General Motors EV1 VIN #4G5PX2250V0200212 was never supposed to survive. Like most EV1s leased to drivers in the late 1990s, this adorably green electric icon was originally going to be crushed and turned to scrap metal, never to be seen again.
Except that’s not what happened. According to the original lessee from ’97, whom I spoke with on the phone, a series of legal twists and turns meant this EV1 was saved from the crusher by GM. Instead, the car ended up forgotten in a tow pound in Atlanta. Earlier this week, VIN #212 became the first EV1 to ever be legally sold to the public.
The new owner has big plans. He told me over the phone that he and a team of like-minded individuals have already begun the process to restore this EV1 to its former glory.
The EV1 Story In a Nutshell
Electric cars are a mainstay of today’s automotive landscape, but back in the 1990s, they were barely a blip on anyone’s radar. The EV1 was the first mass-produced electric car to be offered to the public, but it was only available in Southern states like California and Arizona, as cold weather would’ve zapped the lead-acid battery packs’ range, which was rated at around 90 miles.
With just 137 horsepower spinning the single front motor, the EV1 isn’t very impressive by modern standards. But it set the stage for future EVs to come, and brought with it a host of other innovations, like regenerative braking and low rolling-resistance tires. The two-door teardrop design was a huge factor in squeezing the most out of those batteries; the EV1 remains one of the slipperiest cars to ever hit the market, with a drag coefficient of just 0.19. That’s better than any of today’s Lucids or Teslas.
As I mentioned earlier, GM never actually sold any EV1s to the public. They were leased, with most of them taken back by the factory and crushed due to slowing demand and high costs, according to a former engineer. According to a nifty tracking page put together by Hemmings, GM saved around 40 examples and donated them to museums and universities. The subject in this story is not one of those cars, but a previously unknown, hidden example that the internet had never seen before.
“Is That My Car?”
Those were among the first words uttered to me over the phone by Jonathan Sawyer, a Boulder, Colorado-based electrical engineer who was the original lessee of VIN #212 back in 1997.
Sawyer is a lifelong electric car enthusiast, having owned several obscure and interesting EVs over the years.
“I’ve always had electric cars,” he told me over the phone. “I’ve got electric cars you wouldn’t believe. I’ve got the first [Tesla] Roadster here in Colorado, and Elon Musk personally gave me the key. I have the electric RAV4, the original one. I convinced Toyota to lease them in Colorado, and I got a lease, and four years ago, they tried to take it away from me, and I sued them, and I won, and they gave me the car.”
Sawyer was understandably excited to get his hands on the world’s first mass-market, production EV. But living in Colorado, GM wouldn’t lease him a car. So he got clever.
“My sister lived in Tucson, so I got my sister to lease the car,” Sawyer said. “And then I smuggled the car up to Colorado, which pissed the shit out of them.”
GM allowed Sawyer to hold onto his lease, but he kept having to send the car back to Arizona for repairs. “Because the batteries were terrible, I would always ship the car back to Tempe, Arizona,” he told me.
According to Sawyer, GM issued a recall to fix a faulty charger that had the possibility of causing a fire. But instead of fixing the cars, they simply took them and never gave them back to the owners.
“They knew I was the one guy that wasn’t going to turn my car in, and they waited for me because every five months, I would have to send my car back to the dealership, because they always had to replace the battery,” Sawyer told me. “Those lead-acid batteries are terrible. So they waited for me to go into service, and when they had the service, the head of the program called me at home and said, ‘Jonathan, I’m really sorry, but we have to keep the car.’ And so I went there and I got my attorney, I said, ‘No, you can’t keep the car, I have a lease on the car.'”
Sawyer immediately filed a lawsuit against the company, but he didn’t want to sit around while his car was locked up at the dealer.
“I sat there and thought, well, shit, they stole my car,” he said. “So I called the Tempe Police Department, filed a stolen car report, and said, ‘It’s over at the dealer.’ And so a whole bunch of cops and the TV station showed up at the dealership, and they were going to arrest the guy because we had a stolen car.”
Except the car wasn’t there when the police arrived. “GM knew about this, and they smuggled the car separately from all the other cars out of the state,” Sawyer claims.
Because the car left the State, Sawyer had little recourse. “The cop says, ‘Well, the car’s out of State, contact the FBI.’ And I tried to contact the FBI, but they weren’t interested,” he tells me.
