TTAC - honest assessment of the EV1 (stillborn)

The reviewer had a Fiat 500e for a week (and liked it). He then went-on to explain why the Fiat is a successful electric car, while the EV1 was not:

- "Ugly cars don’t sell well."
- "Two-seaters don’t fly off showroom floors."
- "Toss in shopping cart-like handling when the market clamored for go-kart manners, limited range, ginormous/expensive home charging stations, and lead-acid batteries that have a limited lifetime..... Lease payments were steeper than a Cadillac, and gasoline cost $0.99 a gallon."

"What does that have to do with my week in the Fiat 500e? I’m amazed how far we’ve come in just 16 years. Battery technology has improved by leaps and bounds thanks to the boom of portable widgets in the last 10 years. Batteries aren’t just more energy dense, they are more durable, safer and have faster charge/discharge rates. These improvements allow EVs to be made that don’t weigh substantially more than a regular car, can handle like a regular car, look like a regular car and drive like a regular car.............." Living With an EV for a Week – Day Seven (EV death and resurrection) | The Truth About Cars