What Was The Most Begrudgingly Manufactured Electric Car?

The 2020s have seen the momentum for electric vehicles, and by extension their batteries and the raw materials used to make them, skyrocket as a supply of high-quality models at affordable prices has finally started to hit the market.

This may be helped by an additional range of grants and initiatives that provide greater incentives for customers to buy into the EV revolution and save potentially thousands of pounds a year in running costs.

Whilst most manufacturers have seized the opportunity to grasp a piece of the future, and others are racing to catch up, some have historically been rather more reluctant to invest until it reached the point where they no longer had a choice.

This has shown in vehicles that have seemingly been constructed under duress and suffered from either a lack of ambition, a lack of sales or both. Here are some of the most egregious examples from major manufacturers.

GM EV1

Possibly the most famous example of a car designed, manufactured and distributed so much against the desires of the company that made it that it has become the subject of films and conspiracy theories alike, the GM EV1 was accidentally too far ahead of its time and thus too good to last.

Originally designed as a concept car known as the GM Impact in 1990, the California Air Resources Board were so impressed by its range of technical advances that it decided to implement a mandate that the seven biggest car makers in the USA must produce a car with zero emissions by the year 1998.

Toyota, Nissan and Honda would do their best to create EVs around this time, producing the original RAV4 EV, Altra EV and EV Plus, respectively, being made available on lease in incredibly limited quantities in 1998, but the EV1 was seen to be the most ambitious and the one seemingly most designed to fail.

GM did not want to produce EVs and lobbied strongly for the ZEV mandate to be removed. When that did not initially work, they only made the EV1 on a lease with no option to buy, hoping that it would quietly fail and they could produce petrol-powered cars instead.

When the leaseholders evangelised about the car with a level of zeal described as “wonderfully maniacal”, the car was discontinued in 1999 and recalled entirely in 2002. Ironically, mere months after this announcement, the infamous petrol-guzzling Hummer H2 was released by the company. 

Fiat 500e (First Generation)

Since 2020, Fiat have taken their electric version of the stylish retro-styled 500 model fairly seriously, and in 2022, it was Italy’s best-selling electric car.

However, a decade before that, another Fiat 500e was sold over 5,000 miles away from its plant in Turin, only made available in the states of California and Oregon.

Why was this? Following the failure of the ZEV mandate in the 1990s, the CARB changed tactics, eventually settling on a rule that dealers who wished to sell petrol or diesel cars in California needed to produce an electric model.

This led to the minimally viable original 500e, which had a range of around 80 miles, as Fiat made little effort to design a battery pack or redesign the car with battery power in mind.

It was very poorly received from 2012 to 2019, but as Fiat’s management embraced electric cars, the 500e improved significantly, highlighting the difference motivation can make in manufacturing.

Ford Focus Electric

Despite being a pioneer of petrol-powered cars, Ford has had a somewhat chequered history when it comes to committing to EVs. This only seemed to change with the unusual muscle car/crossover SUV Ford Mustang Mach-E.

Before that, there was the Ford Ranger EV pick-up truck in 1998, the bizarre collaboration with Norwegian company Think that would end when the CARB mandate was cancelled, and the somewhat infamous Ford Focus Electric.

Whilst other early EVs such as the Nissan Leaf were designed to be EVs and maximise the efficiency, speed and range possible with early batteries, the Focus Electric was made on the same production lines as the petrol version.

This should have theoretically made it cheaper to make and cheaper to buy, but in reality, it meant that the vehicle could only fit a small battery, had low range, relatively low power and poor practicality.  

Ford paid so little attention to adequately modifying the design that most of the boot space was taken up by the battery itself, and it cost so much that very few were sold worldwide.