Who Killed the Electric Car?

I skipped a second blog a while back, so that means I needed to go to a bloggable event to make up for it.



Enter Who Killed the Electric Car?, a movie about the General Motors EV1, a fully electric (yeah, none of this hybrid stuff, pal) car. There were only 1,117 made, and none of them were sold--only leased. In the end, they were all crushed.



So, what happened? Well, the last nail in the coffin came when GM realized it would be cheaper to just sue the state of California to undo their clean vehicle regulations than it would be to build electric cars. Also, back then, gas was still cheap and GM thought that people would rather buy large and intimidating SUVs over smaller vehicles like the EV1.



At least, that was the thought before this movie came out. Who Killed the Electric Car? sheds some light on the subject by providing a list of suspects in a whodunnit fashion and goes through them one by one to figure out exactly what happened to the EV1. The list is:

Customers, because they didn't want to drive smaller cars that had less cargo space and less range than gasoline vehicles.

Batteries, because they sucked when the EV1 first came out.

Oil companies, because (just like the FM vs AM wars I described in my powerpoint presentation on Lessig's Free Culture) they saw the EV1 as a threat and did things to stop it from succeeding, like buying patents to prevent modern batteries from being used in modern electric cars.

Car companies, for being way too honest about the EV1's limitations (try getting a used car salesman nowadays to say anything bad about something he's trying to sell you). Also, for not letting people buy EV1s or building enough to respond to the high demand.

Government, for not doing more to raise fuel efficiency or lower emissions.

California Air Resources Board, for caving into pressure to remove the Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate, conflicts of interest and not letting pro-ZEV people finish talking while giving car companies all the time in the world to finish making their points.

Hydrogen fuel cell, for distracting people with hopes about the future, as opposed to a solution that was already here (electric cars).

In the end, only the batteries were deemed Not Guilty by the movie. As it turns out, new and way, way better batteries were developed, but were not made available.