As Ernest Callenbach might say, this should be in the "political fiction" category, but since most folks wouldn't know to look for a category like that, I'll put this new favorite "must see" documentary here...

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Product Description

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 futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened? Why should we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car?SPECIAL FEATURES:12 Deleted ScenesDocumentary: "Jump-Starting the Future"Music Video: Meeky Rosie's "Forever"System Requirements:Run Time: 91 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: PG UPC: 043396152861 Manufacturer No: 15286

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #643 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2006-11-14
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.com
It begins with a solemn funeral…for a car. By the end of Chris Paine's lively and informative documentary, the idea doesn't seem quite so strange. As narrator Martin Sheen notes, "They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline." Paine proceeds to show how this unique vehicle came into being and why General Motors ended up reclaiming its once-prized creation less than a decade later. He begins 100 years ago with the original electric car. By the 1920s, the internal-combustion engine had rendered it obsolete. By the 1980s, however, car companies started exploring alternative energy sources, like solar power. This, in turn, led to the late, great battery-powered EV1. Throughout, Paine deftly translates hard science and complex politics, such as California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate, into lay person's terms (director Alex Gibney, Oscar-nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, served as consulting producer). And everyone gets the chance to have their say: engineers, politicians, protesters, and petroleum spokespeople--even celebrity drivers, like Peter Horton, Alexandra Paul, and a wild man beard-sporting Mel Gibson. But the most persuasive participant is former Saturn employee Chelsea Sexton. Promoting the benefits of the EV1 was more than a job to her, and she continues to lobby for more environmentally friendly options. Sexton provides the small ray of hope Paine's film so desperately needs. Who Killed the Electric Car? is, otherwise, a tremendously sobering experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Stills from Who Killed the Electric Car? (click for larger image)

Writer/Director Chris Paine Blogs About Who Killed the Electric Car

When Who Killed the Electric Car premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (on the same weekend as An Inconvenient Truth), we wondered whether movie goers were ready for a new kind of 'action film'. Fortunately people jumped onboard and this seems even more true today.

We put this DVD together after the release of the film to include a dozen short scenes we couldn't quite fit into our story. My favorite is one with Stan and Iris Ovshinsky who developed the revolutionary battery technology that powered GM's electric car (and today's Prius). These two brilliant octogenarians took our small camera crew on a Willy Wonka style tour of their inventions including the world's largest thin film solar cell factory. As we stood under a football field size machine in Troy Michigan, I blustered "Is solar power back?" Stan exclaimed " What?! Solar never went away... What was back was backward thinking!" And as his machine cranked out miles of solar cells above us, we knew he was right.

I'm especially glad that the optimistic last scene of Who Killed the Electric Car has proven that we weren't just wishful thinkers when we finished our edit. The clips feature the first glimpse of the ultra fast Tesla electric sports prototype as well the Zenn neighborhood electric vehicle. Both cars are starting to roll off production lines today. And while the State of California (and some car companies) are still gambling on hydrogen fuel cells, plug-in cars are proving to be more environmentally efficient and popular. Early adopters deserve a lot of the credit. Oil companies and the internal combustion engine monopoly may have "killed" thousands of electric cars (EVs) in the 1990s, but EVs are coming back. (Stay tuned for next film...)

I hope you'll find our documentary takes you on a wild ride out of the 20th century and into the 21st. --Chris Paine, Writer/Director

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Customer Reviews

Excellent film
I borrowed this film from my local library and was impressed -- the film goes through the history of the electric car and proceeds to tell the tragic story of GM's EV1, in the end convincing the viewer of the conspiracy by the oil companies to destroy the EV1, as it threatened their profits. I enjoyed the film so much that I decided to buy a copy of the DVD for my father & mother so that they could watch it.

The Future
This is an awesome DVD that fills in the blanks about the EV1 for those of us who don't remember it, who never got to drive it, and who wondered what happened to it.

the electric car is not dead
It almost seemed a little too good to be true... a car that runs on 100% electricity, has zero emissions and can go as fast as any combustion engine car. As I was watching this documentary, I was trying to figure out what some of the main drawbacks were because with any new technology, there are always going to be unforseen problems and concerns. I do believe that the oil companies and car manufacturers definately have lots to lose in the wide spread sale of electric cars but there are issues with the practicality of these electric cars as well. For examble... it takes about 8 hours to charge them so you'd have to make sure you don't travel too far without having it fully charged. From the looks of them, they required a specialized plug for charging, not a standard household plug.

All issues aside, we are about to see a re-emirgence of the electric car. Today, people can have their Priuses modified to become plug-in hybrids. Both GM and Chevy plan to release fully electric and plug-in electric hybrids as soon as 2010. It seem as though all of the problems with the EV1 have been eliminated. Some have suggested that the electric cars will force us to build more power plants. From my understanding, they have hybrid solar cars which will be available soon.

This is a must watch documentary which gets us thinking about how big businesses run everything and will do everything they can to protect their assets. After watching this video, you'll understand why the new electric cars will be so expensive. Also, you'll understand why most of them will not be fully electric, but electric/gas hybrids.