http://au.rottentoma … ed_the_electric_car/
Yes, who DID kill the Electric car?
This is a movie I highly suggest everyone should watch. A real eye opener.
This is not a fictional film but a documentary. If you are not going to watch the movie, spend 5 minutes reading the rest of this entry and save yourself an hour and a half of movie watching. If you want to watch this movie, disregard.
I had an idea of what was going to presented thinking I knew it all when in fact, it covers a lot without being too rushed to explain so much in a short time leaving most people confused.
It explains that C.A.R.B. (California Air Resources Board) started a strict rule in 1990 to ensure that at least 10% of all cars on the road had to be electric by 2000. It delve into how all the car companies both complied and argued the rule. GM (General Motors) were the first to pioneer EV1 (with other companies soon to follow like the Ford Th!nk. There are interviews with people of importance and relevance whilst not shedding particularly positive light on many of its targets. It shows how close the relationship is between politician, car manufacturer CEOs and Oil Companies prevent the world from becoming a better place to be due to greed and control. I gotta give those environmental activists A+ for trying to keep the electric car from going to the bottom of the waste heap but essentially, money talks and bullshit walks. You can protest all you like but the only way an idea like this can come to fruition is by a huge monetary backing which is what GM were prepared to do (up to a point) to see if these electric cars were a viable profit for the company. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, with any corporation or company the only line that they care about is the bottom line and it does NOT turn a profit, it gets dropped quicker than a handful of rodent shit.
There was lies after lies on why it would not take off and false promises like how they marketed their product. And really, this can not be solely blamed on GM although it was the focal point for a lot of the film. Because if any of the other cars were marketed properly, it would have created a competitive industry in which the electric car could have been developed, upgraded and continually built and designed better. It was demonstrated that the Hummer was advertised against the EV1 as a more superior machine and sold more than the EV1. Of course, the Hummer consuming ridiculous amount of petrol. GM blamed the consumer for not wanting an EV1 but there were lists of people who DID want an EV1 and they were not being made fast enough to respond to demand. Then GM said they could not persuade the consumers mind what they wanted. When people said they didn’t want a Hummer, they were advertised as being large, safe cars on the road. And they cost more but GM would not sell a EV1. They were for lease only so when the lease ran out, instead of having the option to renew, they took all the cars and crushed them all up and put them through a shredder quite like the paper kind.
One of the arguments was that the battery in them would only 80 miles before it needed to be recharged. The amazing thing was that a better battery was already available to put into the electric car that would have done 300 miles before a battery recharge. So why didn’t they? Recharging was extremely cheap. You had something you install in your home or do it at a recharging station. But consumers are part to blame because even though the initial release of the car could only do 80 miles per trip, consumers were scared that it wouldn’t be enough when it was shown that on average, consumers were only doing 28 miles per day. People said it was slow and although that was sort of true (with some of the models it could only do 90k/hour - Ford Th!nk being one of them), the GM EV1 was capable of doing 90 miles an hour which far exceeds any of our speed restrictions on our roads. And as demonstrated by numerous videos shows, it was not slow to take off, either.
Once the car was finally killed it still didn’t really get rid of the major problem at hand: when the petroleum supplies run out, where do you go from here? The initial response was that there was deposits in Well, first it was suggested that Alaska has enough deposits to fuel all of America for just over a week. Then, there was the suggestion of a Hydrogen-fueled car. It had Bush believing that this was a remarkable piece of technology but as the movie went on to explain, the car companies only planned on using this as a last resort and said it is still 30+ years off being released to the public as it was still in the design/construction phase. This was followed in the movie with a clip of a gentleman who was trialling out a Ford-produced Hydrogen car. This car was about to get 120 miles to a tank. If they are turning to Hydrogen as an alternative, either we have run out of Petrol or the only people would could afford it were the wealthy. The only problem with it (apart from the fact that you have to replace every petrol station with a hydrogen station which would cost phenomenal amounts of money), was that Hydrogen itself is an expensive resource. Petrol has (over) tripled in price over in the States from 3 years ago. The price of a Gallon (~3.8 litres) is now about $3.50USD ($4.20AUD). In Australia we pay more than that. I assume this is due to transportation costs. Where is the line where people are going to say, “I’m not going pay that for Petrol. Fuck that.”?
Why does any of this matter? Because in places like California (New York, Mexico City, Etc), to be blunt, their air is fucked. People are developing breathing problems, lung infections and all sorts of nasty shit. In the early 1990s, they had to send out a level 1 smog warning to California because their air has become so poor. What is fucked about this, is these sorts of physical ailments problems began popping up around the late 80s/early 90s. So if it were bad then, today it must be the pits to live in. One of the things were take for granted where we live - clean air. Although with our ever-growing population, this could happen to us too one day. The only way this could happen is if our population reached the heights similar to that of the forementioned cities in the lifetime of petrol/oil.
The film did end on a high note. While everything had been shot down for the Electric car and plans to make the car again any time soon were completely destroyed, car companies did eventually comply (somewhat) by introducing hybrid cars which are much more fuel efficient (the Korean made cars being far more efficient than American made). And the people who tried so hard for the EV1 have now gone on to other environmentally beneficial projects.
This movie was not only thought provoking, but just makes you angry at greed and capitalism at the expense of the environment. Plus, I also learnt a whole different side that I wasn’t aware of.
It’s up there with other movies like, The Corporation.
