the electric car is dead…

I’ve just seen the Sony Classics film, Who Killed The Electric Car? It’s the fascinating story about how the electic vehicle (EV) went from being more popular than the petrol-driven automobile 100 years ago, to one of the most marginalised eco-friendly products of the 21st century. But it didn’t have to be that way. Consumers, the oil industry, car makers and government all had a hand in burying what was (is) a great invention. The plot centres around the actions of multinational car companies (such as GM) who leased cutting-edge EVs (including the much-loved EV1) in the 1990s, before recalling and destroying these cars just a couple of years ago against the wishes of the drivers, who offered to buy the vehicles outright. The film also questions the wisdom of the California Air Resources Board when it switched its support from here-and-now EVs to some-time-in-the-future hydrogen fuel cars.