The car was stuck in legal limbo, which is why Sawyer theorizes it was saved from the crusher all those years ago.
“They realized that they’d better not cut that car up because there’s a judge who’s going through all this discovery in the lawsuit. We put them on notice: ‘Don’t cut up that car.'”
It’s equally possible that Sawyer’s car was simply one of the lucky ones that got spared and earmarked for donation. But his theory also makes sense. If that lawsuit, which ultimately fizzled out, had resulted in GM having to give back the car, it would have probably been better if there had been a car to give back.
“They were trying to hide it because I was trying to track it down,” Sawyer speculated. “But I did know this: They did not ever want to cut up that car.”
So How’d It End Up For Sale In a Tow Pound?
We’ll probably never know exactly how this particular EV1 avoided an untimely death, but I think I’ll stick with Sawyer’s story, because it’s so fascinating and filled with drama. How the car went from a dealership in Arizona to a tow pound in Atlanta is an entirely different tale.
As I reported on Tuesday, the tow pound—A-Tow Atlanta—told me over the phone the EV1 was marked as abandoned by the Clark Atlanta University Public Safety agency—the school’s on-site police force—and towed away. No one at the school seems to know exactly why the EV1 was marked as abandoned—the only person I got on the phone had an inkling of its existence, but knew next to nothing of the car, describing it as an “urban legend.”
The idea that VIN #212 ended up at a university makes sense. Like I mentioned earlier, the EV1s that were saved were shipped off to schools and museums, so it’s very likely Sawyer’s car, being a car that wasn’t crushed (or that couldn’t be crushed, if you believe his theory), was sent to Clark Atlanta and forgotten about – until this week, that is.
Meet The Man Who Dropped Six Figures On A Car That Was Never Supposed To Be Sold
The tow pound obtained a court order to sell the EV1 out of its lot, setting the internet ablaze on Monday night into Tuesday afternoon. The car was auctioned off through Peak Auto Auctions on Tuesday, with 134 bids placed and a sale price $104,000 before fees.
Billy, the car’s new owner, wasn’t going to let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip past him. (Billy’s last name and other identifying characteristics are being withheld, as he’d like to keep his identity a secret.)
“I bid a lot more than what the final price ended up being,” he told me over the phone. “With two minutes left, I put in a huge bid of $156,000. And we just watched for three minutes as everyone else bid it up, and it stopped at 104. Someone bid 102, basically. And then the auto bid kicked in for us at 104. And we just watched the countdown go down, and then we couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.”
The total price, after all the tow pound charges, came out to over $118,000—either an insane price for a non-running, no-title car or the best deal in the world, depending on who you ask.
“None of them realized what it was,” Billy said, describing the situation at the tow pound. He had flown in the night before from the West Coast to extract the car from its outdoor parking spot. “We went to the yard, and the guy Beau, who was in charge of the yard, was like, ‘My man. You are a celebrity.’ I paid $118,040. All the other cars that day, the total sum was less than $10,000.”
Bill met up with Jared Pink of The Questionable Garage YouTube channel (above), and together with a flatbed truck and a driver, managed to extract the car from the pound and transport it to an “undisclosed location,” where it’s currently undergoing a comprehensive restoration.
Resurrecting VIN #212 From The Dead
If there’s anyone who should be taking ownership of a derelict EV1 in need of a restoration, it’s Billy—at least according to what he’s told me. He describes himself as a hardcore EV enthusiast, with a dream of one day opening an electric car museum on the West Coast.
“I love electric vehicles,” says Billy. “I’ve never owned a car that runs on gasoline. I was driving all these old EVs. And I just kept collecting them and fixing them.”
Among his collection is a Chevy S10 Electric, a funky, all-electric version of the company’s small pickup that used a front-wheel drive layout and borrowed much of the EV1’s underpinnings.
“I have a Chevy S10 Electric. I have a huge collection of EV1 memorabilia, clothing, everything. [I’ve] always been obsessed with it since I watched the movie, Who Killed the Electric Car? when I was 12.”
Reviving a 28-year-old EV with lots of proprietary parts is a lot harder than bringing a normal, gas-powered car back to life. But it’s not like it’s totally hopeless.
