[RacerJace]

This movie was just released in Australia this week. (Yes we do have plug in power down here). I guess the marketing shlubs decided it had little or no effect on the sceptical majority in the USA and assume the same will happen here..... WRONG!

I think (hope) this movie may start a revolution to move to electric en mass in our small isolated auto market.

I wasn't surprised by the whole EV1 story but I was/am very pissed off that the collusion between oil companies, car makers and government can back us so far into a corner and at such a cost to our environment (I saw An Inconvenient Truth last week). [aside] There is clear evidence that the government has been manipulated by the oil companies to stop the installation of wind generation infrastructures here in Victoria. How long can this insanity go on?.... Oh I know.. until it becomes a screaming in your face crisis.

A few things about this movie that expanded my thinking about the whole energy crisis and its economic connections:

1. The oil companies have instilled the fear of total economic collapse to the auto companies and government if the shift from fossil fuel happens too quickly. This would be apparent in an imploding aftermarket and auto service industry and the devastating economic repercussions of a failing less-profitable oil industry (i.e. early peak oil). This may actually be probable and that's what makes it so compelling and bloody scary. (Damn... how did we allow ourselves to get in to this mess?).

2. The hydrogen myth was at last revealed as the "electric bunny in front of the dogs" that it is. It may be commercial in another 10-15 years and in 10 years time they'll say exactly the same thing. It's just something to have hope in whilst they keep us non-elites going further down the spiral. I worked for a fuel cell company for 3 years and I can testify it is all smoke and mirrors.

3. Hybrid technology is another grand stall tactic whilst the oil industry extracts higher profits and continues to lock us in to the oil addiction. Yes it is a transitional move to pure EVs but it is a waste of time and time is something we are running out of.

4. They (the auto industry) could spend a fraction of the money they are on hydrogen, hybrids and the rest if they focused on pure EVs. If the government spent some (again a fraction) of their military budget on building more renewable electricity infrastructure then the extra power generation capacity required would be covered.

5. My doomer (realist) gut wrenching perspective on this sick capitalistic world is getting more and more clear every day. I genuinely fear for my children's future.

I attended the World Automotive Congress in Yokohama last week and I was amazed at the acknowledgement of our global situation. All of the corporate gods in R&D from GM, Chrysler, Honda et al. had energy, environment and safety at the top of their list of priorities. The disappointing thing was the typical capitalistic mentality that mandates infinite growth to achieve continuing profits. The words 'sustainable' and 'growth' clanged in my ears with almost every plenary presentation. Don't these fools know that sustainable growth is an oxymoron? !!

.

[Mesuge]

And who voted in these policies and gave consent, also by abstantion from the voting ballot? People of the US, Australia, Europe or in any other places voting either for the rightwing nuts or center-left apologists of the mighty buck.. (Not suggesting that ultra right or left are better options)

Do you see any riots in the streets about the 1bln. of hungry people in the 3rd world, do you see any riots about the depleted oceans, do you see any riots demanding shift of public policy away from military spending etc.? No, much worse majority of the new generation cares only about xboxes and other artefacts of derranged culture..

So, to quote the Caltech vice provost Dr. Goodstein, "we will likely fail" in the forthcomming PO-GW struggle, that's the sobering reality..

http://link.brightcove.com/services/pla ... d187832478

Flushing down this civilization will be a positive development afterall - well I'll miss the quality art and science but were these little positive aspects worth destroying the planet, I don't think so..

[Revi]

We are not all going to fail to reduce our contribution to GW and have to quit driving around town. Check out the solar car we built:

www.sunnev.com

There's always time to try.

[Niagara]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'W')e are not all going to fail to reduce our contribution to GW and have to quit driving around town. Check out the solar car we built:

www.sunnev.com

There's always time to try.

[Mesuge]

Great link!
Toe is right in his comments at YouTube that they should make a new generation with traditional airfoil design and boost thus perfromance..
And indeed they are working on the next more aero refined generation, ready for spring '07..

In any case great for rural and post PO areas, but a coffin in todays traffic..

[Revi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Niagara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'W')e are not all going to fail to reduce our contribution to GW and have to quit driving around town. Check out the solar car we built:

www.sunnev.com

There's always time to try.

[KevO]

on the front page in the movies section at
http://www.mininova.org/

[The_Toecutter]

Whoever has not seen this yet, do so. It explains exactly why PO will be a problem, and it's not the consumers or the technology so much as it is decisions that we the people didn't get to make!

[joe1347]

While the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" is certainly old news. But just in case anyone is interested, it's currently showing on STARZ OnDemand.

BTW, for a documentary, it's actually entertaining as well as informative. The somewhat upbeat ending was also a nice touch.

