Who killed the electric car?

Personally, I've never been a big fan of movies that try and convince us that there is an "inconvenient truth," one in which tell of a doomsday soon to come, or some conspiracy put into motion by the big money corporations. In reality, most of these theorists gather facts that only show one side of the story, such was the case with "Who killed the electric car." While I have yet to see it (don't know if I could stomach it), I have heard and read all about it.



I had done by own bit of research on this car awhile ago, long before this movie ever came out. What I found across the internet and on forums was that very few owners of EV1's were actually happy with their cars. Many had been left stranded due to dead batteries at one point or another, and most agreed, the car was simply impracticle. GM sold just 800 of these cars, and they were never in great demand by the general public, but hindsite is 20/20 you know. Toyota, some 6 years later, would deliver just 342 electric vehicles to customers. They too agreed, they couldn't give the things away, the public simply wasn't buying into a fully electric car. Even Toyota came to bat defending GM, saying the movie was misleading and one sided. Interesting that the filmaker of the movie owns an electric RAV4-EV, was part of a protest outside of Toyota, though when given free Toyota key chains and bottled water, they gave Toyota a free pass from being portrayed as a bad guy in the film and all footage was cut from the film.

Electric car killer?



I was talking to somebody the other day in regards to when we were back in elementary school. Back when the weekly publications distributed in our classroom talked of global warming and how we would run out of oil by....well, right about now. In addition, there was the gas crisis back in the 1970's, while I was either too young to remember, or perhaps not even born yet. This country quickly believed that doomsday was in the very near future and began shifting over to buy smaller, more economical cars. During this period, due to the American automakers inability to act quickly enough, a trend to buy imported cars was beginning.

After the realization that we weren't really about to run out of oil, the performance cars began to return in the 80's, as did the rise in popularity among SUV's and full sized trucks. Even though gas prices has continually rose over the years, people still paid the price. Only during quick, drastic rises in the price of gasoline do sales of such bohemoth vehicles take a hurting.

Another interesting argument is among the "NO BLOOD FOR OIL" crowd. Well, last I checked, we aren't at war with Canada or Mexico, our top two suppliers for crude oil. In fact, I believe most would be surprised to hear where out oil in this country actually does come from. Here are the top 15 as of October 2006, for TOTAL oil imports, not just crude oil.

1. Canada
2. Mexico
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Venezuela
5. Nigeria
6. Algeria
7. Angola
8. Iraq
9. Russia
10. Virgin Islands
11. Ecuador
12. Kuwait
13. Brazil
14. United Kingdom
15. Norway

Energy information administration

A bit surprised? So was I the first time I read it. Take it for what it's worth, but that's just my two cents, just another one sided conspiracy film telling their version of the truth.