Why did the electric car die?

David Friedman cites one critic of the idea:

General Motors lost two billion
dollars on the project, and lost money on every single EV1 produced.
The leases didn’t even cover the costs of servicing them.

The
range of 130 miles is bogus. None of them ever achieved that under
normal driving conditions. Running the air conditioning or heater could
halve that range. Even running the headlights reduced it by 10%.

Minimum
recharge time was two hours using special charging stations that except
for fleet use didn’t exist. The effective recharge time, using the
equipment that could be installed in a lessee’s garage, was eight
hours. …

NiMH
batteries that had lasted up to three years in testing were failing
after six months in service. There was no way to keep them from
overheating without doubling the size of the battery pack. Lead-acid
batteries were superior to NiMH in actual daily use.

Believe it or not, it wasn’t because of an oil company conspiracy.  Here is an article on the importance of range.  Here is a negative review of the new movie on the electric car.