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Who Killed the Electric Car? | 
 enlarge | Actor: Martin Sheen
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy Used: $7.75
You Save: $7.19 (48%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  289 reviews
Sales Rank: 1103
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 93
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: COLD15286D
UPC: 043396152861
EAN: 0043396152861
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Release Date: November 14, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Disc and case guaranteed to be in very good condition, & Guaranteed to play great. All DVD upgrades to 1st Class
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Product Description
In 1996 electric cars began to appear on raods all over california. They were quiet fast produced no exhaust & ran without gasoline. 10 years later these futuristic cars were almot entirely gone. What happened? why should we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car? Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 03/25/2008 Run time: 91 minutes Rating: Pg
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: Read 284 more reviews...
 A "Who Done It" for the auto industry. July 20, 2006
142 out of 151 found this review helpful
A great film about another sorry episode in the history of America's automobile and energy industry. Set as a "Who-Done-It", the film chronicles how short sighted automakers (especially GM) develop great electric cars in response to the California ZEV mandate only to do everything in their power - from suing the state, making ridiculous ads, creating a red-tape filled lease application process - to kill them. Consumers buy bigger and bigger vehicles (whether they need them or not). Government officials and staffers bow to the pressure of intense lobbying, and conflicts of interest. The sad fate of most of the EVs produced during the late '90s to 2002 is revealed.
GM, especially, comes off as incredibly vindictive. What automaker ever tracked down every car of any model and crushed them (not the Corvair, Edsel, etc.)? Even after loyal drivers pleaded to keep them, offering to buy the last remaining EV1s with junk titles at lease buyout prices, GM went out of its way to ensure that the EV1 was history.
The passion of GM's EV specialist Chelsea Sexton for the EV1 makes her the star of the movie. One can only imagine what the engineers who designed the EV1 felt when their babies were being crushed.
But the movie ends on a hopeful note. We may never see the EV1 again, but vehicles using electric drive systems, either as full EVs (which are coming from several start-up companies) or plug-in hybrids, must inevitably roam the roads. The upward trend in gasoline prices, the effects of global warming, the inherent efficiency of electric drive trains, the continued improvement of battery technology, and the upcoming reevaluation of the ZEV Mandate guarantee it.
A good look at a good idea. July 16, 2006
119 out of 128 found this review helpful
This documentary provides a fascinating look at how big corporations can get away with murder. The electric cars were quite popular a decade ago but are now non-existent, this explains why. There were less breakdowns in the electric car and of course no gasoline. The result was that GM could not have people driving around in reliable transportation, where would they make money on repairs? The other factor is oil companies, with no legitimate competitor they could do whatever they wanted and have. Strange that the owners (or leasees since they were not for sale) were not allowed to keep their cars after the California law was repealed. Check it out.
WKtEC Kicks GM in the Butt July 19, 2006
27 out of 29 found this review helpful
Well, all you sceptics out there--see it and weep! Yes, there was an incredibly cool, sexy two seater ZEV on the road and no, you didn't get to drive it...but I did. For three years I had the fun (and so did everybody I gave a ride to). Also, with a Time of Usage meter installed on my house, I charged at night (still do) at a lower rate--PLUS, get this, I have a 16 panel solar array on my roof which not only lowers my bill, but means my (gasp!) Toyota RAV4 EV license IM SOLAR is not lying. Clean, clean, clean! See this movie and get those auto makers to give you some more options! Way to go, Chris Paine et al.
Outstanding October 28, 2006
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
I drove the EV1 for five years, so some might say I am not exactly objective on this subject. Be that as it may, this movie utterly demolishes GM's lame propaganda that nobody wants to drive an EV. GM fully *intended* the EV1 to fail; while it may have cost a billion dollars to develop, that was small potatoes compared to the value (to GM) of destroying California's zero-emission mandate and keeping it from spreading to other states.
Despite extreme scarcity, highly restrictive lease terms and nearly non-existent advertising, the EV1 became an unexpected success. The unbridled enthusiasm of its drivers, splendidly depicted in this movie, so embarassed GM that they eventually recalled and destroyed every EV1 with a vindictiveness that stunned even those of us who thought we harbored no illusions about GM's motives.
The EV1 may be dead, a victim of corporate greed and short-sightedness. But no one who has ever thought seriously about the subject can doubt that the EV will return; the only open question is *when*. Hopefully this movie will remain as an inspiration, and help make that day sooner rather than later.
A tragic love affair and car crushing July 24, 2006
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Chris Paine does an awesome job telling the story of the modern electric vehicle. This tale should please everybody: It's a love story -- I laughed, I cried. It's a who-done-it mystery. It's about a car that was a real kick in the pants to drive.
Oh, there are a few that won't like it -- they don't like the fact that it didn't use any fossil fuels.
EVs may not be for everybody -- but the ones that were created *SHOULD* have been allowed to be driven and not taken back forcably and then crushed.
GM wonders why it's going bankrupt and Toyota is making money hand-over fist? Toyota didn't allow a market setting product to wither on the vine -- it supported the Prius' slow start and now it's reaping the benefits from that investment. GM could have had that with the massive lead it had in EVs.
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