Who killed the electric car movie?

[wtmusic]

Just rented "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and was infuriated. This film, in the first week of its release, showed at about 3 theaters in my major metropolitan area, and I'm shining up my tinfoil just THINKING about why that might be the case...

Anyway, I found it very powerful and persuasive. I know it has its detractors here--what the hell is there not to like about this film??

[snowbear]

1. I heard Big Eddie Schultz say that movie was GREAT...

I need to check that out!

[wtmusic]

2. If the environment is high on your agenda, be prepared

to get your blood boiled. I'm never buying another GM product in my life.

[mrdmk]

4. That is about it, of course the wifey and I took our Prius to see the movie

To bad it was not in a outdoor theater. We could have an electric and semi electric get together.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

This is a good on an article that came out in May 2003
http://www.ocweekly.com/features/features/dude-wheres-my-electric-car/20952/

[wtmusic]

21. Have you checked out the plug-in conversions for the Prius?

http://www.calcars.org/priusplus.html

My next car will be a Prius.

[pstokely]

5. GM is running ads on Hannity's site

I can't boycott something I wasn't planning to buy anyway

[wtmusic]

9. I also see ads from Volkswagen, Kohls, Tempur-pedic, etc

a veritable who's who of what NOT to buy.

[pstokely]

22. I've heard Volkswagen ads on AAR

I think O'luffa plugs termperpedic

[Digit]

3. I saw it too, and highly recommend the film

It will make your blood boil.

[trof]

6. They also killed electric streetcars.

So until and unless GM could pry streetcars away from their parent utilities or connecting railroads, very few lines would come up for sale. What happened next is the seminal event, the turning point where electric transit met its Waterloo. GM clearly couldn’t force the utilities to sell its transit lines, but the Federal Government sure could. And it did, through the passage of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. This is contained in Title 15 Chapter 2 (c) and it is an incredibly complex law. But it had the suspiciously useful (to GM) effect of stripping transit lines away from their utilities (mandated to be sold by 1938) and forcing them out on their own, to either live or die. And once separated from their subsidies, many died on their own at the end of the depression, without any further assistance from GM.

In any event, the Utility Act now put a large number of transit companies on the market. In 1936, GM formed National City Lines and aggressively began to buy transit companies and substitute diesel buses for streetcars. Meanwhile, the transit companies themselves were looking for ways to avoid the extra costs foisted off on them from the days of horse cars. The quickest way was to substitute buses for lighter density lines. Even with the extra costs, high-density lines were still cheaper to operate electrically. Small cities across America began to change to buses. And where GM was not involved, they would buy from Brill, Ford, Mack and even GM.

National City Lines, with partner Firestone Tire and Phillips Petroleum, Atlantic City Lines (with the same) and Pacific City Lines with Standard Oil (replacing Phillips) and Mack Truck added went on to acquire some 62 transit companies and killed streetcars on 23 of them. It also partially eliminated streetcar lines in Baltimore, Los Angeles (city), Oakland, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.
http://www.baycrossings.com/Archives/2003/04_May/paving_the_way_for_buses_the_great_gm_streetcar_conspiracy.htm

[wtmusic]

7. As I reflect on the film and connect the dots

it's obvious to me what happened to the EV1.

Contrary to the Petroleum Engineering Institute's assertion in the film, the EV1 had more demand than any product in history. Demand from the oil industry, that is. It shared the same fate as Stan Ovshinsky's battery--Exxon-Mobil bought the cars for $1000 on the dollar and had them shredded.

Thanks for the info--I knew about Firestone buying up streetcar lines in Los Angeles but wasn't aware it also happened elsewhere. Why wouldn't it?

[hlthe2b]

17. yes, Trof... I thought this was compelling...

I hadn't seen your post and commented down below... This bit really makes my blood boil.

We have a fabulous flagship REI store in the old restored 1901 Denver Tramway Building and there remain a few tracks nearby that they run some streetcars for tourists occasionally. It really makes my blood boil to think what American cities would be like now, in terms of mass transit, if the greedy GM led bastards hadn't destroyed these systems.

[eppur_se_muova]

20. Excellent documentary on this -- "Taken for a ride"

http://www.newday.com/films/Taken_for_a_Ride.html

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov1996/takenforaride/

[marmar]

8. It was an "art" film, so the release was limited, but....

here in Detroit, GM's hometown, it curiously disappeared after a couple of weeks, despite consitently packed houses at the Landmark Main Art. (It did resurface in Ann Arbor a couple of weeks later tho.)

[wtmusic]

10. Correction: an art film released by Sony Pictures

which typically doesn't limit any of their releases.

Methinks there might have been other limiting factors at work.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

11. I haven't seen the movie, but I've heard good things

Unfortunately, an electric car doesn't do any good if you plug it into a power grid that gets its electricity from a coal fired or natural gas power plant. You're still burning carbon based fossil fuels.

[wtmusic]

12. The EV1 polluted far less even when the electricity was generated

by a stinky coal plant. A topic addressed in the movie.

Highly recommended! :thumbsup:

[EvolveOrConvolve]

19. Very cool. Thank you!

[hlthe2b]

18. this was very thoroughly addressed by the documentary...

I too thought that the source of electricity would counter any benefit. Not true.... I encourage you to see the film...

[Pale Blue Dot]

13. I saw it and really liked it.

I don't know how familiar you are with the movie business, but big hit wide release documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 and An Inconvenient Truth are extremely rare, and even those two succeeded mostly due to big names (Michael Moore and Al Gore).

In addition, right now there is a glut of "liberal" documentaries. That's a good thing, of course, but it means increased competition for a limited number of screens.

I'll bet if you asked the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car? they would say that their film was a success.

[wtmusic]

14. Good points

*removes tinfoil*

Likely the oil industry feels they can successfully marginalize the film with PR, if they ever needed to. This one really got my dander up though (I live less than a mile from the Burbank GM facility at which the last EV1s were parked, and I never heard a thing about it).

[hlthe2b]

15. I thought the special feature: who killed the electric streetcar...

(I think that is what they titled it) was very interesting as well... Seems GM and Firestone tires teamed up to get rid of all the infrastructure that in the late 1800s to early 1900s was prevalent in all major cities and, if had been maintained could have been the roots of major mass transit to this day... Clearly there was money to be made over cities switching to all the smog emitting city buses that would always need tires and gasoline/diesel.

[madokie]

16. my neighbor gave me a copy of it last week and it should be must see by all

I was never much of a gm person and I'm sure not now.