Who Reported The Electric Car?

Reviewed by John Hartl
July 14th, 2006

Film probes demolition of alternative-fuel vehicles

Imagine if the automobiles in Disney/Pixar's "Cars" were rounded up, taken to the Arizona desert to be crushed, then turned into scrap metal. The outrage would be deafening, because the cartoon cars in the movie have been Disneyfied/Pixared into people.

But even when the cars are not given human traits, even when they're clearly made of metal and glass, you may find yourself shuddering at the sight. There's something deeply disturbing about the image of hundreds of cars, all of them in good if not perfect condition, being systematically and quietly demolished.

Why would General Motors have produced and leased hundreds of electric cars in the late 1990s, only to recall almost all of them to be destroyed a few years later? Why would they collect the cars from satisfied customers and not allow them to buy the vehicles? (Toyota had a similar policy.)

The answers are suggested in Chris Paine's documentary whodunit, "Who Killed the Electric Car?," which rounds up a collection of suspects to blame — Big Oil, the media, an indifferent public, California's Air Resources Board. But you still find yourself wondering why the company would behave as if the cars had never existed.

The secrecy surrounding their destruction is especially disturbing. Spin doctors try to make sense of the program, claiming that the cars failed because of lack of demand. But Paine focuses on the enthusiasm of the cars' promoters and customers, who are largely dumbfounded that their favorite automobiles were taken from them.

An electric-car enthusiast himself, Paine includes testimony from Tom Hanks (who tells David Letterman about the glories of driving an electric), Mel Gibson (who now has the look of a bearded prophet), Phyllis Diller (who is old enough to remember the first electric vehicles), Peter Horton and many others who discuss their mostly happy experiences with quiet, smog-busting cars that aren't affected by soaring gasoline prices. Wistful to the end, Horton behaves as if he's been separated from a lifelong pal.

"Who Killed the Electric Car?" has been called "a liberal fairy tale" that feeds conspiracy theories. But it's hard to see what's being politicized in the images of corporate waste and folly on view here. Like "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," the movie is ultimately a nonpartisan warning.