Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

theautopian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 97 posts

Re: The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

#31

Post by potato3732842 »

trollbridge wrote: post #25
potato3732842 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mechanic/storage lien is simply a way to get title without the cooperation of whoever the last guy in the database as having title is. It doesn't solve stupid government rules. What's legal per the law is a tiny fraction of what you can put on a DMV form and have the form get past the clerk and process properly which itself is a tiny fraction of what the cops will go after.

This is what we do when buying a property that has ancient junk vehicles on it - sometimes without even a VIN intact. The purpose of a title is so that you can scrap them and get them off your property.

Going through the hassle of getting a title for stuff you'll scrap is, ugh, an ill advised use of time unless your goal is to tell everyone at the cocktail party how law abiding you are or the vehicles are interesting enough for the title to have baseline value or something like that.

Scrapyards will take fractions of cars without asking questions. People who part out cars or deal in scrap metal know this and will take anything off your hands for free as long as the work vs what they're getting pencils out.

Re: The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

#34

Post by ZeroGravitas »

api wrote: post #29

The EV1 was way, way ahead of its time, and was more or less outright killed for various reasons including car makers having deep sunk cost in ICE engine tech. The battery tech back then was vastly inferior to today but it was still good enough for a shorter-range economy EV that could have replaced a gas for a lot of daily commuter drives, especially for two-car families. For reference: the first generation Nissan L…

Why did you name check Musk and not the actual founders of Tesla, Eberhard and Tarpenning, that took advantage of their experience with lithium batteries and the forward-thinking Californian regulatory regime to found their company there to build an electric sports car?

Re: The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

#35

Post by infecto »

robin_reala wrote: post #22
infecto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of those 30k was mass produced? The model t was seen as the first mass produced vehicle. I think when it obtained that classification it was producing around 200k annually.

EV1 had 1,117 units produced according to Wiki, so I guess any model of those 30k with more than that would count. Edit: apparently Columbia built 1,937 electric cars in 1904 alone according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_(automobile_brand).

The answer is probably more in the middle in that mass produced places more emphasis on the standardization. I imagine those Columbia cars were not build on an assembly line.

Re: The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

#36

Post by leobg »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #34
api wrote: post #29

The EV1 was way, way ahead of its time, and was more or less outright killed for various reasons including car makers having deep sunk cost in ICE engine tech. The battery tech back then was vastly inferior to today but it was still good enough for a shorter-range economy EV that could have replaced a gas for a lot of daily commuter drives, especially for two-car families. For reference: the first generation Nissan L…

Why did you name check Musk and not the actual founders of Tesla, Eberhard and Tarpenning, that took advantage of their experience with lithium batteries and the forward-thinking Californian regulatory regime to found their company there to build an electric sports car?

How about “volume production” as a reason?

Re: The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

#37

Post by ZeroGravitas »

leobg wrote: post #36
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you name check Musk and not the actual founders of Tesla, Eberhard and Tarpenning, that took advantage of their experience with lithium batteries and the forward-thinking Californian regulatory regime to found their company there to build an electric sports car?

How about “volume production” as a reason?

Still Californian government providing orders of magnitude more cash for that to happen than Musk ever did.

Is there some technical contribution by Musk I'm unaware of?

Re: The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

#38

Post by bluGill »

trollbridge wrote: post #24
throwup238 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, having a title of ownership is not the same as registering as a street legal vehicle. BYD cars don’t meet DOT Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards which is a deal breaker, regardless of which state you’re in. Even if you could get it registered, insurance would be impossible.

My state lets you register hand built and other oddball vehicles - basically, if you can get it past customs, you can register it. The out of state inspection for a title transfer is to check the VIN. Insurance would need to be from a specialty provider who do insure oddball vehicles. Someone I know (in CA no less) insured his homemade electric motorcycle this way. (It’s titled as the chassis of the BMW regular motor…

You have to show you built it though. A stock BYD would probably not count, I'm not sure how much change you would need though to get it to count as homemade.

Re: The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

#39

Post by bluGill »

potato3732842 wrote: post #31
trollbridge wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what we do when buying a property that has ancient junk vehicles on it - sometimes without even a VIN intact. The purpose of a title is so that you can scrap them and get them off your property.

Going through the hassle of getting a title for stuff you'll scrap is, ugh, an ill advised use of time unless your goal is to tell everyone at the cocktail party how law abiding you are or the vehicles are interesting enough for the title to have baseline value or something like that. Scrapyards will take fractions of cars without asking questions. People who part out cars or deal in scrap metal know this and will ta…

Scrapyards are also places the police investigate as money laundering for crime. They will take untitled things, but only if they think it wasn't stolen. Start bringing in too much scrap vehicle parts and they will start demanding paperwork - one or two parts "everyone" has so no not worth it but if it gets to be a bunch they start suspecting crime and then demand paperwork.

Re: The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold

#40

Post by bluGill »

nubinetwork wrote: post #7
Theodores wrote: post #5

What are the obstacles to making GM EV1 replicas, albeit with modern batteries? The design still has merit and would undoubtedly be long range with the lead acid batteries swapped out for something new. You can get businesses making replicas in small numbers, for example, I am sure you could get a Lancia Stratos, however, would GM have a big copyright ban on such a venture?

I doubt insurance would allow you to register an old Saturn that was converted into an ev1.

Why not? The only issue is if that Saturn was scrapped - once a car is scrapped there is no legal way to get it titled. (but you can still call it home built with parts from the scrapped car - it just needs a new VIN).
Post reply on HN