I was watching the movie, “Who killed the Electric Car.” I was touched by the film and shocked by the fact that this movie was released and was not really a block buster. As a matter of fact, I did not know about this movie, until 1 year after its release.
The movie will give you insights about what happened to the electric car EV1, introduced by GM, and why it never became a success. The movie does a good job putting together a list of reasons that could have led to GM taking those cars off the streets.
The Car:
Produced between 1996 and 199. It was probably ahead of its time. It had regenerative brakes, traction control, self-healing tires, composite or alloy frame, and keyless entry. It was capable of rolling for around 100 miles with a single charge. The car did not have many moving parts, and maintenance was very easy.
The reasons behind car failure.
Too expensive to manufacture. It cost around 80k to manufacture each if you weight the R&D cost. But like any new technology, the R&D cost goes down as quantities goes up.
Not a clean alternative. A number of oil companies and the government actually, used the premise: A high percentage of the electricity produced in the US does not use clean, or renewable sources. Having million of those devices does not necessary makes the environment cleaner. It does reduce dependency to oil.
The public was not ready for it. People are not willing to pay a premium for a car in a society where demand for performance and size is going up.
Government. The government gives generous tax breaks to trucks, and big SUV owners.
The movie will leave you with a very sour feeling. Evolving to the point where electric vehicles will be available, and other forms of technologies that are necessary to our own good are not impossible to get or expensive for that matter, will take work from, us, the government, and the whole industry. This is not easy, given the fact that the industry is driven by profits, and people are driven by their values and convictions. Our values are shaped by the media and the media is controlled by profits.
Watched “Who Killed the Electric Car” recently, great documentary, then i heard that GM is making another run at the electric car (yay for progress!) i just hope development of this technology can go on unhindered by the corporations that depend on oil consumption
Saw a program on local PBS that showed GM trying its hand at electric cars in 1967 with a Corvair. Can’t find anything on the web but the show had pictures of the car with huge batteries in the “trunk” and a voltage guage in it. Has anybody else seen this and if so where can I find documentation and pictures. We had two of these cars when I was a kid and my dad says the story is BS. Or was it Ralph Nader that really killed the electric car?