Robert C. Stempel, a former chairman and chief executive of General Motors who pushed electric-car development more than 20 years ago, died at 77.

Stempel held the top jobs at what was then General Motors Corp. from Aug. 1, 1990 to Nov. 1, 1992, when the company’s board ousted him after becoming displeased with the pace of his efforts to restructure the faltering auto giant, reported The Wall Street Journal.

He later joined Energy Conversion Devices, an Auburn Hills, Mich., company that developed batteries, solar panels and other electrical components. He retired as CEO of ECD in 2007.

Born in Trenton, N.J., Stempel had a longtime interest in cars and worked in a Bloomfield, N.J., garage to earn money for college and fixed cars for students while he attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated in 1955.

He joined GM's Oldsmobile division in the chassis-design department in 1958 and later held several positions at Oldsmobile including senior designer, transmission design engineer, and motor engineer. He was part of a team that developed the 1966 Toronado, which was the first American front-wheel-drive car in nearly 30 years. He was assigned to design the front suspension and the engine and transmission mounting system. This was a significant challenge during a time when front-drive in such a large car seemed like a stretch.

By 1972 he was assistant chief engineer of the Oldsmobile car division and attending night classes to get an MBA from Michigan State University. In 1973 he began pioneering work on emission-control devices for cars that led to development of catalytic converters, which are now used across the auto industry to control exhaust emissions.

He later held positions with Pontiac, Opel in Germany and Chevrolet, where he was named general manager in 1982. In 1986 he was promoted to executive vice president of GM and joined the board. The next year he became president and chief operating officer.

His two-year tenure as CEO was an especially turbulent time at GM that was marked by recession, difficult union negotiations and rounds of restructuring that never seemed to be enough to get the company back on a successful course.

In a statement General Motors Co. said: "The General Motors family mourns the passing of Bob Stempel, who admirably led the company during very difficult times in the early 1990s. Bob was a very popular chairman with employees, and his many accomplishments as a visionary engineer included leading the development of the catalytic converter, one of the great environmental advancements in auto history."

The company also said Stempel was a key advocate for development of its pioneering EV1 electric car. GM leased the EV1 to a limited number of customers in California beginning in the 1990s, but never brought it to the retail market. Today the company's Volt plug-in hybrid uses a lot of EV1 technology.