“There’s a hole in the windshield, and the quarter panel is broken in. But every other piece of the car was there, besides what was removed for decommission, when they gave it to the university,” Billy says. “Every hubcap, every knob, every mirror, the original formats. It was unreal how complete the car was, minus the damage.”
The “decommission” Billy mentions refers to the parts GM removed or disabled before the cars were given away. I connected with three people who worked at the company on the EV1 program back in the ’90s through the lovely (and very informative) GM EV1 Facebook group. All three told me the batteries were removed before the cars were donated. And that was the case here.
“It looks like a pretty standard decommission,” Billy said. “No batteries in this one, no battery harness. We took out the skid plates, and we took [out the T-shaped battery pack holder]. And it was a raccoon nest, and there was shit all over it. Have you ever seen dog poop? It looked like that, but it was skinnier. And it smelled. That was the only part of the car that smelled, believe it or not.”
Other things aren’t quite right. “The charge cable was cut,” Billy says. “Inside the power inverter module, we’re missing the driveline control module. It’s a computer that’s on the inside of the [power integrated module] that a bunch of these ribbon cables plug into. And one of our ribbon cables is ripped.”
“Luckily, between me and [another EV collector friend], we have S10 EVs. We’ve been preparing for this for a long time.”
Some parts will be tougher to replicate or replace than others.
“The windshield and the driver quarter panel are definitely big ones that we would love to find original[s], if possible,” Billy said. ”Otherwise, it’s gonna be expensive to make those. We’re willing to do it, but we’re gonna want to connect with other owners before we do something that big, just to see if we could share the costs, or make it a little bit more realistic.”
Right now, the car is in pieces with most of the interior removed so it can be dried out after sitting exposed to the elements. Billy wasn’t exactly confident about whether he’d get the car to run, but he expressed hope thanks to the amazing EV1 community.
“We are not confident, but we are gonna try,” he said. “I’m connected to a lot of people in the EV1 world who have EV1s, illegally or legally. And they have been giving me a lot of advice as well.”
Billy’s even set up an email account—v212ev1@gmail.com—to encourage those with advice or parts to reach out. His goal is to have the car running by November 14, 2026, which would be exactly 30 years since the first drive of the EV1 back in 1996. I’ll be rooting for him.
Top photo: Vehicle Owner
It’s amazing that the Autopian got in touch with people at both ends of the ownership string so quickly. Nice work!! We’ll be watching for updates.
I have faith in the guy. They’ll get it running. The original owner, Sawyer, being an EE, might get involved in some manner.
What an amazing story that would be.
Wow!
Ever since this auction, I’ve been wondering if a Gen 1 or 2 Volt battery pack could possibly be a good donor to actually allow this thing to run and drive once more…it is T-shaped, after all…
I’m very pleased it’s going to someone with the money and knowledge and ability to restore it to more-or-less original condition… and not do something stupid like dropping an SBC into it.
“with most of them taken back by the factory and crushed due to slowing demand and high costs,”
Part of the reason for the “slowing demand” was because of all the ridiculous restrictions GM put on buyers. And even some of the buyers who were able to put in orders for the newer NiMH versions had their orders cancelled when “Car Guy” Rick Wagoner decided to kill the program.
It should be noted that some leasees offered GM 6 figure amounts to buy their EV1s outright… offers which GM refused.
There was a political aspect at play in that GM and other car makers where lobbying HARD against the ZEV mandate.
And having a bunch of EV1s driving around for lawmakers to see would definitely make their anti-ZEV lobbying harder.
I believe the line about slowing demand and “high costs” to be mostly bullshit. On the cost side, I bet GM wasted more money on the cancelled “Ultra V8”, the “blackwing V8” and the Zeta platform and many other projects that didn’t pan out over the years.
The EV1 was a special situation because of the anti-ZEV/anti-Electric Car political lobbying.
Yes, even after all this time, I still hold a grudge against “car guy” Rick Wagoner and his old GM management team over this.
It was a crap car in an era when GM released a lot of crap cars. It had a lot of problems that would have reflected badly on the practicality of electric cars. They were right not to sell them. Should they have continued to research and hone the concept as Chrysler did with the Turbine? Yes, probably.
Manufacturers began selling at least five years ahead of the optimum date and even now most are not convinced of the practicality of an electric car. Many car companies have taken a hit after being pushed by regulations to unload them on a public that didn’t want them. They’re ready for primetime now but will remain a niche product in the USA for at least a decade more.
