GoFaster
Moderator at Large
High-performance lithium batteries of a scale sufficient to power a vehicle did not exist back then. It's only now that lithium batteries have been developed to a point where they can be used to power a motor vehicle in a manner competitive with combustion engines in some applications.The EV1 and RAV4 should have been followed by other EV models. GM cost us >10 years of EV development.
People will only buy new technology when it is demonstrably better than the old technology in their own day-to-day lives. Short-range electric cars did not sell back in the 1990s, and they still don't sell today.
Following up the EV1 at the time would have simply continued the commercial disaster that the EV1 already was, and that would have been a mistake.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/...ack-up-against-the-current-crop-of-electrics/ (note; article was from 2013 ... and even this was near the beginning of lithium-based batteries for vehicle propulsion).
I am not convinced even today that there is enough supply of the various not-exactly-common materials that EVs need in fairly large quantities, in order for lithium-battery-and-PM-motor EVs to fully replace everything we've got.
Rome wasn't built in one day ... and it doesn't have to be.