The General Motors EV1 that survived its withdrawal appears in a car park in Atlanta

Anyone passionate about the motoring world has heard of the legendary GM EV1, above all thanks to a documentary circulating online called ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’. This fully electric model heads the list of the five modern electric cars that have made history, and that is because it became the first modern electric car.

The GM EV1 reached the market in 1996 under the Saturn brand. Three years later, in 1999, its production was halted, and between 2003 and 2004 General Motors decided to withdraw them completely from the market.

“1,117 units were manufactured, of which very few were saved from destruction. Around forty units were handed over to museums and academic institutions on the commitment that they would not be reactivated or driven on public roads. One of them is at the Petersen Museum. It is important to highlight that the units handed over have been rendered inoperable by General Motors itself. Only one fully functional GM EV1 exists, and it is at the Smithsonian Museum”.

As our colleagues at Top10motor have published, “the GM EV1 was only available to users through a leasing system ranging from 250 to 500 dollars a month. It was a two-seat coupé with a very aerodynamic design that offered a range of 113 kilometres in its first version and reached 257 kilometres in its latest generation”.

GM EV1, a unit has been found in Atlanta

The story of the GM EV1 has been told so many times that almost anyone with even the slightest passion for cars or technology knows everything there is to know about it.

The fact that GM gathered all the EV1s and crushed them also made the car a popular topic among conspiracy theorists. According to the official story, the 1,117 leased EV1s were removed from the road and destroyed after the project was declared a failed experiment. However, there may be at least one that escaped the crusher. Last week, Twitter user Jacob Hoyle published three photos of an apparently abandoned GM EV1 in a car park in Atlanta. “Found an EV1 today,” he tweeted casually, as if he were talking about a first-generation Chevrolet Volt or something similar.

We came across the tweet through some sources and it left us with mixed feelings. On the one hand, we were glad that a GM EV1 still exists and appears fairly intact, without flat, rotten rear tyres and the thick layer of dust that has turned it into a message board for teenagers. The front could indicate that the battery and drive unit are missing from the car, hopefully dismantled by the owner to protect them.

https://twitter.com/JacobonScience/status/1202619337724563457

On the other hand, we were disappointed that someone would abandon one of the most important electric cars in automotive history in a public car park where it risks being damaged in an accident. Who does that?

Well, an educational institution in Atlanta does, because this car is said to be one of the 20 GM EV1s that General Motors withdrew from lessees to donate to museums and schools. Those units had their powertrains disabled, and the institutions agreed not to repair their EV1s or drive them on public roads.

This red GM EV1 belongs to an unnamed Atlanta university where the car park is located. We don’t know why they don’t take better care of their prized possession, especially since very few of the donated GM EV1s remain in one piece. Many of them were taken apart by engineering students, with their parts used for experimental projects.

A few still remain in museums and only one is in private hands, owned by the renowned director Francis Ford Coppola, who told actor and car collector Jay Leno that he hid it from GM in 2003 because he loved it too much… Did he convince General Motors? It seems so, wait to see the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=810&v=ljPSA6FBdYk&feature=emb_logo