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radishhead said: - In the film, "Who Killed the Electric Car", Chris Payne alleges that GM purposely scrapped the Saturn EP1 despite high customer demand. Representatives of GM claimed that there wasn't any money to be made from the vehicle - this makes sense; car companies have to make money to stay in business, but being on the forefront of a new industry could make them $ billions.
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General Motor's EV1 cost GM over $80,000 to manufacture and customers were willing to pay nearly $30,000 for one. As long as GM was willing to lose $50,000 per vehicle, and their dealers were willing to sell the cars with no profit, the EV1 could become a production vehicle.
Much like why the Chevy Volt has had abysmal sales, people are willing to pay (roughly) the same amount for an electric car as they are for a conventional vehicle but the costs associated with an electric car are far higher. While the costs are falling, it will (likely) be another 10 to 20 years before an electric car is inexpensive enough for the average consumer to consider buying one; and only a moron who doesn't understand business or economics would be heavily pushing electric cars at this point in time.
