In a world of Teslas and Priuses, the memory of the first electric car is often lost. But one Bonita Springs man tells how General Motors made the first attempt, and how it died.

Bonita Bay resident Frank Jamerson helped oversee the development, manufacture and ultimate demise of the world’s first mass-produced electric car.

The car, called the EV1, resulted from one of many GM experimental builds starting with efforts to reduce Los Angeles smog in 1969.

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“(GM) had 1,500 people in the research labs,” Jamerson said. “All that is now downsized. That’s very unfortunate, because we made so much impact on the technology.”

A half dozen proposals including gas turbine buses and electric cars were presented to GM leadership, he said, and the introduction of catalytic converters and switch from leaded to unleaded gas won.

Research work didn’t stop. In the early 1980s, a GM researcher designed a new form of super-magnets known as rare-earth magnets. GM’s electric research jumped forward.

“This allows the motor to be lighter and smaller,” Jamerson said.

GM, along with AeroVironment and Hughes Aircraft, built the Sunraycer for the World Solar Challenge, a nearly 1,900-mile race across Australia. The GM solar car entered the first race in 1987 and won first place at an average speed of 42 miles per hour. Australian Ford’s Sunchaser placed a distant second, averaging 28 mph.

“(With the joint collaboration), they developed this very smooth, beetle-like vehicle that won this (1,900)-mile race,” Jamerson said. “It was fantastic. Out of that comes the EV1.”

The first electric car

The EV1 — the world’s first mass-produced electric car. GM built about 1,100 of the cars and were leased only in California and Arizona from 1996-1999. The car set forth new ideas other electric cars would use, including the idea of placing batteries along the bottom of the car frame in a skateboard configuration, Jamerson said.

“It used regenerative braking for the first time,” he said. “A novel heat pump, air conditioner, inductive charging.”

A modified EV1 also set an electric land speed record of 183 mph.

GM cancelled the project in 2003, stating it was not making enough money. Nearly every EV1 was crushed in a giant recall.

Continuing to explore electric power

While retired for years, 91-year-old Jamerson continues to stay involved with electric vehicles, now focusing on bicycles.

“I got into electric bikes after going to a conference in Germany in 1993,” he said. “My first wife said, ‘Frank, come outside. They have these electric bikes.’ I said, ‘What the hell’s an electric bike?’”

Jamerson took the idea back to the United States which failed spectacularly. Being a seasonal Naples resident since 1977, he took an electric bike to a local bicycle shop to show off the newest technology.

“I took the bike in,” he said. “They said, ‘What the hell is that?’ I said it was an electric bike. They said, ‘Get the hell out of here, we only pedal.’ So, I was ahead of the show.”

He’s been writing the Electric Bikes Worldwide Reports for 25 years and has gathered data about sales and predictions of all sorts of electric bicycles.

Right now, China leads the world in electric bike usage, but Jamerson said he expects usage of electric vehicles only growing.

“I know a lot of the technology, and that’s been a great help in my career, and I’ve tried to share that as much as I can,” he said. “I’m at this point where I’m trying to give these talks on electric vehicles and that sort of thing, so that’s what I have to offer at this point of my career — or my life, I guess.”

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