Posted on 05/24/2006 12:29:25 AM PDT by BlueSky194
In 1996 a number of EV-1 electric cars began appearing on California's highways. The General Motors-produced vehicle was fast, ran quietly, produced no polluting exhaust and it ran without gasoline and then, suddenly, it was gone.
The documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, from producer Dean Devlin and filmmaker Chris Paine, chronicles the life and mysterious death of the groundbreaking vehicle, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business. Filmmakers make the case that the death of the EV-1 was, in fact, a murder. They claim to show that production of the revolutionary car was halted due to pressure from industries that would be harmed by the proliferation of electric car technology.
Who Killed the Electric Car?, a 2006 selection at the Tribeca and Sundance film festivals, interviews and investigates automakers, legislators, engineers, consumers and car enthusiasts from Los Angeles to Detroit, to work through motives and alibis, and to solve the complex mystery.
Who Killed the Electric Car?, from Sony Pictures Classics, opens in New York and L.A. on June 28 and will further expand this summer. It's been rated PG for "brief mild language."
Yawn. Technologies don't die. If that car were to become the most viable technology today, it would quickly be adopted and mass produced. It hasn't been so it is not.
Back then, the cost of the electricity was more expensive than gas. Also, that was about the time the service stations started charging for air for your tires.
Uh, consumers?
Electric cars have been around longer than gas powered ones. You would think that if they were a good idea, they would have worked all the bugs out by now, and we would all be driving one.
It actually is a case for Charles Darwin, the best technology ends up beating an inferior one. It is only the socialist that keep pushing failed ideas and technology.
Try looking for facts instead of falling for liberal propaganda.
I think the problem was, it took 6 hours to charge the battery.
Beta vs VHS, anyone?
George W. Bush. . .did NOT do it!
Let's see: GM, in a struggle for its life, spends billions to bring an electric car to market ... and then cancels it under pressure from the spark plug industry?
Or maybe it was Exxon -- that's it!!! The oil companies secretly control GM!!! It's how they dispose of their huge profits!!!
Life sure is interesting in the psycho wards.
If I remember correctly, battery life was approximately 3 - 4 years. Then they had to be disposed of correctly and replaced. The cost of doing this was, if I rememebr, around $4,000 to $6,000. That was enought "sticker shock" to do the dirty deed.
Who keeps back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Guttenberg... a star?
I think it was the 500 mile long extension cord.
Adam Smith did it. An old Scotsman was the single factor in killing the EV-1. He did it with his "invisible hand".
More like a suicide.
If memory serves, the death of the EV1 had more to do with charging standards (inductive vs conductive). The EV1 was test marketed in the state of CA, where GM put up over 200 inductive charging stations to service the leased EV1s (you could only lease them IIRC) Things went well for a while until the then CA legislature voted to make conductive charging the state standard. This allowed much federal research money to go to Cal-Tech where most of the conductive charging research was done. Meanwhile GM had to pull all of it's non-standard charging stations and not renew the leases on the EV1s.
Who killed the electric car?
The laws of physics.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.