Electric-car docu zaps automakers
By Jack Matthews, New York Daily News3 Stars
June 30, 2006
What do you remember about the electric car introduced by General Motors in the mid- 1990s as the automobile of the 21st century?
Former drivers of GM's EV1 interviewed in Chris Paine's documentary remember it with a fondness reserved for late pets, and with the price of gasoline these days, you will want to adopt one the moment you leave the theater.
But you can't. The EV1, and comparable models from Ford and Toyota, no longer exist.
In a sad twist of technological birth and infanticide, General Motors - with assists from the oil industry, the Bush administration, cowardly California energy officials and apathetic consumers - doomed the future car to the literal scrap heap of history.
Although I'm not convinced Paine makes an airtight case against the alleged killers of the EV1, his film certainly makes the case that if the electric cars were available today in mass quantities at competitive prices, they would sell like "Girls Gone Wild" videos.
The EV1 was fast, stylish and required very little maintenance. Its main limitation - the first model could go only 60 miles between charges - was quickly overcome with a new battery that doubled its range.
But by that time, GM and the others had decided to pull the cars off the market. After having spent more than $1 billion on development and getting only 800 of them on the road, they decided against mass production.
The EV1s were recalled at the end of their three-year leases (none was actually sold), and, as it is painfully chronicled in the documentary, most of them were surreptitiously shipped to junkyards and shredded.
Paine lays out his case like a prosecutor, placing GM and the other defendants in the metaphorical dock.
The evidence suggests that the oil industry spent money maligning the car out of fear of competition. The Bush administration argued in favor of developing hybrids and the hydrogen fuel cell, because they still burn oil. Paine also blames members of the California Air Resources Board for rescinding a 1990 zero-emissions law that made it mandatory for carmakers to produce electric cars in quantity by the year 2003.
In the film, and in a national newspaper ad this week (which directs readers to its Web site), GM blames lack of consumer interest for the fate of EV1, which brings me back to my original question: What do you remember about the electric car?
The answer for most of us is: not much. Whether that's because GM, as the film charges, failed to properly market it, or we just weren't ready to plug our cars in when gasoline cost about $1.50 a gallon, it's our loss.