The power grid is not capable of handling the adoption of many more electric cars (and AI data centers as well). The cost to the consumer to upgrade service from end-to-end will impact the public far greater than any OPEC gas crisis and drive us into recession. It will likely necessitate the nuclear option and that will cause further turmoil. Electric transport will become the pariah that gas-powered transport is now.
I’m always confused by this argument. Infrastructure isn’t built to be left alone forever. The grid gets updated regularly. The electricity can be produced locally, and… well, the argument rarely comes with sources. I do know that subsidies for electric cars went away, but subsidies for oil and gas have remained. I would imagine that most would agree that gas vehicles are beyond the point of requiring subsidies to survive. They’re not an emerging technology. Perhaps those subsidies would be put to better use improving the electrical grid. I mean, if you are happy paying taxes to keep oil companies highly profitable, I won’t kink shame. Seems to me that’s anticapitalist, which I’m consistently told is un-American. Of course, roads also don’t actually make money, which I’m told is why we can’t have trains, so it’s not like this argument can be accused of originality.
Yeah, I read the piece on the Rav4 EV linked in the article and man, what a terrible car. I get it’s a piece of EV history, etc, but 80 hp, 120 miles of range, and regular Rav4 interior (nothing special), all for the low, low price of $80k in 2025 dollars?
Even at this point, I’m not in the EV market because there are still a few usability and long-term reliability snags at too high a price, and today’s EVs are vastly improved.
There just wasn’t a market for these early EV’s outside the ultra-wealthy who wanted to signal environmental friendliness.
Between the EV1’s demise, the Cien/Fiero’s nerfs, the US Holdens falling flat on their faces, it’s a common GM L frankly.
Great marketing opportunity for GM if they cared.
Well not really because former GM management is the reason these are so rare because they crushed most of them.
EDIT: The only way it could be a great marketing opportunity is if GM admitted that they were wrong to crush all those EV1s in the past and provide money and other resources into restoring ALL remaining EV1s to fully functional state with new Ovonics NiMH batteries.
BTW… Ovonics still exists and is now owned by BASF.
Or a terrible PR opportunity when they decide they need to try and sue to protect all that 40-year-old intellectual property.
People like this guy are what car enthusiasm is all about. Bravo to Billy for his work reviving a rare icon and bravo to The Autopian for covering this story.
I wonder if Johnathan has a set of the original keys
They just had a code you punched in. No key. There was a large fleet of them running around for several years out East (after the supposed crushing).
They have to be rotting in a gsa warehouse somewhere. I remember seeing them up to maybe 03 mainly white ones. Ive talked to some gsa guys that swore they have seen them later then that.
Great article. But…
“The EV1 was the first mass-produced electric car to be offered to the public…”
The Baker Electric, Riker, some early Studebakers, and a host of other century+ cars began to differ.
I was at the Studebaker Museum the other day and yeah some of their first cars were electric because John M. Studebaker thought they were better then the ICE cars of the era and like them for being quieter. From 1902 to 1912 looks like Studebaker built just under 2k EV’s back then.
Studebaker/Tesla battery swap?
Jay Leno has a 1909 Baker Electric that IIRC he put Nissan Leaf batteries into.
Looking forward to the documentary on this in a few years and then the scripted feature after that. And then the broadway musical based on the feature based on the doc based on this story from the autopian.
The Taillight Sonata?
You know, I might not admit that so freely anymore.
Needs a sticker: “I touched Elon before he went crazy.”
Or, if you dare, go for the self-own with “I touched Elon and then he went crazy.”
He’s not crazy, you just don’t like his politics.
Maybe the EV1 in the parking garage in Atlanta (is it still there?) could provide the windshield.
Good article.
This car is also from Atlanta, are they the same car?
The other one is red.
I would love to see updates on this project, should the owner choose to share them. I too became obsessed with the EV-1 after watching Who Killed the Electric Car? when I was a kid. I’ve even been fortunate enough to see one in person, at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit. They even have a Tucker! I freaked out a bit seeing two rare pieces of automotive history in the space of five minutes.
In that case I’m prepared to consider selling not just one, but both of my 1977 Lyman Electric Quads combined for slightly less than the price of a single EV1. You know, for the good of the museum and all.
