Link from PM about 10 cars that hurt GM's reputation:
Whats 1st on the list? The EV1.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...8.html?page=10
Basically it came down to not being viable under real world conditions.
GM probably could have handled it a little different (ie: not crushing them), but I think they did the right thing financially.
And the EV1 was 10 years ago. The environment has only been the latest buzz word for about 2 or 3 years now.