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Who Killed the Electric Car?

Steven Adamson writes "“Who Killed the Electric Car?” A benefit for Livable Place with filmmaker Chris Paine

Portland prides itself on being a leader in sustainability, and was recently proclaimed America’s “Most Sustainable City.” There are more Prius hybrid cars in Oregon than in any other state. If electric cars were on the market, Oregonians would buy them. In 1996 electric cars began to appear on the roads of California, but now they are gone. What happened? Portlanders will want to know WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?

Film Director Chris Paine leased an all-electric EVI car from General Motors in 1997. It was quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, ran without gasoline, and was virtually maintenance free. Plugging it into a charger every night cost $3. “Politics, economics, and corporate power stopped California’s electric car program in its tracks,” said Paine who considered stealing his car when it was taken back. GM refused an offer of $1.8 million to buy 78 of the cars, and instead they were crushed in the Arizona dessert. Paine decided to investigate. “What began as a series of questions began to turn the story into a murder mystery. Some of the evidence still shocks me.”

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WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects, and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business. It explains why America can’t break it’s addiction to gasoline. It’s a story everyone who owns an automobile should see.

There will be a benefit preview screening of WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? with Director, Chris Paine on Wednesday, July 12 at 7:00 at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd. Admission is $10 and advance tickets are available on-line at www.hollywoodtheatre.org/calendar/, or at the door. Proceeds benefit Livable Place.

Livable Place

Livable Place is a Portland, Oregon, based nonprofit organization that uses creative outreach to empower people to create more sustainable and livable communities. Livable Place is home of the PINE Film Festival and the Portland Film Forum.

Phone: 503-248-0104 Email: inbox@livableplace.org. Web: www.livableplace.org."

Posted: Friday June 30, @07:44AM

on this story

Who Killed the Electric Car? (Score:3, Interesting)

by katenola (704) on Saturday July 01, @07:56AM (#926)
I just heard an interview on NPR's Morning Edition, and NOW recently did an entire show on this, and there was a great preview for the film before "An Inconvenient Truth." I would say that this is a must-see movie with a great opportunity to meet the filmmaker. It's especially interesting since GM is having major problems at the moment. I didn't have much sympathy for them before I heard about this story.

See "Who Killed the Electric Car" (Score:1)

by Laughingwolf (510) on Wednesday August 23, @11:27AM (#938)
If you missed the benefit screening, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is still showing at the Fox Tower (discount matinees before 6pm). Otherwise, there's an interesting interative summary from the film at
  http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectricca r/electric.html
There are also two trailers and the NOW PBS interview mentioned in the last comment at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgmJl579Pz0&mode=re lated&search=WHO%20KILLED%20THE%20ELECTRIC%20CAR%3 F
The following link is a newspaper column by an owner who is still driving one of the Toyota RAV 4 EV's that were pulled from the market to make way for Toyota's hybrids
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/07/25/paul.commentary/i ndex.html