(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg236.imageshack.us%2Fimg236%2F1146%2F1whokilledtheelectriccar114773.jpg&hash=d0b5cfc4b021bd5fec8aac79776fcae5f3f078b7)
Official site (http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/)
Trailer (http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/whokilledtheelectriccar/trailer/)
Release date: June 28, 2006 (NY and LA)
With gasoline prices approaching $4/gallon, fossil fuel shortages, unrest in oil producing regions around the globe and mainstream consumer adoption and adoption of the hybrid electric car (more than 140,000 Prius' sold this year), this story couldn't be more relevant or important. The foremost goal in making this movie is to educate and enlighten audiences with the story of this car, its place in history and in the larger story of our car culture and how it enables our continuing addiction to foreign oil. This is an important film with an important message that not only calls to task the officials who squelched the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, but all of the other accomplices, government, the car companies, Big Oil, even Eco-darling Hydrogen as well as consumers, who turned their backs on the car and embrace embracing instead the SUV. Our documentary investigates the death and resurrection of the electric car, as well as the role of renewable energy and sustainable living in our country's future; issues which affect everyone from progressive liberals to the neo-conservative right.
Billion-Dollar Loser: GM Responds to Who Killed The Electric Car? Movie
DETROIT — General Motors is fighting allegations made in a new movie entitled Who Killed The Electric Car? by issuing a lengthy screed on one of its corporate blogs that tells its own version of the EV1 story.
GM's response is widely seen as an attempt to avoid the beating it took when the automaker was the subject of the hypercritical 1989 Michael Moore film Roger and Me.
GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss writes in the GM FastLane blog that the EV1 program died, in part, because "only 800 vehicles were leased during a four-year period" and that "a waiting list of 5,000 only generated 50 people willing to follow through to a lease.
"Because of low demand for the EV1, parts suppliers quit making replacement parts, making future repair and safety of the vehicles difficult to nearly impossible," he wrote.
Barthmuss said he has not seen the movie. The automaker lost more than $1 billion on the EV1 project.
"As right and as good as our intentions were, we understand that the moviemakers see them as wrong," wrote Barthmuss. "We'll accept that criticism, but don't punish GM for doing a good deed."
The new movie tells the story of GM's EV1 car, which ran on electricity and produced zero emissions. GM eventually pulled the plug on the program and forced all 800 EV1 drivers to turn in their vehicles at the end of their leases. The film tries to make the case that the vehicles died as a result of a conspiracy among oil companies, the government and car executives.
oh this is the movie about the stonecutters.
Interesting. A great companion piece to Roger & Me, showing, again, General Motors at their worst.
It's become cliche when people say, "That's my baby" when referring to something the developed/made, etc. But the analogy really rings true when the woman who developed the EV1 sees her creation taken away en masse and destoyed. It was a very sad moment.