Not quite.
This is one of those things that some people are making a lot of noise, about, but in fact the cars had technical problems, particularly in the nickel-metal-hydride version, there were liability issues, and each car cost GM about $800,000 to build with nowhere near enough customers under the conditions at the time (low oil prices) to make it pay. And that was with government subsidies.
EV-1 aside, it was a mistake for GM to shelve the technology instead of continuing work on it. It would have given them a leg up on hybrids if they had, and I have heard GM executives say as much.