Who Killed the Electric Car?

It's been a while now since I've become more aware of the environmental devastation that humans are causing and so I've been watching a lot of DVDs relating to this topic. There are MANY ways to lessen the amount of pollution we're releasing yet we're afraid of moving away from our old habits and conforming to new standards. There are numerous simple things that we can do to make huge changes. However, we allow ourselves to become indolent and think others will fill in the slot for us. One of these changes deal with driving environmental-friendly cars.

I watched a DVD called, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and it's a story about who destroyed the electric cars. It takes us back to twentieth century and the birth of these cars. Huge corporations -namely General Motors- wanted to be a part of the modifications for a better planet but their greed led them to abandon the idea of selling electric cars.

So what kept the world from manufacturing vehicles that use less gasoline or none at all? Factors such as oil companies and competition between corporations. Oil companies don't want to be shut down because they're making millions of dollars every week. Companies don't want to create ecofriendly cars because of the fear that their competition won't take the same road as them, which would cause them to lose money. Any car company that you can name produces their wealth from the internal combustion engine within our cars. Removing this part would make these companies lose an enormous amount of their revenue.

The film then shifts to a recent past when the California Air Resources Board made a decision in 1990 that expected 10% of all cars sold in California by every car manufacturer to be "zero-emission vehicles by the year 2003." These manufacturers, political groups, other firms and even the CARB worked hard to overthrow this law which presented the birth of electric cars.

GM is focused more than other companies in this film. They constructed a model called, "General Motors EV1" in around 1990. After producing these cars they had a mission to eradicate all of them. What was their reason? A lack of demand from consumers but really it was because they feared losing money. Electric cars had the potential to be in mass use in probably as little as 6-10 years had they not stopped the production in 1990.

(GM EV1's in a junkyard)

Even after a group of activists made a proposition to pay $1.9 million to save the remaining 78 EV1's from being destroyed in Burbank, GM went ahead with the plan. A lot of people actually wanted to buy these cars even though GM says there was no demand. It angers me that GM representatives could sit through the interviews in the DVD and say they destroyed the cars because consumers weren't interested. It's true that not a lot of people were interested but this would have changed very quickly had they given it some time.

Nonetheless, GM is not the only one to blame as the U.S. government also plays a role in the end to the battery electric cars. The U.S. government NEEDS to be in constant war in order for their economy to survive and of course these wars are over oil (Watch "Why We Fight" to get more info on the military industrial complex stated by Eisenhower). They need the oil to have a powerful economy and of course, the invention of electric cars was a threat so they had to get rid of them.

So who were the culprits that killed the electric car? Consumers, oil companies, the U.S. government, auto manufacturers, the California Air Resources Board and the hydrogen car. I suggest watching this DVD to get the answers as to why all these "villains" are guilty. There's much more in this DVD that was very surprising to me. I think everyone should watch it to better understand why we all need to help the movement of changes to help our planet. I drive a car that's not pollution-free but that doesn't mean I can't do other things, such as taking out plugs from the outlet, using energy efficient light bulbs, etc, to have small changes make a significant impact. Even people who think that this whole issue of global warming is boring or false would find this DVD startling.