EV1

The EV1 was the first electric car produced by General Motors in the United States. It was leased (but never sold) and serviced by Saturn but bore the "General Motors" badge - the only vehicle in the history of the company to bear that marque! They were only available in California and Arizona and could only be serviced at designated Saturn dealers. Only a few thousand cars were produced - a first generation using lead-acid battery batteries in 1996 (as model year 1997) and a second generation batch with nickel metal hydride batteries in 1999. As cars came off lease they were refurbished and upgraded to second generation. The program was stopped in 2003 and the cars were destroyed.

The cars got 55 to 95 miles (90 to 150 km) per charge on lead-acid batteries and 75 to 130 miles (120 to 210 km) on a charge with nickel-metal hydride batteries. Recharging took as much as eight hours for a full charge. The battery pack consisted of 26 12-volt lead-acid batteries holding 67.3 MJ of energy or 26 13.2-volt nickel-metal hydride batteries which held 95 MJ of energy.

A modified EV1 prototype set a land speed record for electric vehicles going 183 mph (295 km/h) in 1994.

The price for the car used to compute lease payments was $33,995 to $43,995, which made for lease payments of $299 to over $574 per month. Price also depended on available state refunds. The cost for the electricity used to power the car was computed to be 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of the equivalent amount of gasoline.