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Who Killed the Electric Car? | 
 enlarge | Actor: Martin Sheen
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy New: $7.18
You Save: $7.76 (52%)
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Rating:  267 reviews
Sales Rank: 298
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 15286
UPC: 043396152861
EAN: 0043396152861
ASIN: B000I5Y8FU
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Release Date: November 14, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: We sell only BRAND NEW Factory Sealed items. 300K+ DVDs-CDs and Books
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Product Description
In 1996 electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline. Ten years later these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened? Why should we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car?SPECIAL FEATURES:12 Deleted ScenesDocumentary: "Jump-Starting the Future"Music Video: Meeky Rosie's "Forever"System Requirements:Run Time: 91 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: PG UPC: 043396152861 Manufacturer No: 15286
Amazon.com
It begins with a solemn funeral…for a car. By the end of Chris Paine's lively and informative documentary, the idea doesn't seem quite so strange. As narrator Martin Sheen notes, "They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline." Paine proceeds to show how this unique vehicle came into being and why General Motors ended up reclaiming its once-prized creation less than a decade later. He begins 100 years ago with the original electric car. By the 1920s, the internal-combustion engine had rendered it obsolete. By the 1980s, however, car companies started exploring alternative energy sources, like solar power. This, in turn, led to the late, great battery-powered EV1. Throughout, Paine deftly translates hard science and complex politics, such as California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate, into lay person's terms (director Alex Gibney, Oscar-nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, served as consulting producer). And everyone gets the chance to have their say: engineers, politicians, protesters, and petroleum spokespeople--even celebrity drivers, like Peter Horton, Alexandra Paul, and a wild man beard-sporting Mel Gibson. But the most persuasive participant is former Saturn employee Chelsea Sexton. Promoting the benefits of the EV1 was more than a job to her, and she continues to lobby for more environmentally friendly options. Sexton provides the small ray of hope Paine's film so desperately needs. Who Killed the Electric Car? is, otherwise, a tremendously sobering experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy Stills from Who Killed the Electric Car? (click for larger image) Writer/Director Chris Paine Blogs About Who Killed the Electric Car
 When Who Killed the Electric Car premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (on the same weekend as An Inconvenient Truth), we wondered whether movie goers were ready for a new kind of 'action film'. Fortunately people jumped onboard and this seems even more true today.
We put this DVD together after the release of the film to include a dozen short scenes we couldn't quite fit into our story. My favorite is one with Stan and Iris Ovshinsky who developed the revolutionary battery technology that powered GM's electric car (and today's Prius). These two brilliant octogenarians took our small camera crew on a Willy Wonka style tour of their inventions including the world's largest thin film solar cell factory. As we stood under a football field size machine in Troy Michigan, I blustered "Is solar power back?" Stan exclaimed " What?! Solar never went away... What was back was backward thinking!" And as his machine cranked out miles of solar cells above us, we knew he was right.
I'm especially glad that the optimistic last scene of Who Killed the Electric Car has proven that we weren't just wishful thinkers when we finished our edit. The clips feature the first glimpse of the ultra fast Tesla electric sports prototype as well the Zenn neighborhood electric vehicle. Both cars are starting to roll off production lines today. And while the State of California (and some car companies) are still gambling on hydrogen fuel cells, plug-in cars are proving to be more environmentally efficient and popular. Early adopters deserve a lot of the credit. Oil companies and the internal combustion engine monopoly may have "killed" thousands of electric cars (EVs) in the 1990s, but EVs are coming back. (Stay tuned for next film...)
I hope you'll find our documentary takes you on a wild ride out of the 20th century and into the 21st. --Chris Paine, Writer/Director
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| Customer Reviews: Read 262 more reviews...
 This is the real business world August 24, 2008
William B. Stevens
Very thought provoking and a very timely topic. The topic this movie addresses, is very important when considering everything from...
1. Buying a car
2. Choosing a church to attend
3. Electing county school board members
4. Electing a U.S. President
Detroit (US Auto Industry Exec's) have made their own bed. Now they want us to bail them out. This is an argument to put more engineers in office in Washington.
Sad truth about our country's addiction to monetary profits August 23, 2008
E. Harner (Charlotte, NC)
I had never even HEARD of the EV1, and I was living in Michigan (home of GM) during the time those cars were released. I wish that these cars could have gotten more support from their makers (and that they could have made a 4 seater)! And its too bad that better technology exists, but politics keep it out of the public's hands. This is an excellent, eye opening movie for anyone who hates car pollution.
now is the time August 22, 2008
Christopher E. Dach (jensen utah)
the movie was very nicely done and has motivated me to sell my truck and by a plug in hybrid along with researching new technology. we have the technology to do what ever we want. it is time to start using that technology to slow down global warming. This presidential race is very important with global warming
Who Killed America's Future August 5, 2008
W. Forster (Midwest USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I will crawl on my hands and knees in 5 feet of snow before I buy, lease or borrow another GM product!!!
Who Killed the Electric Car, and 5,000 American Soldiers ? August 4, 2008
Peter Roberts (Goulburn, Australia.)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This video shows, to what depths, the automobile manufacturers and the oil companies will sink, in order to maintain and improve their PROFITS.If America,and the world, had "Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles" there would be very little need for imported OIL.
Nearly 5,000 American soldiers would not have been killed , more than 30,000 wounded. Plus the Iraqi civilians, killed or wounded. What a sad, terrible, unnecessary waste, of people and the world's resources.
The cost of the war in Iraq, for ONE month, would pay for the supply
of a free PHEV to every American citizen. This Video is a "must see", for those
interested in the background, to what goes on in BIG business.
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