Film examines the suspicious demise of the electric car





One of the better “ecological” efforts in recent memory, Chris Paine’s provocative documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?,” now available on DVD, is a cinematic equivalent of the familyrequested autopsy, examining the brief life span and suspicious demise of the battery-powered automobile.

General Motors introduced the radically new, environmentally friendly EV1 in 1996. By 2003, GM had reclaimed nearly all of the 1,117 cars it had built and leased and- despite pleas from enthusiastic owners in California and Arizona- methodically, deliberately destroyed every vehicle.

For conspiracy theorists, this automotive genocide must sound like heaven itself. For capitalists, could it just be another day of doing business in America?

So who did kill the electric car? Director Paine points his finger at Big Oil, Big Business and Big (Bad) Government. George W. Bush, an oilman? Who knew?

The film appears to present a valid argument for the electric car’s necessity- first, to satisfy California’s zero-emissions mandate (a mandate later suspiciously rescinded by the California Air Resources Board) and second, to begin building our own future. Even diehard oil proponents admit that fossil fuel won’t last forever. And forever in this country may be sooner than we think.

My biggest gripe with “Electric Car” is a sometimes flaky depiction of the car’s proponents. The film opens on a mock eulogy for the EV1- blacksuited Hollywood types milling about a cemetery looking utterly forlorn. Sorry, but this kind of portrayal does more harm than good. One can only imagine the Rush Limbaugh crowd hysterical over such theatrics, thereby dissociating that part of the population most likely to benefit from a film of this nature.

Yet once the stage is set, director Paine settles down for some serious interaction with an even more important question: Why did the EV1 die?

The film examines both sides of the issue, albeit heavily weighted in the EV1’s favor, including one seemingly logical notion argued by Big Oil: great gobs of coal are presently required to meet our country’s electricity demands. If cars go electric, coal demands will increase. If we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, and investing billions of dollars to do so, won’t we simply be back to square one?

The film purports not.

So “Electric Car” takes us on a journey- from the EV1’s inspiration to its eventual eradication. A failed experiment or a casualty of capitalistic greed? One detail seems certain: a trillion barrels of oil remain elusively underground, vast reservoirs worth megabucks not only to oil and auto companies, but to the U.S. government. And why invest in an expensive new technology when the old one’s not broken?

How one foresees the future determines whether one views the electric car as revolution or evolution.

But first, let’s play fair. Oil pretty much built this country over the last two centuries. Transportation, industrialization, chemicals and weapons. Oil fueled the mills and factories that built practically everything. The industrialized world had few other options until recently, when solar and electric power became, at least on paper, feasible alternatives. It’s not easy to dismiss oil’s importance, not easy to dismiss our dependency- it’s America’s inherited addiction.

Is the electric car really dead? I suspect about as dead as the Internet a scant five years ago- meaning only deceased until revived by necessity. Evolution requires a few false starts, after all. Heck, the first crustaceans to crawl from the primeval seas didn’t start gulping oxygen overnight. Likely hundreds or thousands of generations perished before nature “got it right.”

Social evolution is no different. We require false starts and stumbles. Readjustments. Patience. As “Electric Car” illustrates, Big Oil, Big Business and Big Government may all have contributed to the EV1’s demise, and perhaps prematurely- but maybe we’re all a little at fault. Had 20 million Americans clamored for EV1s, most of us would be pushing protons down the highway these days.

But instead we remain too comfortable in our Hummers and Jeeps and minivans. It’s easier to fill ‘er up a few hundred times more than seek out those annoyingly sparse battery-recharging stations. Easier to travel 300 gasguzzling miles than to tread more gingerly on the 80 or 90 miles that each battery charge provides.

What the film doesn’t suggest is that current hybrid technology (e.g., Toyota’s Prius, with over 500,000 units sold worldwide) may present a more logical footing on that long evolutionary trail. Big Business will change only when all our collective dollars demand change. Look at Big Tobacco, dwindling only after a generation of solid data and damning evidence, a dubious industry ultimately finished by ordinary people, one by one, kicking the habit.

“Who Killed the Electric Car?” appears to be solid data- a film well worth viewing and worth contemplation. It may only be a little step on a lengthy sojourn, but at least it’s a step.

My perspective? The electric car didn’t die. It’s merely waiting for us to kick the habit.


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