Who Killed the Electric Car is probably one of the most important movies out this year to see. It's not getting the billing or the attention that Al Gore's movie an Inconvenient Truth has gotten, yet it's as important if not more important. Who Killed the Electric Car not only gives insight into the auto industry but also tells a story of how government can bought and sold by powerful lobbyists and the ideas they convey.

Electric Cars: Really Good Ideas

The Electric Car was a reality and it worked well for a basic commuting vehicle around the suburbs and the city. Electric cars might not be able to pull a 5-ton horse trailer up a 6% grade for 10 miles, but they certainly could make a great commuting car. You don't need a massive Chevy Silverado to get around the city or the suburbs, and the reality is the vast majority of people live there. So it made a lot of sense particularly for city slickers. As the movie put it 90% of people could probably get away with an electric car for 90% of their trips.

Electric Car vehicles were in their infancy and very trendy buyers who wanted to make a political statement where demanding them, but as the technology they were developing through their expansion made them more widely available. Yet, they worked and they were fast. They might not work well in cold climates with existing technologies and their range might be limited to only about 100-150, but technology could have made it better including the newer and more expensive Lithium Ion batteries that all modern computer laptops have today.

Electric Cars are cheap to run. Even with energy prices going up for electricity, by charging electric cars at night when there is excess capacity on the grid, it's as the movie puts it, about 60˘ a gallon versus $3.00 a gallon at the pump. They are reliable and need little maintenance something this a real problem for the auto industry as they make a lot of money over repairs at dealerships and selling parts to keep their far more mechanically complex and unreliable gas engines running.

Guilty Parties: Many

The movie goes on to try to delineate a lot of guilty parties in the death of the electric car. They include the likely suspects of big oil, big auto, our fine president, and the consumer who was poorly informed about the realities of electric vehicles. While the movie didn't specific point out the real fault, it probably was group think. The General culture is one of that thinks they must have gasoline engines to power their cars, and they don't really understand electric or even the needs of the average city suburban and urban commuter.

The Bush administration was more then happy to see the electric car gone so it could promote what it's viewed a more practical reality – the fuel cell car. Unfortunately, electric technology is vastly more efficient and more refined. The only problem is it's much different then what we are used to having. We want to have liquid fuels and burn them as it seems normal. It's also politically convent for Bush to promote hydrogen that's largely created from natural gas by a process similar to combustion.

Most interestingly is the semi-official GM anti-movie article that claims the movie misrepresents the facts. It points out that GM spent $1 billion dollars to meet the California EV car mandate, now it has big hybrid vehicles and lots of cars that are flex-fuel and can use E85 and get poor gas mileage credits, is investing tons into fuel cells, and therefore must be green. It doesn't dispute that GM took back the vehicles and fought the mandate for no reason except that they didn't like the change.

The movie also blamed consumers or at least GM's interpretation of them. GM constantly claimed that nobody wanted the EV1, despite the fact that they had long waiting lists for these cars and that it was mostly environmental activists that bought up the first cars. It's not surprising that wealthy environmentalists were keen on these cars, but had we gone beyond the first and second generation with the California Air Board Mandate these vehicles could be the future of how people got around the city.

What the Movie Missed

The movie did distort part of the picture or omit certain realities. Automakers didn't just want the cars taken off the road to ensure that they would not be seen and remembered, they were legally obliged to make parts and tools to service these vehicles under federal law. Most auto mechanics shops were ill prepared to rebuild electric motors or work on these cars compared to the traditional gasoline engines they were trained on working with.

Mainstream acceptance of the electric car would dramatically increase the demand for electricity. While technologies for power distribution is greatly improving with supercooled transmitting lines, it would also mean new power lines would have to be built and power plants sited. This would be politically unpopular and opposed by many activists, despite all the environmental good it would do. Yet, it's easier to use a diverse source of energy to fuel power plants from clean wind and hydro to dirty coal and nuclear, something impossible for gas burning cars and trucks. One estimate still suggested that a coal plant providing electricity for EV cars would still be less polluting then lots of internal combustion engines burning gasoline.

It also didn't look at the possibilities that technology could take the electric car. There is so much we can do make cars and trucks more efficient if we only forced automakers to the right thing. Carbon-fiber frames would make vehicles much lighter, stronger, and durable, although it would drastic changes in manufacture and how we dispose of vehicles. LiIon batteries would greatly improve the efficiency.

Conclusions

This is an excellent movie that all should see. After seeing it, learn more about electric cars and the possibilities they raise if we could only get over our prejudices and think beyond gasoline engines. For now electric cars are just a memory, but they could be a reality. The technology is not perfect and has significant flaws compared to the gasoline engine, but these cars would be popular on eco-minded urban commuters. As technology improves it could be for the rest of us and eventually be the preferred way to get around the city and suburbs or even to power the truck you take over-roading.

Electric cars are simpler, more reliable, and better at least for some people. The movie asks some interesting questions and should prompt you to challenge our leaders. It is highly recommend that you go out and see it, at least in the few theaters like the Spectrum that are showing it.