History Film / WhoKilledTheElectricCar

--> In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline. Ten years later, these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened? Why must we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car?

''Who Killed The Electric Car?'' is a 2006 documentary directed by Chris Paine and distributed by Sony Classic Pictures.

The film explores the reasons for the dismantlement of the [=EV1=] program, wondering if their was a conspiracy in the termination of the [=EV1=] program.

* Creator/MartinSheen: The narrator.

* ConspiracyTheories: The film argues there was an enormous conspiracy to subvert the development of electric vehicles. The evidence:
** Policy makers such as the California Air Resources Board where pushed into rejecting the mandate, and into pursuing alternatives that were uneconomical and distracted from already viable technologies. The head of the California Air Resources Board when the ZEV mandate was dissolved, Alan Lloyd, was in fact head of the Fuel Cell Partnership, which promoted hydrogen powered vehicles, which the film argues is not a viable technology
** Car companies were doing little to educate consumers about electric vehicles and wanted to kill the product they were trying to make. The ads and commercials for the electric car were as surreal as they were uninformative, and the idea that electric cars require little to no maintenance or moving parts would cut into the profits of automakers and dealerships that provide both, and they were more interested in building cars like the Hummer, than they were about building cleaner cars.
** The batteries were argued to be limited in range, but not enough to cut into to average daily commute of an American motorist. The advances in batteries were in some cases suppressed by the oil industry. The lithium-ion batteries now found in electric cars could have given the [=EV1=] a '''300''' mile range.
** The oil industry seeks to limit technologies that reduce fuel consumption and manipulate prices so their product can remain on the market and other technologies are pushed away.
** [[CorruptPolitician The federal government is argued to be influenced by the interests of automakers and oil companies]]. While it does touch upon the relationship between George Bush and Big Oil, it also discussed how even in the Clinton and Gore White House, no major changes were enacted with in fuel economy standards, in spite of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles(PNGV)]] program that had been enacted with the auto industry to develop fuel efficient cars.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: See ConspiracyTheories

The film explores the reasons for the dismantlement of the [=EV1=] program, wondering if their was a conspiracy in the termination of the EV1 program.

* CoolCar: The EV1, to many people who drove it.

* MetaphoricallyTrue: While it is technically possible to build an electric vehicle with a 300 mile range, they are prohibitively expensive; the Tesla Roadster, built using better technology than was available in the 1990s, only boasted a 240 mile range and a $100,000+ price tag. The Nissan Leaf, an electric vehicle produced for the general public circa 2010, had a range similar to the EVs from the 1990s and was not cheap, in part due to its $15,000 battery pack which Nissan may or may not have been taking a loss on.

* SpiritualSuccessor: The EV1 was this to the Impact concept car, which was a successor to the solar-powered Sunraycer. The Chevy Volt is considered a descendant of the EV1.

* HummerDinger: The Hummer is a frequent critic. But what was glaring was the fact that the US government was giving business owners who bought the Hummer ''ten of thousands of dollars'' in tax deductions, while people who bought a fuel efficient car got only a few thousand dollars.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Hydrogen cars are portrayed this way: an exciting new alternative, but one that is inefficient, costly, and distracting from more [[BoringButPractical reasonable solutions like better fuel economy standards]].

* AwesomeButImpractical: Hydrogen cars are portrayed this way: an exciting new alternative, but one that it totally inefficient, impractical, and distracting from more [[BoringButPractical reasonable solutions like better fuel economy standards]].

The film explores the reasons for the dismantlement of the [=EV1=] program, interviewing people of different backgrounds, from scientists to politicians, to celebrities.

* StylisticSuck: GM apparently invoked this with their [[http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516bfa69e201053618a333970c-pi various]] [[http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516bfa69e2010536104815970b-800wi ads]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g7cgUm7o9k commercials]] to discourage demand for the cars, and to educate consumers as little as possible about them.

* OlderThanTheyThink: As the film points out, electric cars existed in the early 1900s, and at one point outsold gasoline cars, before easy petroleum, mass production, and the electric starter propelled gasoline cars to the forefront.

** [[CorruptPolitican The federal government is argued to be influenced by the interests of automakers and oil companies]]. While it does touch upon the relationship between George Bush and Big Oil, it also discussed how even in the Clinton and Gore White House, no major changes were enacted with in fuel economy standards, in spite of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles(PNGV)]] program that had been enacted with the auto industry to develop fuel efficient cars.

