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WHAT? Screening of the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?
WHEN? 7pm, Thursday, December 6th, 2007
WHERE? CCA, 1920 Baile St. (near Fort and René Lévesque, 5 min. from Guy metro)
HOW MUCH? Free!
Tomorrow night, the Canadian Centre for Architecture will launch a new series of films, Running on Empty, that will examine Western society’s “addiction to oil.” The first movie? Who Killed the Electric Car?, a 2006 documentary that takes a wry, cynical look at the “birth, limited commercialization, and subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically GM’s EV1 of the 1990s.”
Other highlights of Running on Empty will include Escape from Suburbia, about urban design alternatives, The Power of Community: How Cuba survived Peak Oil, about the measures taken by Cuba after it lost access to Soviet oil in the 1990s, and Design E2, about new, energy-efficient designs by architects around the world.
Who Killed the Electric Car? will be shown tomorrow at 7pm, in its original English version, with French subtitles.
3 comments
Sorry, but the reason for the death of the electric car won’t be found in the preposterously unreliable crockumentary thrown together by Chris Paine. That film is a sequence of total, and partial lies that even refuses to acknowledge that not only GM but Toyota and Honda also cancelled their electric programs (Honda after 8 months!).
The fact is that the EV-1 was recently named as one of the 50 worst cars ever built by Time auto analysts, and the reasons are pretty obvious, despite Chris Paine’s con job using infomercial techniques of “satisfied” customers to convince a gullible public that the EV-1 was anything but what is was : an extremely expensive (costing 3 times more than a Honda Accord), impotent vehicle that couldn’t guarantee a round trip to a destination as close as 40 miles away, required a new $21,0000 battery pack every 5 years, making it the most expensive ride per mile this side of the M1 Abrams main battelt tank; took 8 hours to recharge and in all critical repects, was no better than the Detroit Electric car that was being built before World War I. In 90 years, the electric car had made no appreciable improvement in its technology, despite the phoney claims in Paine’s film. Only plug-in hybrids make economic sense.
I was an EV-1 driver and I would like to dispel some inaccuracies Kerry Beauhrt’s post. The EV1 went 120 miles on a charge, which is more than most drivers need. It was my only car, and when I needed to go farther, I borrowed my husband’s car. It was incredibly fast and a smooth silent ride, and I charged the car from solar panels, which made it virtually pollution free. Just 10 years later, EVs can go 250 miles on a charge – battery technology has improved greatly (better than gas cars – the model T got 25 mpg, which is more than the average US fleet today whihc is 20.2 mpg.) ALL the car manufacturers cancelled their EV programs, becuase they didnt want to make electric cars from the beginning, but the reason this wasnt addressed (although it is hinted at) in the film is because it would make the movie too long. The reason the director focussed on the EV-1 is because he himself had an EV-1 and it was the only EV designed from the ground up as an EV – all the other car companies just converted cars they already made (this avoided expensive crash testing). I now drive a RAV 4 EV (there are still some of those available). It is 6 years old with 89,000 miles on the odometer and the ONLY maintenance I have had to do on it is to change the tires. I think Plug in Hybrids are a good next step solution as we move forward,but they still use gasoline. I believe that full battery electrics can be the car of choice for millions of drivers, when the batteries can be charged quickly (it can be done now, in 5 minutes, but it is hard on the batteries) and when the costs come down (with government subsidies and tax breaks moving from the oil industry to the battery industry). Kerry overlooks the problems with the gas car (noise, upkeep, pollution, dependence on foreign oil) when he criticizes the EV. Neither is perfect, but that doesnt mean the Ev isnt a magnificent opportunity for a cleaner, safer future for our kids.
they did a great job with that documentary, yay for progress!
Some similarities between the oil industry and the tobacco industry: They both exploit people’s addictions (nicotine in tobacco, the convenience of gas). Also, both industries have stifled better alternatives (not smoking is healthier than smoking, not using gas pollutes less). People have successfully resisted tobacco companies…