GM killed the Electric Car? DON'T BLAME GM, Toyota exec says

[nadepalma]

I thought this was REALLY interesting...At the point that you have your biggest competitor in the industry siding with you and making points on your behalf, you kinda have to wonder why others don't see the "biasness" out there. Even Carlos Goshn -- years before he had designs on GM -- said that our media/press-types are overly critical of US automakers. It's something else, but this just blew me away.

SOURCE: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...612200410/1014

MARK PHELAN: Electric car killer?
Don't blame GM, Toyota exec says
December 20, 2006
BY MARK PHELAN


"Who Killed the Electric Car?" caused a furor when it was released this year. The movie hammers away at GM and its EV1 electric car.

GM got a raw deal.

It's the kind of thing you hear over dinner every week in Detroit, but it comes as a surprise when a top executive with Toyota leans across the table to make the point.

"The movie 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' was terribly one-sided," Ernest Bastien, Toyota Motor Sales vice president for vehicle operations, said intensely. "It was not balanced at all."

We were talking in Charlotte, N.C., a couple of weeks ago. I was there to drive Toyota's new 2007 Tundra pickup, and the change in topic was completely unexpected.

If it's not surprising enough to hear Toyota defending GM, try this on for size: The film's director pretty much agrees.

"We let Toyota off the hook for how they subverted the program" to sell electric cars because GM had a higher profile, director Chris Paine told me over the phone Sunday.

The automakers, of course, don't think they subverted anything.

GM's Saturn EV1 electric car and Toyota's RAV4-EV electric SUV failed for the same reason -- customers didn't want them -- said Bastien, who was point man for Toyota's short-lived effort to sell the RAV4-EV in California.

GM delivered about 800 EV1s to customers from 1996 through 2000, while Toyota delivered 342 RAV4-EVs in 2002-03.

The film, which suggested GM sabotaged a promising technology that could reduce fuel consumption and pollution, caused a furor when it was released earlier this year.

The movie also intentionally ignored Toyota's experience to make its case, Bastien said.

"We shared all our experience with the RAV4-EV," but the filmmakers intentionally omitted it, he said.

He said the movie's suggestion that GM "chose not to make money on a car people wanted to buy in California" is ridiculous.

"They spent a huge amount of money advertising that car in California," Bastien said. "People wouldn't buy them."

Toyota did everything it could to attract buyers to the RAV4-EV, too. It subsidized the price, so customers paid $279 a month -- the same price as the company's hit Prius hybrid. The price included an expensive home charging station.

Toyota used the same savvy Internet-intensive marketing model that fueled the Prius craze. It even gave its dealers a sweetheart deal so they could make twice as much selling a RAV4-EV as a Prius.

To no avail. Toyota sold about 300 RAV4-EVs in 2002, compared with 20,119 Priuses. Buyers waited in line for the hybrid. They avoided the electric car like it was a downed power line and Toyota, like GM, pulled the plug on the project.

"Customers are not willing to compromise on things they need," Bastien said. "They need cruising range. They don't want to worry about running out of fuel, and they don't want to wait five hours to recharge. The movie didn't give any consideration to that fact."

Filmmaker Paine bought a RAV4-EV, but he's not buying Toyota's explanation.

"I don't agree that they made a good-faith effort to sell the car," he said. "Their priority was the Prius. The EV1 and RAV4-EV were never properly marketed.

"Toyota was no better than GM."

Which brings us back to the original question: Why was the movie so much harder on GM?

It made a better target.

"GM handled it so poorly," Paine said.

His crew filmed protesters outside Toyota's offices, but the company's security guards came out and gave them bottled water and Toyota key chains.

GM, Paine said, turned the water sprinklers on protesters. GM insists they were timed sprinklers, and the protesters just happened to be there at the wrong moment.

Whatever the case, the GM footage was more dramatic, entertaining video. It made it into the movie. Toyota wound up on the cutting-room floor."I don't want to say that we picked on GM," Paine said. "The EV1 was the iconic electric vehicle. That's why we focused on GM."

Let me translate that: GM ended up in the crosshairs because it invested the most time and effort into its electric vehicle. The futuristic EV1 was designed from the start to be a revolution. It was the poster child for electric vehicles. The sedate RAV4-EV looked like just another small SUV.


MORE HERE

[Xeper]

Id liek to get a hold of that movie and just burn it.

[mbukukanyau]

GM is American. That is the whole point.
America=Bad

[ByTheLake]

GM, Paine said, turned the water sprinklers on protesters. GM insists they were timed sprinklers, and the protesters just happened to be there at the wrong moment.

This is hilarious! If I were GM, I'd have sprinkled them too. People protesting for a specific type of vehicle without understanding how the marketplace works NEED TO GET A LIFE ... or a job.