[The_Toecutter]

Basically, the technology is here to prevent a PO dieoff, but our 'leaders' are making too much money off of oil, will make even more money off oil as its price rises post peak, and they don't want to miss out on any of that potential profit in the future.

Electric vehicles are just one of many viable but suppressed solutions to our problem which entail no living standard reduction. Taken by themselves, none of these solutions can solve this crisis, but taken together, they possibly could.

To those who had no idea what really shapes America's massive amount of oil consumption, this movie is a real eye opener.



I knew of this whole incident involving EVs since the early 2000s, and wrote an article describing what really killed the electric car two years before that movie came out. Interestingly enough, Chris Paine came to the same basic conclusions I and others have. The evidence and documentation is there for which multiple people still arrived at the same conclusions(I could also mention Jack Doyle's "Taken for a Ride", and about 5 others...).

The truth is, currently viable alternatives to oil are being suppressed; the electric car is one of them.

[Johnston]

I saw it at the cinema a few months ago.

I found the movie to be deeply disturbing. It made me think - even if we do come up with technological solutions to PO, will they ever get off the ground? Or will people conspire to supress them?

I found the hydrogen thing disturbing as well. It seems like people will only accept a vehicle if something is combusting in the engine.

[joe1347]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Johnston', 'I') saw it at the cinema a few months ago.

I found the movie to be deeply disturbing. It made me think - even if we do come up with technological solutions to PO, will they ever get off the ground? Or will people conspire to supress them?

I found the hydrogen thing disturbing as well. It seems like people will only accept a vehicle if something is combusting in the engine.

[Johnston]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joe1347', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Johnston', 'I') saw it at the cinema a few months ago.

I found the movie to be deeply disturbing. It made me think - even if we do come up with technological solutions to PO, will they ever get off the ground? Or will people conspire to supress them?

I found the hydrogen thing disturbing as well. It seems like people will only accept a vehicle if something is combusting in the engine.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joe1347', 't')he electricity required to charge a plug-in electric car is equivalent to much less than a $1 a gallon of gas - closer to 50 cents a gallon equivalent - I believe.

[Mesuge]

Anybody has seen the last episode "Miles to Go" of Now on PBS?
They invited Chris Paine (director Who killed EV) few month before and now perhaps to balance the story hah they prepared a semi-idiotic show why there are no 100MPG cars, also they claim that plugins are "sci-fi". Moreover, not a single word about full/electric cars throughout the whole show!

Watch it online:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/320/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/feedback.html

So, pls. join the initiative and send them a strong but polite feedback along the line that >100MPG are almost all EV conversions and that 75-100MPG plug-in hybrids can be now bought as kits starting at $3-5k for leadacids and for the same price in lithium with longer BEV range if mass produced.

Several Prius based plug-in kits:
http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Prius_PHEV

"Sci-fi, wtf???" They even went to Wash. DC and put congress people into those cars to show it's real and now!
http://www.calcars.org/

They allowed some EV related feedback/questions here:
http://www.pbs.org/now/php/quotes.php?q ... 2007-05-18

PBS can and should do a lot better job than this..

[Newsseeker]

I'll wait for the DVD.

[KevO]

or free to download DVD
HERE

[KevO]

or here
http://www.mininova.org/tor/713209

[tsakach]

Here are a few interesting quotes related to ev/phev technology on http://www.pluginamerica.com$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz "what started out as a fuel cell project is now an electric vehicle project." (AutoWeek November 2006)

GM CEO Rick Wagoner his worst decision was "Axing the EV1 electric-car program and not putting the right resources into hybrids." (Motor Trend, June 2006)

Pulizer Prize winner LA Times Auto critic Dan Neil "Hydrogen fuel cell technology is pretty much cratered....I think hydrogen is a non-starter." What alternative fuel will win out in the future? "Grid electricity." (KPCC June 2006)

U.S. consumer advocate Ralph Nader "Since 1939, companies have dangled electric cars, saying they are a few years away. But it doesn't happen because they don't want it to happen, because there is too much money to be made with the technological stagnation of the internal combustion engine." ("Who Killed the Electric Car?")

Space X-Prize Winner, Burt Rutan answers how long it takes to charge an electric car. "My answer is three-and-a-half seconds." (Automobile Magazine, May 2006)

Former CIA Director, James Woolsey "A plug-in hybrid is an electric car with an insurance policy - a gas engine."

Everyday EV Driver, Marc Geller "The near-term goal of true zero-emission driving can only be achieved with electricity into batteries." Read more

Ed Begley Jr on EV's and solar power "You can't make gasoline on the roof of your house. You can make electricity on the roof of your house." (Yahoo! Video, November 2006

[TBroedsgaard]

I downloaded this, but am unable to run it. I tried Media Player 11, newest DivX, VLC media player. What do I need to be able to play it?