Who Killed the Electric Car?

I referred to this documentary in an earlier blog.  I was intrigued enough to order the DVD from Amazon and I watched it with my son earlier this evening.  I said in the earlier entry that I'm always a bit wary of eco documentaries - they tend to be very selective and it's hard to know how balanced they are.  Taking those caveats into account, I was pretty impressed with this film.  In fact everyone should watch this and form their own opinions :-).  There's a more full account of the film and all it's players on Wikipedia here.


Of course the story is complicated and there's no single culprit - but my earlier comment on lack of sympathy for GM and others today stands.  The destruction of vehicles that people wanted to buy was criminal.  Toyota also destroyed vehicles - making their current claim to green credentials somewhat suspect.


The documentary looks at the various players and their motives.  It also focuses heavily on those who leased the EV-1 - but were refused the possibility of renewing those leases.  Another character who appears is  Stanford Ovshinsky, the inventor of the Nickel Metal Hydride battery.  The initial GM vehicles used lead acid batteries and had problems.  GM bought Ovshinky's company but took 2 years to incorporate the NimH batteries into their vehicles.  Perhaps that's how long it took - but they subsequently sold their stake.


Among those named as guilty are the car companies, the oil industry, the US government, the California Air Resource Board (CARB) and the consumer.


Another disturbing thing I learned from the film was that Reagan removed the solar cells that had been installed in the White House by Jimmy Carter.  Why?  What was the point of that? It might have been one thing never to install them, but to remove them was just a political stunt.


The decision by the CARB to pursue hydrogen fuel cells is also questioned - apparently Alan Lloyd the CARB chairman at the time had joined the California Fuel Cell Partnership - an obvious conflict of interests.


I was also struck by the guys responsible for servicing the electric vehicles - the battery issues aside, they didn't need new oil filters, never wore their brakes out and of course didn't need new exhausts.  In other words all the dirty bits associated with internal combustion engines don't exist - and more to the point, the huge spares and maintenance industry that goes with today's cars is greatly reduced.


I can't really do this documentary justice - I suggest watching the film or failing that read the Wikipedia entry and form your own conclusions.  There are also a few extras on the DVD, including some deleted scenes.


One thing I do intend to do as a result of watching this is to get a hold of Joseph Romm's book, The Hype About Hydrogen.