Who Killed the Electric Car?

Who Killed the Electric Car is a movie that investigates the production and destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the US, in particular the General Motors EV1 during the 1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, the Californian government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in restricting the development of this technology.

From watching this documentary styled movie i quickly learnt that electric cars have actually been around for over a 100 years. They were once considered a better substitute to traditional engines, and were more popular as well. Most major oil companies were strongly against the electric vehicle; this meant that there would be less demand for oil and petroleum with the increase in electric cars. Other technologies such as utilising Hydrogen for powering engines were researched and developed. $1.2 Billion dollars was provided by the Bush administration towards the manufacture of Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

While watching the film, i discovered that while the EV1 was gaining popularity, on April 24, 2009, California killed its electric car mandate. This then led to all EV1’s sold in California being taken back from their owners and then eventually crushed. I think other designers should see this eye opening documentary about a design that would have made a huge impact today if the project was successful. Designers need to know the history of the products they may be designing in order to fully understand the design stages a certain product or company has been through.

A message that could easily be learnt would be to understand how easily major production companies and governments can kill off an idea. In the long run the idea would have worked although other major companies would have suffered as a result. Another message is that a product as big as the EV needs to have an early demand for it to be successful, it should be targeted for the majority of the population and people need to be well-informed as to how it can replace their traditional engines. The final message would be that in order to help the global environmental issue, technology can and needs to be able to provide solutions, but the most important factor is that the government corporations need to be behind it also.