Who Killed the Electric Car?

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Product Details

Actor : Martin Sheen
Format : AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Aspect Ratio : 1.78:1
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0043396152861
Product Group : DVD
Region Code : 99
Release Date : 2006-11-14
Running Time : 93minutes
Studio : Sony Pictures
UPC : 043396152861

ASIN : B000I5Y8FU

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Editorial Reviews

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

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

Customer Reviews

General Motors Blew It! (2008-08-28)

The film reminded me about another movie, "Tucker, the Man and His Dream" which also tells of a better car that was pushed off the market by those who want "free enterprise" but only for themselves, not their would-be competitors.In our capitalist system, General Motors is, like any other publicly-held corporation, supposed to be in business to make money for its stockholders. In killing the EV-1, General Motors put the interests of the oil companies ahead of its shareholders. Less than a year ago, before the current spike in oil prices, GM's stock was over $35 a share. Today it is at $10. If GM had kept making EV-1 for those people who wanted them, they would have owned the automobile market today and their stock price would be through the roof! Talk about short-sightedness.

Who indeed... (2008-08-28)

I sat with my jaw hanging during this video. I am one who does not like to subscribe to conspiracy theories since they leave so many of us disempowered... however there is no denying the facts of this film. General Motors is applauded for their work on an electric vehicle today. Where is the outcry for their blatant disregard for the common good in the past when they destroyed their own product in order to keep their pockets lined and to keep us dependent on fossil fuel?

watch this DVD or suffer the consequences (2008-08-28)

Paranoid about the role of big oil in keeping us dependent on oil and foreign oil in particular (Big Oil has offshore bank accounts loaded with cash) Their power in your daily life is immense Watch the story of the EV1

This is the real business world (2008-08-24)

Very thought provoking and a very timely topic. The topic this movie addresses, is very important when considering everything from...1. Buying a car2. Choosing a church to attend3. Electing county school board members4. Electing a U.S. PresidentDetroit (US Auto Industry Exec's) have made their own bed. Now they want us to bail them out. This is an argument to put more engineers in office in Washington.

Sad truth about our country's addiction to monetary profits (2008-08-23)

I had never even HEARD of the EV1, and I was living in Michigan (home of GM) during the time those cars were released. I wish that these cars could have gotten more support from their makers (and that they could have made a 4 seater)! And its too bad that better technology exists, but politics keep it out of the public's hands. This is an excellent, eye opening movie for anyone who hates car pollution.

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