OIL'S NOT WELL THAT ENDS WELL IN JOLTING DOC
By V.A. Musetto3 Stars
June 28, 2006
If $3-a-gallon gasoline doesn't make you hate the big oil companies, the shock ing revelations in Chris Paine's thought-provoking documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" will.
In 1990, California mandated that automakers sell a certain number of emissions-free cars each year. So GM started turning out electric cars - the sporty EV1 (available by lease only) - and people (Paine among them) starting driving - and loving - them.
A few years later, California backed down - under outside corporate pressure, according to Paine - giving GM an excuse to stop making electric cars, which would spell doom for oil companies, your neighborhood rip-off mechanic and makers of car parts.
(A typical maintenance check of an electric car consisted of changing the windshield-washer fluid and rotating the tires.)
Just to make sure the E car wouldn't return from the dead, GM seized all but one (which is in a museum somewhere) and had them crushed and mangled in the Arizona desert.
Paine doesn't hide his liberal mind-set, but he lets all sides - from GM suits to Ralph Nader - have their say. By the closing credits, there's little doubt who killed the electric car.
