NiMH Battery
Between 1997 and 2004, Toyota, GM, Ford, Nissan, and Solectria manufactured, and leased or sold hundreds of 100 percent electric vehicles including compact cars, pick-up trucks, midsize wagons, vans and SUVs.
The Ford Ranger Pick-up truck, GM EV1, Chevrolet S-10 pick-up truck, Toyota RAV4-EV, Nissan Altra…all of them pure electric cars making up to 170 miles per charge.
Considering that more then 90 percent of Americans on average travel less then 40 miles per day, our dependence on oil was about to vanish and never come back.
Then, suddenly, by 2005, most of these electric vehicles disappeared. Lease contracts were cancelled or not renewed, and most cars were destroyed. Even the Smithsonian’s exhibit of GM’s EV1 was pulled off the museum floor.
Only about 300 Toyota RAV4-EV sport utility vehicles that Toyota sold to private individuals survived this automotive genocide. Still today, they are running strong with their original battery packs and without any problems. Still today, their owners do not want to sell them even though some of them have over 150,000 miles. Still today, they are biggest thorn in the eye of Big Oil.
The flood of electric vehicles was the result of California’s zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate from 1990.
Vehicles achieving the most mileage per charge used nickel metal hydride (NiMH) traction batteries invented by an American, manufactured by American companies and owned by General Motors Corporation.
Between 1997 and 1999, Toyota begun using NiMH batteries in their RAV4-EV SUVs, and made numerous improvement to the NiMH battery technology licensed to them by GM.
In 2000, GM sold all patents related to NiMH battery technology to Texaco – an oil company.
Six days later, Texaco merged with Chevron, legally transferring all NiMH patents to one of the largest oil companies in the world.
In 2001, Chevron sued Toyota and Panasonic to stop manufacturing and using large capacity NiMH batteries in their vehicles. (Chevron prevailed in 2003 – court order is not publicly available).
In 2002, U.S. automakers sued the California government and effectively revoked the ZEV mandate.
Between 2002 and 2004, automakers destroyed most of the 100 percent electric vehicles.
Nice post! Thanks!