No electric cars in the last decade have done as much for EVs as the Tesla Model S, with the exception perhaps of General Motors’ EV1 two-seater, which in its day, was highly advanced, and actually I think more futuristic than the highly-praised sedan is by today’s standards.
However, now, GM is poised to strike back, it seems, with a Tesla challenger, though it doesn’t really sound like a rival for the Model S, and we’re guessing it’s actually aimed at the Silicon Valley-based manufacturer’s upcoming cheaper BMW 3-Series-sized offering.
The revelation was made by Doug Parks, GM’s vice president of global product programs, on Monday at GM’s battery test facility in Michigan, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Official said that the model will get a 200-mile (320 km) one-charge autonomy, be fully-electric, and cost around $30,000. It will use current-tech, but GM prefers to wait for prices to drop more and make the project feasible.
The real issue, of course, has to do with the batteries, and specifically their price. This is not news to anybody, but honestly it just seems like a bit of a fabricated claim – Tesla says it uses simpler packaging methods and thus its battery packs cost anywhere from half to a quarter of what the mainstream names have to shell out. And even with the more complex setups, these packs can still suffer catastrophic failures – this so far hasn’t happened with Tesla’s cheaper and slightly more rudimentary approach.
While there are no indications when GM will introduce its new EV, perhaps the Detroit company took notice when Elon Musk said “it didn’t require a miracle” to start selling a 200-mile range EV within the next three to four years, and they’re actually doing it – we’ll go with that for now.
By Andrei Nedelea
Note: Below we have a video of one of the last EV1s being driven around in 2003.
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