Who Killed the Electric Car?

As a former engineer with both GM and Ford, I have to thoroughly refute what a previous commenter has stated about likely explanations. With the technology of the powertrain/fuel source development that far along, that far advanced within a viable vehicle, crash-safety and equipment regulations would not have removed this from the marketplace. The "skin" and tub/framework of the vehicle would have been either reworked to comply or the powertrain/fuel source would have been adapted to fit existing car lines that meet crash-safety and equipment regulations. There are plenty of examples of "hurry up" retro-fits in Detroit/Dearborn's history. Unfortunately there is much documented history of technology being quashed, patents being bought and buried, innovations left by the wayside to discourage change, discourage having to retool, reinvent, reinvest...and if you don't think that auto/oil/gov are all complicit in this, how naive can one be? GM and the railroads, the Tucker, fuel injection, Wankel engine, anti-lock brakes...all quashed by powerful companies and people not wanting change no matter what the benefit would be in safety, society, or the environment.

Probably the most alarming thing about this story of how the electric car was literally destroyed is what it reveals about the power of corporations to control our lives. Film maker Chris Paine, himself an EV1 owner, makes it clear that it was big corporations, especially big oil, and most especially General Motors itself, that woke up one day and asked themselves the multi-billion dollar question: Is an economical and efficient electric vehicle really good for business? In the case of the oil companies, obviously not since such a vehicle would not be burning any gas or needing any motor oil. In the case of the car manufacturers themselves, especially GM, which actually spent some very serious bucks on developing the EV1, the answer came as a bit of a surprise. First of all, they asked themselves, in the long run are you going to make more money building small efficient vehicles or behemoths like the Hummer? It didn't take long for them to figure out that the profit margins would be higher with the bigger vehicles. And then they realized that with the EV1 they wouldn't be able to sell many of their combustion-engine parts like oil filters and such. Furthermore, the EV1 was built to comply with California law. Doing some more thinking, GM realized that it would never do to allow some state government to tell them what to manufacture. If things worked out in California, before you know it, the whole nation might very well go plug-in.

So, as shown so vividly in this documentary, the car manufactures and the oil companies bought up or scared enough politicians so that the law requiring zero emissions in California went the way of the dodo. Meanwhile GM, which had been leasing the EV1, recalled them all and literally destroyed them. Paine has some nice footage showing the brand new and near brand new cars being crushed while EV1 lovers protested in vain. Nationally of course we know about the bills congress passed allowing truck-sized vehicles to continue to guzzle gas (mostly SUVs) and how 6,000-pound vehicles were given massive tax breaks for small business owners (mostly anybody but a wage earner).

There is of course plenty of controversy about whether the story presented by Paine (narration by Martin Sheen, by the way) is fair and accurate. I did a little research--there is a ton of information on the Web--and what became obvious after not too long was that the electric car not only is a viable alternative to the combustion engine car but really is the wave of the future whether General Motors and the other car manufacturers know it or not. For now, however, they are not about to change their ways. They have too much of a vested interest in business as it is.

The hydrogen fuel cell red herring is addressed, and, with help from Joseph J. Romm, who wrote The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate (2004), which I highly recommend, got fed to the dogs. Naturally there is a clip of George W. Bush pretending to support the hydrogen fuel cell car, even though I am sure he knows that economically it's not even close to a match for the electric car. Getting the Great Prevaricator to advance the propaganda put out by the oil and vehicle companies surely is something close to proof positive that it's BS.

Especially watchable is the clip from Huell Howser's PBS show in which we get to see the EV1s not only being crushed but pulverized into little bits for recycling.

So, what's it all about, Alfie? It's just as Eisenhower warned: beware not just of the industrial-military complex taking over our lives, but beware of corporations in general buying up all the politicians and writing all the laws. In fact, with the way the mass electorate is influenced by advertising, only politicians pre-approved through campaign donations from big corporations have a chance of even getting the nomination of either of the two main political parties. And without that nomination, effectively speaking, they can't win.

