The Ugly Truth Behind the Will Ferrell G.M. Super Bowl Commercial

Ugh. Fuck GM. I lived in California in the late 90s and these EV1 cars were everywhere. The Fry's electronics (RIP) next to my work had the chargers for the EV1. Little did I know that 22 years later the vast majority of people would still be driving around in farting cars. Also, look up the bankruptcy of Canadian electric bicycle motor manufacturer BionX. They went bankrupt because of a cancelled project with (drumroll) General Motors! GM really do fuck up everything good in this world.

Fun EV-1 story: a number of them were donated to colleges after the recall, under the stipulation that they only be used for "research" purposes. They deliberately destroyed the motor controllers before donating them so they couldn't be driven. The engineering department at my alma mater got their hands on one. The EV-1 wasn't the only electric car GM made to comply with that law. They also made the S-10 EV, an electric version of the Chevy S-10 pickup. Everything I've heard about them indicates they were dogshit, but they were better than the EV-1 in one critical way; of the 400-odd produced, around 60 were actually sold to customers, rather than leased. GM recalled and scrapped all of the leased vehicles, but there was nothing they could do about the 60ish which escaped into the wild. And wouldn't you know it, they shared a bunch of powertrain components with the EV-1. Including, critically, the motor controller. It took a bit of doing, apparently (including a humorous incident in which the S-10 controller was discovered to run the motors in the opposite direction than the EV-1 controller, making the car drive backwards until they figured it out), but the engineering students managed to get their EV-1 on the road again. They mostly used it to run errands around town for a while. They also drove it to a number of electric car events, which is how I'm assuming GM found out about it. When GM found out that they'd fixed their "research" car, they apparently shit a brick and threatened to sue unless they parked it. They were no longer allowed under any circumstances to drive the EV-1 under electric power, and placed a number of restrictions on it that basically amounted to a ban on driving it in it's original configuration. Engineering students being what they are, they took this as a challenge rather than an actual obstacle, and they quickly modified the vehicle into a series hybrid configuration, supposedly to research plug-in hybrid electric drivetrain configurations. How did they do that, you ask? Surely that's a pretty complicated task, right? Nope, they just slapped a gas powered Honda generator in the trunk, wired it up to charge the batteries, called it a "hybrid," and went right back to driving it around. My understanding is they limited their use of the car to avoid incurring the wrath of the lawyers, but I believe it still theoretically runs. As far as I know, they still have it. They did when I was in school, and I took a few naps in it. Relatively comfortable seats, particularly for a late 90's GM product.

I remember watching the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car", what baffles me is that we keep letting corporations do this to us. It's not just mustache twirling villainism, this is literally killing people and threatening the whole planet.

I feel like you could just title all your videos the same thing: "How US Corporations fucked up everything... again."

"Capitalism drives innovation" lol. "Capitalism walks the very fine line between angering consumers and making the 'least worst' products, just to maximize profits" that's better

Yeah, that about checks out 😔 Thanks for another great one, Rollie.

Well, the joke's on them. They could've been years ahead in the ev market and become an absolute juggernaut in the industry, but now they're facing significant market share losses. 2025 is a lot of lost ground to all other ev manufacturers.

Imagine having the amount of power to go: "Do we want the general populace to be able to breathe in the city, or do we want more money..?" "General populace? Pff LOL. Call the Lawyers, it's time to print some more money."

Imagine if GM had spent the money that they did on lawyers on developing EVs instead??

I used to work at the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento, CA, and they actually still have a (non-crushed) GM EV1 on display. It belonged to a GM employee who still had it checked out for testing when the program was axed. Before he went back to work, he heard what was happening to the cars and never brought it back. It was eventually donated to the museum.

While the Big Three were using lawyers to fight mileage requirements, the European and Japanese automakers were producing cars that got better mileage, to match standards in Europe and Japan. So you could buy and American car of lower quality with worse mileage, or you could buy a foreign model that was of higher quality and better mileage. And the Big Three wondered why they were rapidly losing market share. They literally screwed themselves out of the market by refusing to adapt.

Funny how Will Ferrell punches the globe.. when GM is really doing it to the real globe.

GM also bought the patents behind the battery tech inside the EV1, sold them to an oil company, who stopped issuing licenses for any automative applications, and sued anyone else making cars with that tech, e.g. Toyota.

Yesssssssssss! While it pains me to revisit the electric car fiasco of the EV-1 15 years later, I'm glad you took the relevant time after the SB commercial to bring it to light again. Perfect timing, perfect delivery. Shared across my social!

bro you straight killed this. The EV-1 was EXACTLY what I was thinking about during that ad.

I was familiar with GMs history with EVs. I was overwhelmed with absurdity at seeing that GM ad. I haven’t questioned reality that much since Steve Bannon was announced as Trump’s campaign advisor. Like, before that ad, you could not have told me anything I would have believed less than that GM would put out an advertisement for electric cars, let alone one with the tone of “let’s all work together to catch up on EVs!”

I visited LA in the 80s and ended up in the hospital because of lung disease and how polluted it was. Literally triggered a lifetime of lung problems. Baffles me people want to go back to that.

GM is so incomprehensibly big, disconnected, and mismanaged that one part of the company will be actively pushing for EV adoption and developing new technologies with the sincere intent of bringing them to market, while another is lobbying against it. None of the people in these two groups will ever interact in day-to-day business. What an absolute colossal waste of money and human potential.

Just finished your playlist and EVERY single video is captivating till the end. Not even the entertainment GOATs bat 1000. However the best compliment is that I don’t just want to share these online. I want to share them in person so I can be there and talk about them.

Why does America keep shocking me without surprising me.. Also, loved that call back to the Skip button at the end