Who Killed the Electric Car? | 
| Actor: Martin Sheen
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy New: $8.11
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Avg. Customer Rating:  274 reviews
Sales Rank: 415
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 93
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 15286
UPC: 043396152861
EAN: 0043396152861
ASIN: B000I5Y8FU
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Release Date: November 14, 2006
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
In 1996 electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline. Ten years later these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened? Why should we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car?SPECIAL FEATURES:12 Deleted ScenesDocumentary: "Jump-Starting the Future"Music Video: Meeky Rosie's "Forever"System Requirements:Run Time: 91 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: PG UPC: 043396152861 Manufacturer No: 15286
Amazon.com
It begins with a solemn funeral…for a car. By the end of Chris Paine's lively and informative documentary, the idea doesn't seem quite so strange. As narrator Martin Sheen notes, "They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline." Paine proceeds to show how this unique vehicle came into being and why General Motors ended up reclaiming its once-prized creation less than a decade later. He begins 100 years ago with the original electric car. By the 1920s, the internal-combustion engine had rendered it obsolete. By the 1980s, however, car companies started exploring alternative energy sources, like solar power. This, in turn, led to the late, great battery-powered EV1. Throughout, Paine deftly translates hard science and complex politics, such as California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate, into lay person's terms (director Alex Gibney, Oscar-nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, served as consulting producer). And everyone gets the chance to have their say: engineers, politicians, protesters, and petroleum spokespeople--even celebrity drivers, like Peter Horton, Alexandra Paul, and a wild man beard-sporting Mel Gibson. But the most persuasive participant is former Saturn employee Chelsea Sexton. Promoting the benefits of the EV1 was more than a job to her, and she continues to lobby for more environmentally friendly options. Sexton provides the small ray of hope Paine's film so desperately needs. Who Killed the Electric Car? is, otherwise, a tremendously sobering experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy Stills from Who Killed the Electric Car? (click for larger image) Writer/Director Chris Paine Blogs About Who Killed the Electric Car
 When Who Killed the Electric Car premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (on the same weekend as An Inconvenient Truth), we wondered whether movie goers were ready for a new kind of 'action film'. Fortunately people jumped onboard and this seems even more true today.
We put this DVD together after the release of the film to include a dozen short scenes we couldn't quite fit into our story. My favorite is one with Stan and Iris Ovshinsky who developed the revolutionary battery technology that powered GM's electric car (and today's Prius). These two brilliant octogenarians took our small camera crew on a Willy Wonka style tour of their inventions including the world's largest thin film solar cell factory. As we stood under a football field size machine in Troy Michigan, I blustered "Is solar power back?" Stan exclaimed " What?! Solar never went away... What was back was backward thinking!" And as his machine cranked out miles of solar cells above us, we knew he was right.
I'm especially glad that the optimistic last scene of Who Killed the Electric Car has proven that we weren't just wishful thinkers when we finished our edit. The clips feature the first glimpse of the ultra fast Tesla electric sports prototype as well the Zenn neighborhood electric vehicle. Both cars are starting to roll off production lines today. And while the State of California (and some car companies) are still gambling on hydrogen fuel cells, plug-in cars are proving to be more environmentally efficient and popular. Early adopters deserve a lot of the credit. Oil companies and the internal combustion engine monopoly may have "killed" thousands of electric cars (EVs) in the 1990s, but EVs are coming back. (Stay tuned for next film...)
I hope you'll find our documentary takes you on a wild ride out of the 20th century and into the 21st. --Chris Paine, Writer/Director
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| Customer Reviews: Read 269 more reviews...
 They made fools of us all September 6, 2008
As a registered Republican, I had strong reservations about seeing a film produced by Martin Sheen. I was wrong. This film made my blood boil. You don't have to be a liberal to care about the environment. When one learns that 80 percent of the energy in galoline is wasted, it is natural to ask for a better alternative. A car that can go 80 miles per hour for 120 miles befor needeng a recharge? Sign me up! Moreover, when it is discovered that we are all being deceived and manipulated in the name of of corporate greed, an angry resolve sets in. I will never own another GM product. This film brilliantly puts together all the puzzle pieces to show what suckers we have been. It demonstrates how The oil companies, auto makers and politicians continue to conspire to keep us slaves of the status quo, at the expense of our environment, our wallets, and our children's future.
Find out why politicians don't care about $4+ gas September 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Seeing is really believing. See whey the car companies are now seeking federal loan guarantees.
 Decent film, slanted perspective. September 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well researched and presented film. Blatently leaves out the fact that auto-makers by law have to service their vehicles for 10 years if they leave them on the road. Demonizes the industry for destroying the electric model car. Otherwise the film does a decent job of portraying the green side of the energy argument.
Great documentorie August 31, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Thoughtful and true story of a giant corporation not making the best decision for the future.
General Motors Blew It! August 28, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The film reminded me about another movie, "Tucker, the Man and His Dream" which also tells of a better car that was pushed off the market by those who want "free enterprise" but only for themselves, not their would-be competitors.
In our capitalist system, General Motors is, like any other publicly-held corporation, supposed to be in business to make money for its stockholders. In killing the EV-1, General Motors put the interests of the oil companies ahead of its shareholders. Less than a year ago, before the current spike in oil prices, GM's stock was over $35 a share. Today it is at $10. If GM had kept making EV-1 for those people who wanted them, they would have owned the automobile market today and their stock price would be through the roof! Talk about short-sightedness.
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