Who's Zoomin' Who?

Cool, Fast and Sexy...that's what all Americans are looking for in car. But, what about a car that didn't run on gas, didn't pollute the air and was cool, fast and sexy? Wouldn't that be a car that every American would for sure buy? Apparently not! Between the years 1996-2000 800 electric cars were made in California. Who knew? I may have not been very old, but I don't have a recollection of them. Maybe I had briefly heard about it, but never seen a commercial. The closest thing I had seen to an electric car was in the movie iRobot. Apparently there was a whole industrial, political and personal issue going on surrounding electric cars that very few people knew about.

In the film Who Killed the Electric Car they discussed the rise and fall of the EV1. The state of California made a Zero Emission Vehicle mandate to help potential fix the air quality problem. Which made GM create the electric car aka the EV1. They made the cars and leased them to some celebrities and other California citizens. GM didn't want to make the cars and started fighting the California government and eventual got the federal government involved. They got the mandate revoked and started collecting the EV1 from the people who were leasing them. They did NOT respond well. They got really attached to these cars and liked what they stood for. After a long hard fight they ended up seeing the precious cars get crushed.
Why take them back? Why not let those people who were leasing the cars buy them? GM claimed that they didn't want other consumers to see the brand mark on the car and wonder what car it was. And then people might look into it and wonder why electric cars weren't being produced anymore.

GM also wanted to be able to put their money elsewhere like buying the Hummer because they knew that it would make them money. Oil Companies had issues with it because if the electric car started being bought we would end our dependence on oil. The federal government didn't want to see how his could effect our economy. Instead they endorsed the Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Even though the people who invented it said that it would be years before this could happen. The electric car was ready now.

The former leasers of the EV1s offered GM 1.9 million for the remaining 80 cars and they refused. Which was really sketchy. One of the EV1s made it into the historical car museum. And those people founded Plug in America. They are pushing to get a hybrid plug in car.

Some questions that I had throughout the movie were:
How would people fix the cars?
What the heck is Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles?
What happens if you have to park on the street? How would you charge your car?
Can you just give your car a quick charge and make it go further or once it dies it needs to be plugged in for the night?

I'm sure all these other questions could have been answered, but because the car companies didn't want to make the cars last none of them got answered. One question they did answer was that mechanics could learn to convert cars. This was an experiment that needed time to develop. Had the car companies properly marketed the vehicle and had it gotten time to take off, our world could be very different today. But because the GM wasn't making instant money off the cars they didn't want it to keep producing it. Time is money! But I don't think they were looking far into the future to see what this car could do for us. GM could have made a huge impact and made lots of money, but because they couldn't let themselves look that far into the future they lost out! Who knows maybe one day they will be blamed for it when instead they could have been getting praised.