Regardless of all the machinations by GM, et al., I think our grandchildren will be driving mostly electric vehicles with nary a gas station in sight. And they will be inundated with "green" ads in the media with lots of flowers and little girls paid for by General Motors and Toyota, telling us how they are responsible for the shiny, new clean world.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

A look into the anticipated introduction of electric cars in the mid '90s to their mysterious recall a few years later. The documentary talks to former electric car owners, government personnel and others while examining the automobile industry and the laws that around it. All trying to draw a conclusion about why this clean, efficient, sleek yet affordable vehicle was pushed from the market in the midst of global warming and rising gasoline prices.

The film presents an interesting and largely hidden topic. Giving a brief history of the electric car, which interestingly used to be more popular than gasoline based cars (!!!!), it will leave most viewers scratching their head and wanting to know more. The resulting investigation is surprisingly large in scope and encompasses many things from the highest echelons of government right down to average Joe. All in a brisk 91 minutes.

However, the film is not just interesting, it addresses many concerns that have been rising faster and faster for a while now, which makes it also an important documentary. --- 9/10

Rated PG: "brief mild language." That's funny, Jaws, with all of it's terror, gore and death is rated PG too.

I don't have many documentaries to my credit as far as how many I've watched, but I thought this was great. Part of its appeal was its bringing to light an issue that was either completely unknown to most Americans, or otherwise forgotten. If you consider the parameters surrounding the short lived electric car, then it is easy to see how many of us wouldn't even have known there was a killer of the electric car. Consider that there were few made by GM, Ford, and Honda. Consider that they were only released in California and Arizona. Consider that in those markets not many were sold. And finally, consider that none of the car companies spent much money or effort into advertising these vehicles, then you can see how so many of us were largely ignorant of the plight of the electric car.

This documentary was very informative and fact driven which I appreciate. Sure, politics played some role in it all, but when doesn't politics play a role in major issues? This documentary really be-smudged GM, but since I'm not a GM enthusiast, it didn't bother me one bit. I'd even go so far as to say that this documentary was the only thing that actually made me feel guilty about owning a Hummer. SUV's are my only environmental vice. I recycle, I don't litter, I try to stay away from aerosols, and I generally do what I can... except when it comes to SUV's.

It was interesting to see the active annihilation of the electric car. One can only wonder what the advances in electric vehicles would be if they were to have remain in production. Everyone knows how resourceful and inventive humans can be. Given the right incentive (money), there would probably have been about a dozen upgrades to the electric car and the infrastructure from '96 til now. And to think my home state of California had the chance to be the thorn in the side of the auto industry to effect change but then blinked, only goes to show just how mighty the oil and auto industries are. But I still believe that the electric car will make a second coming. Because if the environment is not enough of an incentive for people to make a change, gas prices certainly will be.

This film WILL frustrate you greatly. It's that simple. All of this talk about cars of the future with hydrogen fuel cells in 15 or 20 years from now is ridiculous. The car of the future was here, and they killed it. I won't say the first cars were perfect, but remember that NASA blew up a lot of rockets before getting it right, same with electric cars. The first ones could only do approx 80-100 miles on a charge. Most of us only commute that far to work, and these cars would have served us perfectly. Without one drop of gas. Battery technology has improved tremendously since then, and even while the EV was in production there were improvements. Mr. Paine presents a surprisingly balanced film that time and again exhibits mans' greed, stupidity, shortsightedness and another excellent example of American corporate stupidity. I firmly believe that General Motors would not be in the financial hole it is currently in if it continued exploring the electric car program. You have to start somewhere and GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda were the trailblazers and they all did it. Electric cars were built that not only worked, but worked well, and only would get better as battery technology improved. They did it because the State of California forced them to. The automakers pushed back and California blinked. It's no wonder that shortly thereafter all of the electric car programs were killed and the quiet destruction of most of the cars began. Some survived and are still in use. (An electric Toyota RAV4 sold on eBay in April 2006 for $60,000.) This film is successful not because of a political leaning one way or the other, but because of the flagrant lack of common sense on display by most parties, and on that level it's extremely frustrating because we have the technology to start reducing our dependence on oil now.