General Motors EV-1

The Client

General Motors was one of the first major American automakers to produce electric vehicles at any large scale. Its EV-1 vehicle was the 1st viable electric car, and set a speed record at Bonneville Salt Flats. The car was so fast, they had to put a speed governor on it for general use. In the early 2000s, GM released the EV-1 in a special lease-only program in Arizona and Nevada.

AER’s involvement as the designated remanufacturing partner for GM’s EV-1 charging stations began with logistics. The massive 2-ton testing unit had to be shipped from Indianapolis to AER’s Southern California headquarters, so repairs and service could happen efficiently for California and Arizona lessees in the test program.

During the course of the project, AER remanufactured approximately 1200 charging stations. 10% of the units were remanufactured more than once, and if the stations required a 3rd pass, they were scrapped for quality assurance.

After receiving direct training at GM’s Torrance, CA facility, AER’s lead technician handled everything from receiving the damaged units, logging them in, diagnostics, assembly & repair, maintaining inventory and preparing the units for shipment. For economic reasons, whole circuit boards were replaced in the units instead of component replacement, as this would have required additional equipment. Not to mention, component failures often inflicted damage to the boards, thereby warranting whole board replacement over remanufacturing. Component replacement was also a safety issue since the chargers were high in voltage.

Here are some interesting facts about the work performed:

• Our team worked on an average of 3-5 units per day during the five year project, because testing of units could take an hour to return diagnostics.
• Problem was the main circuit board, nearly the entire charger would have to be disassembled to access this board. AER handled this type of repair with ease.

• Our lead technician also installed new charging cables for the units when damaged, and remanufactured the power input as well, since these were custom fit to utility power points and often shortened.
• The lead technician even designed a cart to transport these units through our facility faster as they weighed about 80-90 Ibs each.

Speak to an AER representative about your needs today.