Who Killed the Electric Car?

[TheFatKidDeath]

Has anyone seen this film?

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokille.../electric.html

And an article I spotted -

http://www.latimes.com/classified/au...home-headlines

I did see the film and did not realize electric cars were some of the first on the road and as the article points out quite fast. I'm not fully sure if the automobile industry "killed" the electric car but they certainly provided alot of the ammunition as pointed out in the film. I think we will see more of electric vehicles in the future as smaller companies fill the void vacated by the major manufactures.

[P8riot]

Looks like this one is alive and kicking! (Website for the company on your LA Times article)

It's been a long-standing conspiracy theory for the subject, all shaded by fuzzy math and 'experts', 'engineers', and 'scientists' in every field hocking their view. I think it would be neat if there were more options bubbling to the surface because of the traditional auto manufacturers inability to pioneer and capitalize on innovations designed to limit the use of finite resources.

Thats a neat site though.

[Switchcraft]

I just can't imagine spending that much money on a car that can only go 100 miles.

[P8riot]

Originally Posted by Switchcraft

I just can't imagine spending that much money on a car that can only go 100 miles.

The EV1? That sucker is dead. No way would I either..

The Tesla Roadster? 250 miles, 3.5 hour recharge.. for the first version - now THATS progress.

[xTYBALTx]

It sure is... not bad. How much will the Tesla cost? In San Diego, we have some nuke energy too, so that's real clean driving.

[TheFatKidDeath]

Originally Posted by P8riot

Looks like this one is alive and kicking! (Website for the company on your LA Times article)

It's been a long-standing conspiracy theory for the subject, all shaded by fuzzy math and 'experts', 'engineers', and 'scientists' in every field hocking their view. I think it would be neat if there were more options bubbling to the surface because of the traditional auto manufacturers inability to pioneer and capitalize on innovations designed to limit the use of finite resources.

Thats a neat site though.

I suppose we can only speculate on the reasons for the "killing" of the electric car. A conspiracy implies secret meetings of executives behind closed doors. In fact they helped kill the car quite openly. I think the "killing" of the car was many parts, consumer, though perhaps more heavily parts suppliers, oil and the auto industry themselves. We will never see a top secrect memo from GM saying "We gotta kill the EV1" as it never exists and is not needed to suppress a competing technology.

[icky]

The Stonecutters.

All: Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!

Karl: Who leaves Atlantis off the maps?
Lenny: Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
Alien: We do! We do!

All: Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do! We do!

Skinner: Who robs cavefish of their sight?
Homer: Who rigs every Oscar night?
All: We do! We do!

(creds to snpp.com)

[H-Hour]

I just saw this tonight. It's long on the story of the EV1 and its fans, but short on useful information.

[P8riot]

New energy in the conversation - the Wall Street Journal has front page space in section D for the Electric Car resurgence.

When I posted the reply yesterday - I forgot to mention it was from info I had in Wired magazine about the Tesla Motors Company.

[AMosely]

An excellent case in point regarding irrational and wasteful corporate behavior.

[TheFatKidDeath]

The irony is thick:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/upto...nveiled-g.html

From a section in Wikipedia:

According to GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, the worst decision of his tenure at GM was "axing the EV1 electric-car program and not putting the right resources into hybrids. It didn’t affect profitability, but it did affect image."[42] According to the March 13, 2007, issue of Newsweek, "GM R&D chief Larry Burns . . . now wishes GM hadn't killed the plug-in hybrid EV1 prototype his engineers had on the road a decade ago: 'If we could turn back the hands of time,' says Burns, 'we could have had the Chevy Volt 10 years earlier.'"[43] In 2008, GM is suffering massive deficits, eclipsing the value of the company, [44] in a market with high demand for electric vehicles.

[Kerostasis]

Irony? I do believe thats what we call "the free market at work". If one company axes a good idea, another can pick it up and make a killing. Unless of course it wasn't a good idea to begin with, in which case it will just sit on a shelf and collect conspiracy theories.

[TheFatKidDeath]

It's ironic that the same company who years early dimissed the technology as not being right for the "market" are now scrambling for it's use in helping save it from bankruptcy. Some would call it the "free market at work" others lack of vision.

[Kerostasis]

I think you can quite easily call it both at the same time. Lack of vision is a part of the market, after all, but it's a part that gets continuously weeded out by Darwinian methods.

[ScratchMonkey]

It's only a "free market" if the loser is allowed to fail, and isn't bailed out when they screw up. Bailing out a loser means that some who could have gotten investment are shoved back in line behind the screw-up. And then their possible successes are never seen, so it seems like there were no losers. Hopefully we don't get another Chrysler.