Who Killed the Electric Car?

Did you know that GMs Saturn division had manufactured a pretty hot and solid fully electric car?

I'm ashamed to say that I did not. I am also ashamed to say that I often bash American auto engineers as lacking against both German and especially Japanese auto engineers.

Who Killed The Electric Car? (Official,IMDb), a recently released indie documentary, has shown me the errors of my thinking. Not only did GM have the guts to lead the way in compliance of California's Zero Emissions mandate, they did it right, designing a car that was both dependable and quite stylish -- Saturn's EV-1.

I could go on and on about how Big-Oil and Big-Government and Big-GM colluded to comply with the new California law for the short time it took for them to jointly kill that same law (we've heard this so often, and it makes total sense -- if you're not seeing it by now, you likely never will) -- I could point out the ghastly and downright offensive tactics that GM took in killing the EV-1 (they only leased the vehicles and when the law was dead they simply called in the leases, gathered all the cars up, and took them into the desert to be smashed) - or how they destroyed an inventor's dream (they purchased a majority share in the company that developed much of the battery technology only to put a lid on the inventor and ultimately sell their shares to Big-Oil) - I could rant and rant about these things, but the thing that hit me the hardest about this story was that it was us, Americans, who lead and got it right. I am disalussioned about many things right now, but this story has made me feel proud of my country again - proud that our thinkers are still out there, and they're leading the world.

I'll be paying more attention to these guys now - looking forward to the next chance to get on board with something so new and evolutionary.

If you are lucky enough to have Who Killed The Electric Car? playing in your city, be sure to go see it. And spread the word.