Who Killed The Electric Car?
The
big oil companies and their political allies may hate the very idea of the
electric car, but writer-director Chris Paine remains an unabashed fan of the
technology. His informative and entertaining documentary, which makes an
explicit link between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming, traces the
evolution and eventual marketplace failure of the innovative vehicle.
Laying the blame at the feet of General Motors (which eventually reclaimed the
first models leased to consumers and crushed and buried them in the Nevada
desert), apathetic politicians, and an unrepentant oil industry, Paine also
gives voice to the car’s staunch defenders, Mel Gibson among them. He may have a
clearly defined axe to grind but, in this war-ravaged and environmentally
distressed day and age, Paine’s passion is worth attending to.
Filmmaker Chris Payne explores the many factors that played into the ultimate
failure of the electric car to catch on with consumers, even as gas prices began
to skyrocket, in a thoughtful meditation on the increasingly important role that
renewable energy plays in modern society. Introduced as a means of providing an
alternative to increasing oil consumption and reducing pollution in 1996, the
electric car was all but a forgotten memory only a decade later – but why?








