistake he ever made as [GM] chief executive was killing the EV1, GM's revolutionary electric car, and failing to direct more resources to hybrid gas-electric research.

PS: they joined the 2019 Trump lawsuit to fight new CA emission standards.