Did a used EV1 really just sell for $465,000?
by Sebastian Blanco on Oct 5th 2008 at 3:17PM 
Not quite sure what to make of this, but it appears that someone in Victoria, British Columbia has just sold a 1998 EV1 for $465,000 (about $431,835 U.S.). We got a tip from Patrick J. who said that he spotted the ad but was unable to get a hold of the seller before his or her contact information was taken off the ad. Currently the listing claims the vehicle is "SOLD" and the price is the aforementioned $465K. That's quite a jump from the minimum asking price of $75,000, and maybe prompted the transfer, even though the seller wrote: "Don't really want to sell it but I am taking offers." The seller added that the car's been in storage for four years and that "GM still wants the car so I'm looking for car collectors only, depending on the offer."
In any case, if anyone in Oak Bay happens to see an EV1 cruising the streets, think about stopping the driver and asking what they paid for the car. We're all ears.
[Source: Used Victoria]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Sidewinder 3:37PM (10/05/2008)
Hmmmm ... I wonder, what will Witzenburg have to say about this?
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Paul Sallmen 3:55PM (10/05/2008)
I thought GM crushed virtually all their EV1s as they were all leased. I know GM did donate a few of them to univerities and museums, but I believe they removed the drivetrain. If this aritcle is for real, maybe this EV1 is one of those donated vehicles with a rebuilt drivetrain.
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tankd0g 6:49PM (10/05/2008)
If it wasn't at Barret Jackson it's probably a pile of BS.
gorr 4:35PM (10/05/2008)
Don't buy this car except maybe for speculative reasons.. There is better coming soon on the market. This model has only 2 seats and don't have a small gasoline batteries recharger and booster.
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Geoff de Ruiter 5:17PM (10/05/2008)
WOW, that is so amazing I live in Victoria (oak bay)! That is so funny that it is listed on Used Victoria, hahaha. but in all honesty, you never know if this is a hoax or not. but I like the story behind it, with GM still wanting it back :P
I'll keep an eye out just in case
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tankd0g 6:49PM (10/05/2008)
I hope GM bought it so they can REMEMBER HOW TO GET 80 MILES ON A CHARGE!
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stevefazek 6:59PM (10/05/2008)
The whole point of the Volt is so 90% of the time you can use electric. 40 miles is more then enough for that. Untill there is a real high powred charged infrastructure for EVs we will need Phevs like the volt.
The only problem is that batteries will need to be uniform across the board or at least to be able to communicate with the charges better letting the charger know how many AMPs can be dumped into the battery with out killing it
itsaboutchoice 7:45AM (10/06/2008)
Tankd0g said:
"I hope GM bought it so they can REMEMBER HOW TO GET 80 MILES ON A CHARGE!"
80 miles? Tsk Tsk, your repeating what GM tells everyone. GM only states the lead-acid version of the EV1. The gen-2 EV1 was much, much better.
I hate to depress you Tankd0g, but the EV1 with NiMH batteries got 140 miles per charge on a driving cycle. A range of 160 miles going a constant 60 MPH and 220 miles per charge doing a constant 45 MPH.
Read the following pdf where the U.S. Department of Energy helped tested the EV1. It was a fantastic car. No wonder they crushed it.
http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/fsev/eva/ev1_eva.pdf
tankd0g 8:55AM (10/06/2008)
I hate to depress you itsaboutchoice, but GM sold the rights to those batteries. My comment stands.
tankd0g 7:51PM (10/05/2008)
Oh yes steve, that makes perfect sense. If GM offered a Volt that did 80 miles on a charge I'll tell them to go stuff it and come back when they have one that does 40.
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Chris M 9:41PM (10/05/2008)
a 1998 GV1? Is that a typo?
There really shouldn't be any of the GM EV1s for sale, as most were crushed or kept by GM for research only. The rest were disabled and sent to museums or universities and are not for sale.
So that leaves 2 possibilities: Someone built a lookalike and is trying to pass it off as the real thing, or someone is pulling a big hoax. Considering the ridiculously high price, I'd bet on "hoax".
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Sebastian 10:18PM (10/05/2008)
whoops. Yes, I meant EV1.
Dave 9:55PM (10/05/2008)
A GV is a Yugo. Someone got hosed. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxmAF-AuKfw
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Phil L. 10:16AM (10/06/2008)
A transaction this pricey for a vehicle this rare can't go completely unnoticed.
Surely we can come up with some way to confirm one or two basics:
Did GM somehow lose track of one of their EV-1's, and it made its way to the private marketplace?
If this vehicle really exists, does it have the OEM drivetrain?
Someone who spent close to half a million dollars isn't going to hide this in a garage. Let's get busy and find out what really happened!
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Tony Belding 1:55PM (10/06/2008)
There are two possibilities I can see. . .
There was a rumor a couple of years ago that GM had, through sloppy paperwork, actually lost track of at least one EV1 which remained in private hands. So. . . This could be it.
The other possibility is that somebody got hold of a "disabled" EV1, which GM donated to some museum or university research program, and restored it to original condition. This is possible because the electric S-10 pickup truck used the same powertrain as the EV1, and some S-10 pickups were actually sold to the public, not leased. So, in theory at least, anybody could buy an S-10 and pull the power electronics controller, and then put it into an EV1 and get it working.
c3 7:11PM (10/06/2008)
I thought GM was threatening people with arrest and court if they didn't return their leases because the car was technically, " Stolen." They were only leases, right? Who holds the title to the car? How is this possible?
C3
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John 5:28PM (10/06/2008)
hoax is more likely but it is very possible gm missed paperwork here or there or somebody drove it out of the country and moved without telling anybody, this is possible it was and still is an amazing first try, very funny to see it coming back after all these years though...
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Ian Page-Echols 6:28PM (10/08/2008)
Curiouser and curiouser. The one thing leading to this being real is that if there were one EV1 that had leaked out somehow from the lease program, it would be a rare enough and interesting enough car to be worth a half mil. But who actually owned the car? If it was GM, this would be paying $500k for an object that would not be legally owned, and could never be driven.
The thing that nags me about it though is that the price could be like some of those ebay auctions on Bill Gates soul and the like that got bid up very high. The bidding may have happened, but that doesn't mean the car existed. On the other hand, the bidding may have happened, but it might have gone that high because people "knew" that there was no such thing to be bidding on and thus no way they could collect the money.
But then, I might be overanalyzing . . .
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ug 2:22PM (10/09/2008)
You could probably get around returning the lease if you faked having the car "stolen" and then hide it away (despite the fact the EV1 had keyless entry and would be kind of tough to steal). It's just that the second someone tried to register it you'd probably run into trouble.
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EV1nut 10:56PM (11/05/2008)
FYI the activation code is printed on the Info label on the driver's door, so if you had a telephoto lens and a bush to hide in...