I love a good conspiracy theory, and the grassy knoll is overrun with evildoers in Who Killed the Electric Car? It's a documentary in limited release, and could be playing at A Theater Near You.
Here's the thesis: Auto manufacturers in general, General Motors in particular, went the electric car route in the late 1990s, most notably GM with the EV1. One big reason: pending, and severe, laws in California that called for stronger pollution standards and ever increasing fuel economy. The movie, written and directed by Chris Paine, who was an EV1 driver, suggests that California politicians backed off the laws, thus making it unnecessary for manufacturers to invest further in electric car technology. So when GM insists that public acceptance of the EV1 was unsatisfactory, Paine's movie says that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, as GM let the EV1 die on the vine.
GM, of course, disagrees.
Paine does a pretty good job of proving his thesis, but to those of us who were there, his argument has holes. A review of the film in Daily Variety, hardly an automotive news source, points up the central flaw: "The film recalls, though never entirely explains, the efforts by manufacturers of electric cars to both make them, and squelch them."
That's it in a nutshell. But certainly with gasoline prices at record levels, the timing of Paine's film is perfect. And since the little movie has been picked up by Sony Pictures for distribution, it will be difficult to ignore.
Most of the movie deals with the EV1, which was based on the Impact showcar. GM announced in January 1996 that the company would build and market the EV1 in several markets that fall, most notably Los Angeles. Though it would be a GM-branded car, it would be sold through Saturn, whose touchy-feely style of salesmanship should appeal to electric-car buyers. The original EV1 had conventional lead-acid batteries, though later models had nickel-metal hydride batteries that gave the EV1 a range of at least 160 miles on a charge.
General Motors did not sell the EV1, but leased it. Multiple celebrities drove EV1s, and loved them. Actor Tom Hanks is shown in the film raving about his EV1 on David Letterman's talk show. Mel Gibson, interviewed for the film, was an enthusiastic EV1 driver. And trotted out are the usual celebrity suspects to sing the praises of electrics: Ralph Nader, Ed Begley, Jr., Alexandra Paul and even Phyllis Diller, who apparently was the only celeb willing to admit she was old enough to remember the original electric cars from eons ago.
So what went wrong? According to GM, in four years, the company was only able to lease about 700 EV1s. Much of the impetus behind the electric car idea was because of a mandate passed by the California Air Resource Board (CARB) that said if a company was going to continue to do business in the state, a certain percentage of its vehicles must eventually be zero-emissions capable. A new leader of CARB seemed less aggressive than his predecessor, so GM, and other manufacturers, decided to fight the mandate rather than try to meet the goals. They did, and they won. A revised mandate said that companies would have to build electric vehicles only if there was customer demand, and, the film insists, GM went to great lengths to prove that there was not.
In a 2001 legal challenge to the CARB mandate, GM said that the failure of its own EV1 "demonstrated the minimal market appeal of electric vehicles based on cost, range and infrastructure issues." This was two years before GM began pulling its leased EV1s off the road. And by the end of 2004, most all the EV1s were crushed and stacked at GM's remote, guarded proving grounds in Arizona. Director Paine rented a helicopter and found, and photographed, the flattened cars. It's the film's most poignant moment.
GM is not the only manufacturer targeted by the film: Ford, Honda, Nissan and Toyota also come off as indifferent at best about their electric efforts. Big oil has a spot reserved on Paine's grassy knoll, as do some California politicians.
Conspiracy or not, there's no denying that GM was well ahead of the electric car curve, and had the company continued the development, we can only imagine how far along it would be now.
In a recent issue of Motor Trend, an interviewer asked GM chief Rick Wagoner about the central regret of his tenure. He said it was killing the EV1 program. Perhaps more than anything else, that gives Who Killed the Electric Car? credibility.
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Originally Posted by pyro
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