Who Killed the Electric Car?
We can get the suspense, if there ever was any, out of the way in a hurry. All the usual suspects are mutually responsible for the death of the electric car. What is fascinating about this movie is how determined the car companies were to make sure that no electric cars remained on the streets. When the cars were recalled (after the companies succeeded in getting California to repeal its zero-emission-vehicle mandate), GM refused a hard-cash offer of $1.9 million for the last 78 electric cars and instead had the hauled off to be crushed. The movie also gives compelling first-hand accounts from people who had the GM EV-1 electric car and absolutely loved it. For the science and engineering and trade-offs of electric and hybrid vehicles, I’ll make a longer post here shortly. For now, I’ll just say that while the movie did not have the suspense of a murder mystery, it was a fascinating look at the power plays involved in keeping us all sucking at the oil pump.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Watched “Who Killed the Electric Car” recently (great documentary), then i heard that GM and Tesla are making another run at the electric car (yay for progress!) hopefully development of this technology can go on unhindered by the corporations that depend on oil consumption.