Movie #55 - Who Killed the Electric Car?

"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 cars were destroyed."

The wife and I caught this movie during TMN's Earth Week, in which they showed other films such as An Inconvenient Truth. This movie is a documentary of the rise and fall in popularity of the zero emission vehicles - specifically the GM / Saturn EV1.

What made this movie compelling is the fact that the EV1 not only represented a vehicle that produced zero emissions, but actually ran like a normal car. It utilized battery charge technology (fuel cell) and was inexpensive to produce. The only problem - supply and demand. There wasn't enough established demand to move the production of these cars further, there wasn't enough charging stations / infrastructure to make the car feasible, and there wasn't enough cars being produced.

Many EV1 owners were celebrities, to increase popularity and exposure of the vehicle. The likes included Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Ed Begley Jr., and Alexandra Paul. Unfortunately, not even the power of celebrities could stop the conspiracy that occurred which made these vehicles obsolete and unwanted in the automotive industry in less than 10 years.

Its sad to see that this technology actually works very well. Not only is the charging technology quite simple, the infrastructure is quite easy to establish. In addition, with the continuous development of battery technology these days, this car could've represented a move towards zero emissions within our lifetime.

Instead, hydrogen technology and hybrid cars became the "it" thing for the automotive industry. And although there was an outcry to keep these vehicles in production and operation, the EV1 was slowly made extinct by the very same industry which created it.

Normally, I don't enjoy the "thumping" that most celebrities get behind, but this is definitely one that deserves revisiting in the future. Global warming and the ramifications behind this event will continue to affect billions of people worldwide unless the global population makes some wholesale changes. Although North Americans are only beginning to see some of the signs of global warming, many regions around the world are being hit with devastating ferocity.

It is only a matter of time before we seek out alternatives to fossil fuel burning and resurrect ideas and concepts like the EV1 - only time will tell when we wake up and decide to do so!