GM had a lot of trouble naming the first EV. They initially wanted to call it "Santana," but that name was dropped when it was found that a French car company had used it for one of its models. Then they named it the "Impact," a horrific name for an automobile. What idiot would have dreamed that up and what idiot exec approved it? GM later said that "Impact" was used only for the concept car, not the production model and they've done everything to bury how "Impact" was the original name. Most web resources regurgitate the company line that "Impact" was for the concept car and it was introduced as "EV1."
Didn’t know that. Very funny. Maybe the previous suggestion was ‘trainwreck’ so, by contrast, impact didn’t seem quite so bad. ;0)