This GM EV1 Is Going Back On The Road. It May Be The Only One That Can

• This GM EV1 was rescued with plans to restore it as close to its original state as possible and make it roadworthy.
• Because of its particular history, this is the only EV1 that could potentially become road legal again.
• The car has damage and many vital components are missing, so the restoration is going to take a long time. 

The General Motors EV1 practically needs no introduction. It was the first modern attempt at a bespoke electric vehicle, built from the ground up as an EV, from a major car manufacturer. GM made just over 1,000 of these and all of them were leased out, never sold. And when the EV1 program ended, all of them were decommissioned, never to be put on the road again.

Most EV1s were crushed, but a handful (around 40 examples) survived, most being donated to universities and research institutes as static pieces of EV history. A few are known to still be operational; six reportedly ended up privately owned. Given their historic significance, their backstory and rarity, EV1s today are very expensive.

One recently sold at an impound auction for $104,000. It has a broken windshield and front quarterlight (that will require custom fabrication), and it’s missing many vital components. But Electrek Garage wants to bring it back to life and put it back on the road without modifications to its drivetrain. They want to keep it as original as possible, which is what you want to do with a vehicle this rare.

However, since GM removed the car’s battery pack when it was decommissioned in 2003, it will need new batteries, a new battery monitoring system (BMS) and other vital components that may have also been taken out. They plan to replace everything with what was originally in the car, but it may prove difficult to track them down.

Some of the components may be common to other GM vehicles, like the onboard charger, which was also removed in this vehicle, and cut the cables connecting to it—GM really wanted to make sure nobody ever put one of these back on the road. That’s why this project is so special and why the vehicle, once revived and made legal to drive on public roads, will stand as the world’s only road-legal EV1.

It will be really interesting to compare how the EV1 compares to today’s electric cars. Back in its day, it was by far the most advanced EV in the world, courtesy of its bespoke construction, and it was a genuinely pleasant vehicle to drive. With a range of up to 150 miles in later examples and a 0-60 mph accelreation time of 8.9 seconds, it was superior to any electric rival of its day.

While some components, like the Magna Charge inductive charging pad and accompanying charger (which could take up to 6.6 kilowatts), were used in other vehicles, including the first Toyota RAV4 EV and the Chevrolet S10 EV, other parts may be much more difficult to track down. 

Unlike the vast majority of EVs, especially early ones, GM’s first was not a conversion of an existing combustion vehicle, which is why getting one working again is going to be a tall order—this restoration is going to take a while.