By Judith Lewis
"Who Killed The Electric Car?"
GO
Chris Paine’s lively investigation into the demise of General
Motors’ zero-emission EV1, Who Killed the Electric Car? is neither
the smoking-gun indictment of the auto industry nor the grassy-knoll
petroleum-boardroom plot its title and marketing suggest. Instead,
it’s a laudably complicated, if emotional and a little comic-book
goofy, story of how a confluence of forces — industry skepticism,
trained-seal lobbyists and, last but not least, consumer reluctance
— undermined the future of a quiet little bean of mobile metal
that the anointed few who could afford to lease it passionately adored.
Paine rounds up a delightfully ragged panel of “experts”
for the film, including Phyllis Diller (remembering the original early-century
EVs), local pro-solar activist Doug Korthof and radical Catholic Mel
Gibson, who leaven what might otherwise have been flat talking-head
testimony from key elected officials, oil-industry shills and engineers.
Narrated in onerous tones by Martin Sheen, the film also floats competing
views: In one camp, there’s Chelsea Sexton, the GM sales specialist
who became the EV1’s prime cheerleader, only to watch from the
inside as the company ignored demand; in the other, Los Angeles Times
columnist Dan Neil concludes that “If GM could make a car run
on pig manure, it would.” Paine has the wisdom to leave it up
to you which one speaks the truth, and his documentary has enough
integrity to let you walk away suspecting there’s more than
one answer.