In the 1990s, GM launched the [=EV1=], the first mass produced electric vehicle in decades. Other automakers followed suit in order to comply with Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate, or ZEV, a new California law requiring automakers to build non-polluting cars. Eventually, however, the mandate was annulled, and the cars were taken off the streets and crushed.

** The batteries were argued to be limited in range, but not enough to cut into to average daily commute of an American motorist. The advances in batteries, however, were suppressed in some cases. The lithium-ion batteries now found in electric cars could have given the [=EV1=] a '''300''' mile range.

** The federal government is argued to be influenced by the interests of automakers and oil companies. While it does touch upon the relationship between George Bush and Big Oil, it also discussed how even in the Clinton and Gore White House, no major changes were enacted with in fuel economy standards, in spite of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles(PNGV)]] program that had been enacted with the auto industry to develop fuel efficient cars.

* FromACertainPointOfView: While it is technically possible to build an electric vehicle with a 300 mile range, they are prohibitively expensive; the Tesla Roadster, built using better technology than was available at the time, only boasted a 240 mile range and a $100,000+ price tag. The Nissan Leaf, an electric vehicle produced for the general public circa 2010, had a range similar to the EVs from the 1990s.
** Additionally, while it ''is'' true that electric vehicles require less maintenance, that does not necessarily mean that what maintenance they will eventually require won't be extremely expensive; electric vehicle batteries are extremely expensive, and depending on the design, may necessitate $15,000 worth of maintenance all at once. How long batteries will last is not well-established; some estimates put it at 100,000 miles. Of course, if the car companies are buying their batteries from elsewhere, the movie's claims of the maintenance not being very profitable to the car companies may still be true.

[[quoteright:350:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Who_Killed_The_Electric_Car_cover.jpg]]

[[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Who_Killed_The_Electric_Car_cover.jpg]]

* OldShame: When the EV1 program was canceled, GM confiscated every last car that was leased and crushed them. The few cars that weren't crushed were dismantled and put in museums. Recently, the cancellation of the program quickly became this for GM, with the release of the documentary negatively affecting their image, and the high gas prices of 2008 making their fleets of [=SUVs=] and trucks undesirable.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Larry Burns, former chief of R&D at GM said "We would've had the Chevy Volt 10 years earlier."

* GreenAesop: While electric cars as a solution to air pollution and oil dependence is touched upon, the main subject purpose of the film is to explore why GM and other car companies stopped producing them.

* RayOfHopeEnding: While the cancellation of the [=EV1=] program may have stopped mass produced electric vehicles for a time, homemade EVs, prototypes like the Tesla Roadster, and looming energy and climate limits would mean the electric car would return. This renaissance was later explored in ''Revenge Of The Electric Car.''

* StylisticSuck: The [[http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516bfa69e201053618a333970c-pi various]] [[http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516bfa69e2010536104815970b-800wi ads]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g7cgUm7o9k commercials.]] that GM produced did little to educate people about the car, or even made it look attractive. See for yourself.

* OldShame: In-universe, when the EV1 program was canceled, GM confiscated every last car that was leased and crushed them. The few cars that weren't crushed were dismantled and put in museums. Out of universe, the cancellation of the program quickly became this for GM, with the release of the documentary negatively affecting their image, and the high gas prices of 2008 making their fleets of [=SUVs=] and trucks undesirable.

* OldShame: In-universe, when the EV1 program was canceled, GM confiscated every last car that was leased and crushed them. The few cars that weren't crushed were dismantled and put in museums. Out of universe, the cancellation of the program quickly became this for GM, with the release of the documentary negatively affecting their image, and the high gas prices of 2008 making their fleets of SUVs and trucks undesirable.

* OldShame: In-universe, when the EV1 program was canceled, GM confiscated every last car that was leased and crushed them. The few cars that weren't crushed were dismantled and put in museums. Out of universe, the cancellation of the program quickly became this for GM, with the release of the documentary, and the high gas prices of 2008 leaving them with few fuel efficient cars.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Larry Burns, former chief of R&D at GM said "We could've had the Chevy Volt 10 years earlier."

* GreenAesop: While electric cars as a solution to air pollution and oil dependence is touched upon, the main subject subject of the film is the reason for the end of the EV1 program.