[mbukukanyau]

Originally Posted by ByTheLake

This is hilarious! If I were GM, I'd have sprinkled them too. People protesting for a specific type of vehicle without understanding how the marketplace works NEED TO GET A LIFE ... or a job.

Trust fund babies need no jobs

[jwrebholz]

If they had wanted the vehicle so badly they should have bought one.

[ByTheLake]

Originally Posted by jwrebholz

If they had wanted the vehicle so badly they should have bought one.

Well stated. Seems they didn't want one for themselves ... they wanted OTHERS to buy them.

[nadepalma]

Originally Posted by jwrebholz

If they had wanted the vehicle so badly they should have bought one.

Originally Posted by ByTheLake

Well stated. Seems they didn't want one for themselves ... they wanted OTHERS to buy them.

Well in their defense, I think GM didn't allow folks to actually purchase these vehicles. They were "leased" for long periods of time and then had to be returned to GM per their lease agreements.

At the point GM decided to crush them, but a lot of folks who had them were pretty well off and actually offered GM hundreds of thousands of dollars (and one person -- Bill Mahr I think -- offered over a million) to purchase them from GM. But GM refused to do so and the conspiracies started to spread. (Side note: Some other companies who sell higher end cars do this as well. A friend of mine was working at a Ferrari dealership for awhile and some Ferraris that are limited or "new" to the market have these kinds of "lease" agreements where the car is leased for a few years and then Ferrari can decide to sell you the car after the fact. Some of the limited-production cars like the F40 and F50 were "sold" like this -- just making a point).

Don't get me wrong, I agree with the article (obviously) and think this guy Paine is a real pain in the rear-end, but I don't think GM gave folks this kind of option. Nevertheless, if GM gave folks that option or not, it doesn't give the folks who put this documentary together the justification to smear GM without having the same revisited on them.

[rsbaker]

Originally Posted by jwrebholz

If they had wanted the vehicle so badly they should have bought one.

Exactly!

[mbukukanyau]

Originally Posted by nadepalma

Well in their defense, I think GM didn't allow folks to actually purchase these vehicles. They were "leased" for long periods of time and then had to be returned to GM per their lease agreements.

At the point GM decided to crush them, but a lot of folks who had them were pretty well off and actually offered GM hundreds of thousands of dollars (and one person -- Bill Mahr I think -- offered over a million) to purchase them from GM. But GM refused to do so and the conspiracies started to spread.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with the article (obviously) and think this guy Paine is a real pain in the rear-end, but I don't think GM gave folks this kind of option.

Perhaps there was good reason for GM to take the vehicles back. I know in the corporate world, you can never be too careful about some of these things.

[MelvinJ]

"They avoided the electric car like it was a downed power line"

Great quote.

[nadepalma]

Originally Posted by mbukukanyau

Perhaps there was good reason for GM to take the vehicles back. I know in the corporate world, you can never be too careful about some of these things.

Yeah, it's true, I'm wondering how much of it had to do with the proprietary concerns? You can buy any car and reverse engineer it to an extent -- all companies do this to some degree. But these are contemporary vehicles that you can sources parts from all over. Compare that with something that is cutting edge or proprietary like the system set up for the EV1 and you start to wonder if GM was worried folks would copy their plans outright or just make small modificiations and sell them?

Just thinking out loud of course.

[HoosierRon]

Let us review:

1. GM is a money-hungry evil company that is only interested in earning the almighty dollar.

2. GM spent millions of dollars to develop an electric car.

3. Consumers wanted to buy GM's product.

4. GM, being in the business of selling cars, decided after spending millions of dollars to develop an electric car, that it had better things to do than make and sell cars that people wanted.

5. Any high school physics student can make an electric car based on lead acid batteries.

6. The whole world continues to demand electric vehicles.

7. Although venture capitalists funded the patently stupid .com boom, not a single venture capitalist will fund a company to make a product that is technologically feasible and is in high demand.

Well... that seems like a reasonable premise for a film.

[Xeper]

GM not selling the vehicles.. I think it had alot to do with the fact that if anything happens to those vehicles or the owners.. it would come back to GM, and hard. For insurance reasons... for the companys protections in a case like this. Thats why many concept vehicles are sometimes crushed, because most simply cant be sold to the public.

Then again, I could be dead wrong.

Originally Posted by HoosierRon

6. The whole world continues to demand electric vehicles.

Thats abit over the top. Im not demanding an electric car.

[nadepalma]

Originally Posted by Xeper

GM not selling the vehicles.. I think it had alot to do with the fact that if anything happens to those vehicles or the owners.. it would come back to GM, and hard. For insurance reasons... for the companys protections in a case like this. Thats why many concept vehicles are sometimes crushed, because most simply cant be sold to the public.

Then again, I could be dead wrong.




Thats abit over the top. Im not demanding an electric car.

That's possible as well.