The GM EV1 is a significant part of General Motors history and is also considered an important stepping stone for the advancement of electric vehicles. It’s easy to see why someone would want to own a GM EV1, then, but unfortunately, this is one battery-powered vehicle that is completely off-limits.
As many readers of this site will already know, the GM EV1 could only be obtained through a lease agreement and could not actually be purchased. When GM decided to end the program, citing low demand and weak profits, it also began removing the vehicles from the road. The only GM EV1s that were permitted to be left out in the wild went to museums, universities and other educational institutions, though their powertrains were disabled so they could not be used. Only about 40 of the 1,100+ cars were saved, with the rest being sent to the crusher.
The University of Cincinnati was one of these educational institutions that eventually ended up with a GM EV1. The school is now selling its GM EV1, but it’s far from a complete car. In fact, the university is only selling the chassis/shell for the car, with the batteries, motor, suspension components, wiring and most of the interior all having been removed.
It’s not known why this GM EV1 was disassembled in such a way, nor is it clear where its wheels, suspension and various interior trim parts and pieces went. According to the auction listing, hosted by GovDeals, the University of Cincinnati received the car as a shell around 2008 and it has been in storage ever since. It also says there is “no VIN, frame, doors, trunk lid, hood or much of an interior,” although it does come with a piece of the dash “and at least some of the console.” There are also some parts of the wiring harness and the main digital dash display.
We’re not sure what one could do with a GM EV1 shell like this, but we can see why a GM history buff or an electric vehicle enthusiast may want to have it as an interesting conversation piece for their garage or collection. Check out the listing at this link for some additional information and photography of this rather odd auction item.
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Source: GovDeals
Comments
It all depends on what might be compatible with the EV1 and how creative someone might be as you can try transforming this into just about anything your mind can think of, it reminds me of the starting point of a project of the History channel’s Counting Cars program.
The space frame has a real Fiero look to it.
There’s a GM EV1 sitting in a parking deck near Georgia Tech in Atlanta. I live in the city and it’s been there for years. My theory is that it was donated by GM to the school. It looks to be intact but it may have had its powertrain disabled by GM.
The EV1 is another sad GM tale where they spent lavishly to be a pioneer only to bail out later and let Tesla become the darling of the EV world.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/31345/theres-an-ultra-rare-1999-gm-ev1-abandoned-in-an-atlanta-parking-garage
The EV-1 was merely an altered Saturn. Watch the movie Who Killed The Electric Car? I believe even Tom Hanks had one.
EV1’s didn’t share much with Saturns other than they were sold through Saturn dealer in CA and AZ, though they were just had “GM” badges on them.
They did share the spaceframe construction, but so did the Fiero and the bullet train mini vans, the FWD F body was supposed to be, even the 4th gen is 1/2 spaceframe-ish, the whole forward half of the car is plastic.
If you look at this bare EV1 the car it most resembles underneath is a Fiero, I imagine that some of the EV1 came out of the cancelled 2nd gen Fiero and FWD F-body projects.
They couldn’t be sold, only leased…
Take an atta-boy for your pedantry.
Yes, leased, not sold.
The EV1 was just a proof of concept.
They at that time could not be built at a profit and they would be very expensive to fix and supply parts for. Like much of the GM technology it was too much too soon. We saw it with air bags and even the night vision?
The Who killed the electric car was just a movie of a myth. They only tell you part of the story and left out many facts.
The EV1 was the GM version of the Turbine Chrysler of the 60’s.
If these cars were left with the public they all would have died in a very public way and in time showed the short comings of the EV of that era. In other words it would have done more damage than good,