Rovereto+Who+Killed+the+Electric+Car?


 * Title:** Who Killed the Electric Car?
 * Director:** Chris Paine
 * Release Year:** 2006

The central point of the films is to discover the cause for the demise of the electric vehicle, focusing on GM’s EV1 car. The film goes about this by doing ‘investigations’ of the many suspects in the death of the car: the people, the car companies, the oil companies, California’s Air Resources Board (CARB), the batteries, and the government. As a side story to this overarching investigation, there are a group of former electric vehicle drivers that try to locate and track their repossessed electric cars, to find out what will be done with them after they were pulled off the roads.
 * What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**

This film is highly focused on the plight of the electric car in the United States, but despite its narrow focus, the film manages to implicate many institutions and related issues into its arguments. The first of these problems is the persuasive and economic power of corporations. In 1990, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate, which basically said that if automakers wanted to sell cars in California, some of these cars must be zero-emissions vehicles. The percentage of vehicles that must be zero-emissions would progressively rise, from 2% in 1998, to 5% in 2001, and increasing to 10% in 2003. In response to this, General Motors created the EV1. Soon after the mandate was put in place, California was pressured to drop it by “consumer groups” that were only consumer groups in name. These groups were funded almost entirely by oil companies, and these companies put articles in newspapers saying things to undermine the mandate, like how the environmental benefits of electric vehicles (EVs) are dubious.
 * What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**

After California altered its mandate to say that car companies would have to produce EVs according to the demand for them, GM began to discredit its own product, the EV1. Advertising used to sell other cars was not used to sell the EV1, as GM instead used an ad campaign that seemed more likely to scare potential buyers away. EV1 sellers would run out of cars to lease to people so quickly, that they had to begin making case-statements by selling the few left to celebrities like Ted Danson and Mel Gibson. The person who sold the car to Mel Gibson actually had to help him write a resume, as the people who held these cars didn’t think he was worth a car. Yet GM denied there were many people on the waiting list. The one seller featured in the film said there were thousands of people on those waiting lists. GM said that after they explained the limitations of the cars to these people, only 50 were willing to lease them, but good car selling technique normally does not involve explaining the bad points of the car before selling it.

Cooperation between the automaker corporations and the government way also shown, as shown when several major automakers led by GM filed a joint suit against CARB to get them to repeal their mandate. The Bush administration joined in on this lawsuit on the side of the auto industry. Right after that, in his State of the Union Address, Pres. George W. Bush announced $1.2 billion in federal grants for the research of hydrogen-powered transportation technology. The big oil companies also got behind hydrogen power for the future, but the problem, or maybe the benefit for them, is that practical hydrogen-powered transportation is at least ten years away, while electric vehicles were here now. That is, until the automakers that had created them took them out of the hands of the people who leased them and destroyed the cars.

The part I found most compelling was the complete reversal on position that GM went through after its creation of the EV1. After the mandate was passed, GM developed this car off of the successful Impact prototype. The concept was proven to work, and it was in high demand in the areas it was allowed to be leased in. When oil companies began to take actions to curb public enthusiasm by creating “consumer groups” of “concerned citizens,” and doing many other things to get CARB to reverse its mandate, GM and other car companies began to pressure California as well. When they relaxed the standards, GM then seemed to begin the attack on its own product. They denied there was substantial interest, as they said out of the thousands of names on the waiting list for the cars, only 50 people were willing to sign a lease agreement.
 * What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**

Their ad campaigns were nothing like advertising proven to sell cars before, with silhouettes and a somber setting that seemed to alienate and scare the consumer away. They claimed people wouldn’t buy it because it was too expensive, and the price could not be brought down. However, one of the former EV1 sales representatives said that only four were produced a day at the factory, a speed much slower than other cars are produced. Actually mass producing these cars would have brought down the price significantly. When GM acquired Hummer in 1999, one month later the one factory producing EV1’s was shut down. All the EV1 were taken back from customers by 2004, and all but a few were taken away and destroyed. The remaining few that exist were donated to museums and universities, but were deactivated first, and GM attached the stipulation that it cannot be reactivated and/or driven on public roads. To me, this chain of events doesn’t sound like a normal failed product, but rather a product that was set up to fail.

The film tried to model the film around the death of the electric vehicle, and the murder investigation to find its killer. I found the premise to be a frivolous mechanism in the movie, as the main points of the movie were really discussed before the film was broken down into a list of suspects and the judgment of their guilt. It also seemed like an afterthought to compliment the EV funeral that was an actual public awareness event. The consumer section, where the role the consumer played in the demise of the electric car, seemed to be glossed over very quickly, having spent maybe 1-2 minutes on it. When the judgment portion came, the film found the automakers, the oil companies, CARB, the consumers and the hydrogen fuel cell to be guilty, with the only party not guilty being the batteries. This was a rushed segment, and partly because of that not a very convincing one.
 * What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?**

This film best addresses those people who were already interested in the electric cars and those who believe in the collusion between the oil and car companies. The film is directed at people who already have the opinion that these modern EV’s were the solution for personal transportation for today, and were destroyed because of it, as if anyone else was watching it, they would not be convinced by the majority of the information presented, as much of it was conjecture from people that were intimately related to the situation. A person who believes that the electric vehicle was a failure and deserved to be removed from the market would not be swayed by this movie. People interested in EV’s and even in alternative energies would empathize with the EV drivers in this film, while the only thing most other people would get out of this film would be that these modern electric vehicles existed, as not many people knew about them.
 * What audiences does the film best address? Why?**

The movie uses a strange mix of personal stories and factual and historical segments that leave the viewer wanting for more of one and less of the other. I think that this film would be more applicable and more accessible to a broader audience if the film was still historical, but instead of all the personal stories the film included mainly the data on the fuel consumption for the average car at that time, the number of EV’s leased in the time they were available, the specifications of these vehicles, their energy consumption compared to gas-powered cars, and things like that.
 * What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental education value?**

As the film was more about the story of the modern electric car, some solutions were given for the issue of its loss, but more solutions had to do with reducing pollution. An easy way to get a more fuel efficient hybrid car is through the plug-in modification to the Toyota Prius, which could get up to 150-180 mpg for the first 50-60 miles of the day. Use of wind energy is suggested as an alternative to fossil fuels, and solar energy is shown as well, along with new thin film advances to solar panels. Some electric cars that are still available or coming soon are shown, like the Tesla car and the new Zenn Neighborhood Electric Car.
 * What kinds of action and points of intervention are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective.**

I had known about the Tesla Motors Tesla electric roadster before, but the mention of it in the film piqued my interest again, so I checked it out. It turns out that Tesla Motors will be releasing a luxury sedan electric vehicle that starts at $45,000 and will have a range of 300 miles with a fully charged battery.
 * What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out?**

I also came across this car a French company designed to run only on compressed air. Apparently it can travel at speeds up to 70 mph and get up to 50 miles on a single charge. The car needs to be plugged in for about 4 hours every night. There are many critics, however, as there wouldn’t be many places to service this vehicle, and the method of converting electricity into compressed air in much less efficient than charging and running electric cars. Still, I thought that a car powered by compressed air is an interesting concept.


 * References:**

Tesla motors website: < [] >

Article on air-powered car: < [] >