Wait you mean to tell me there are actual EV1s out in the wild in private hands other than this one?!?! I had genuinely no idea, but that is truly awesome. I imagine there aren’t any legally titled and registered that aren’t under the ownership of an institution though.
There’s one around Cleveland. I used to see it at a car show every year. I’m not sure it ran, but it was 100% there.
That’s probably the one owned by the Crawford Museum, but I think it’s part of the Cleveland History Museum now. I’ve seen it in person and even took a picture of the VIN – it’s #392.
GM: Hi there! I’m here to pick up your EV1 for it’s monthly gas tank cleaning!
Jonathan: Oh, thanks, I… wait a second. No.
GM: Crap.
GM: Hi there! We’re here to do a quick satisfaction survey on your EV1. While you answer a few questions, do you mind if we check it for termites?
Jonathan: Yes. I mind.
GM: Crap.
GM: Hi there! Congratulations! You’re EV1 has been award the “Best EV1 in Colorado Award!” All we need to do is get it over to the studio for a few pictures…
Jonathan: Really! That’s so cool! I’ll… hey. Wait. No.
GM: Crap.
GM: Hi there! I’m here to pick up your EV1 and take it back to GM headquarters where we will destroy it. You mind handing me over the keys?
Jonathan: Are you even trying anymore?
GM: Just give me the car? Please? Will you? Please?
Jonathan: Well…
GM: Yeah?
Jonathan: No.
GM: CRAP!
GM: Hi there! I brought a fruitcake.
Jonathan: No.
GM: CRAP!
Candygram…
Landshark…
GM: We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.
Jonathan: Oh, HELL NO!
GM: Curses, foiled again!
I’m hoping some group of engineers for an EV company decide to help develop or engineer a whole new drivetrain system, Or they use a setup from a Bolt and custom software to use the very interesting parts of it, such as the numerical code to open and power up the car. I won’t doubt if GM tries to fight every single step of the way, but they could at least just realize that it’s been over 25 years and to just let this one go. Maybe they could use it as an advertisement for their current line of EVs.
If Superfast Matt could put a Tesla powertrain in a 1950 Jaguar MkV, anything is possible
What Superfast Matt did was remarkable, but way easier than sourcing decades-old nearly one-off parts and circuit boards.
GM did not do the powertrain in the EV1. They bought it from a supplier called AC Propulsion… a company that is still around.
And the batteries came from Ovonics… which is still around and now owned by BASF.
As for the stupid Magnecharge system… that was crap and you’d be better off converting it to use a standard 120V or 240V outlet and a NiMH smart charger
That’s awesome. Jarod Pink (from the picture) has gotten one of those electric S-10’s going again. It was really interesting. I’m excited to see what happens with the EV-1.
“We’ll probably never know exactly how this particular EV1 avoided an untimely death..” after recounting the exact story of how.. what a stupid thing to say. Interesting story though.
It’s really not an exact story though. There’s an interesting first owners story from ~25 years ago, a mammoth gap with some GM ownership and shenanigans, and a university that didn’t even know they had the car where the car was towed from.
I mean, it was disabled before being donated to a university. It did get killed. I was really hoping this one somehow was hidden and still had all the original parts.
Will be interesting to see GM’s comments about this situation, if they have any.
Mary Barra is too interested in decommissioning Apple CarPlay/Android Auto and laying off c-suite employees.
That GM is gone. Pre-Great Recession.
Vito and Sonny Taglione from GM’s Asset Retrieval and Legitimate Business Division were quoted as saying that it’d be a real shame if something happened to it.
Amazing story, and a great outcome that could have gone wrong at so many points but just happened to work out!
212’s story may have only begun. I’m excited to track this EV1 as it becomes a car again!
This is a great story. They should get Larry Kosilla from AMMO NYC to do the cosmetic restoration and detailing for his YouTube page.
https://www.youtube.com/@AMMO-NYC
What a story!
Wow, now I feel old.
Did you reach out to GM again to see if they have any comment?
That line hit me hard too
2006 film, so by my calculation Billy is 31, which does explain how he’s only ever had EVs… and is a successful enough electrical engineer to afford a $100k+++ project car. Sheesh, at 31 I hadn’t even bought my house yet!
That is a really awesome origin story, and the future story this vehicle will tell. Cars are part of us, and they matter, no matter if they are EV or ICE cars, they are worth talking about and sharing.