An Electric Car, Booted

The car evolved from the Impact concept car developed by Paul MacCready's AeroVironment team. Every one of its 2,000 parts was unique. The engine whirred, rather than roared, but spewed no emissions; there was no gear-shifting; and drivers talk of the car's torque with awe.

The first wave of cars, including the Smithsonian's, could travel 52 miles on a charge of four to six hours; the second-generation cars used a nickel metal hydride battery, which increased the range to about 125 miles. Cars were leased, rather than sold, by Saturn dealers, with monthly costs from $350 to more than $500.

The film presents the EV1 as an answer to global warming, pollution, unrest in the Middle East and rising gasoline prices.

Instead, California changed its emissions laws and automakers could again pursue nonelectric technology. GM, which had spent more than $1 billion on the EV1, says it halted production of the vehicle because there were only 800 paying customers.

Electric-car activists contend that GM ignored a waiting list of 5,000 because achieving success with the EV1 threatened to make the rest of GM's cars look bad.

Phil Karn, a vice president for technology at Qualcomm in San Diego, drove the Smithsonian's car for two years. He leased a second one, commuting 11 miles each way to work without recharging issues. When the car was reclaimed, he says, it felt like losing a family pet.

"It made no sense to us," he said by phone. "The only way we can figure is, they built this car to fail . . . or the anti-EV1 faction inside GM won."

What bothers Karn the most is the idea that a bold new chapter in autos ended so abruptly. "We thought it was the beginning of something new," Karn said. "It may not have been the perfect car, but it looked like the beginning of something new."

GM's Barthmuss compares the launch of the EV1 with the debut of the iPod, only with far fewer customers. "We, in our heart of hearts, believe we did the right thing," he says. "The EV1 experience demonstrated to California regulators that battery technology was not going to advance further. It was only going to appeal to a small number of people."

GM needs "extremely large numbers" to survive, Barthmuss added.

"We lost well over a billion dollars," he said. "We simply could not afford to lose that kind of money. I very much regret that people are so angry."

The Smithsonian has no plans to bring the EV1 back on view. When the museum reopens in 2008, one of the most innovative commuter cars ever will be resting in peace in a Suitland storage facility.

By the end of the month, the museum hopes to display a robot-driven off-road vehicle, named Stanley, that won the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's $2 million race in the Nevada desert in October. The winner is a smart-wired Volkswagen Touareg.

In the museum, as in life, the EV1 is being displaced by a souped-up SUV.

"When you look around and wonder why are we in this mess these days, depending on highways, depending on oil, who's the guilty party," said curator Bill Withuhn, the museum's EV1 expert, "look in the mirror. It's me, it's you."