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Who Killed the Electric Car? | 
 enlarge | Actor: Martin Sheen
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy New: $7.82
You Save: $7.12 (48%)
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Rating:  284 reviews
Sales Rank: 436
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 92
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: COLD15286D
UPC: 043396152861
EAN: 0043396152861
ASIN: B000I5Y8FU
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Release Date: November 14, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
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Product Description
In 1996 electric cars began to appear on raods all over california. They were quiet fast produced no exhaust & ran without gasoline. 10 years later these futuristic cars were almot entirely gone. What happened? why should we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car? Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 03/25/2008 Run time: 91 minutes Rating: Pg
Amazon.com
It begins with a solemn funeral…for a car. By the end of Chris Paine's lively and informative documentary, the idea doesn't seem quite so strange. As narrator Martin Sheen notes, "They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline." Paine proceeds to show how this unique vehicle came into being and why General Motors ended up reclaiming its once-prized creation less than a decade later. He begins 100 years ago with the original electric car. By the 1920s, the internal-combustion engine had rendered it obsolete. By the 1980s, however, car companies started exploring alternative energy sources, like solar power. This, in turn, led to the late, great battery-powered EV1. Throughout, Paine deftly translates hard science and complex politics, such as California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate, into lay person's terms (director Alex Gibney, Oscar-nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, served as consulting producer). And everyone gets the chance to have their say: engineers, politicians, protesters, and petroleum spokespeople--even celebrity drivers, like Peter Horton, Alexandra Paul, and a wild man beard-sporting Mel Gibson. But the most persuasive participant is former Saturn employee Chelsea Sexton. Promoting the benefits of the EV1 was more than a job to her, and she continues to lobby for more environmentally friendly options. Sexton provides the small ray of hope Paine's film so desperately needs. Who Killed the Electric Car? is, otherwise, a tremendously sobering experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy Stills from Who Killed the Electric Car? (click for larger image) Writer/Director Chris Paine Blogs About Who Killed the Electric Car
 When Who Killed the Electric Car premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (on the same weekend as An Inconvenient Truth), we wondered whether movie goers were ready for a new kind of 'action film'. Fortunately people jumped onboard and this seems even more true today.
We put this DVD together after the release of the film to include a dozen short scenes we couldn't quite fit into our story. My favorite is one with Stan and Iris Ovshinsky who developed the revolutionary battery technology that powered GM's electric car (and today's Prius). These two brilliant octogenarians took our small camera crew on a Willy Wonka style tour of their inventions including the world's largest thin film solar cell factory. As we stood under a football field size machine in Troy Michigan, I blustered "Is solar power back?" Stan exclaimed " What?! Solar never went away... What was back was backward thinking!" And as his machine cranked out miles of solar cells above us, we knew he was right.
I'm especially glad that the optimistic last scene of Who Killed the Electric Car has proven that we weren't just wishful thinkers when we finished our edit. The clips feature the first glimpse of the ultra fast Tesla electric sports prototype as well the Zenn neighborhood electric vehicle. Both cars are starting to roll off production lines today. And while the State of California (and some car companies) are still gambling on hydrogen fuel cells, plug-in cars are proving to be more environmentally efficient and popular. Early adopters deserve a lot of the credit. Oil companies and the internal combustion engine monopoly may have "killed" thousands of electric cars (EVs) in the 1990s, but EVs are coming back. (Stay tuned for next film...)
I hope you'll find our documentary takes you on a wild ride out of the 20th century and into the 21st. --Chris Paine, Writer/Director
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| Customer Reviews: Read 279 more reviews...
 Absolutely excellent documentary! November 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Who killed the Electric Car" is absolutely great and reflects a microcosm of politics that occur on a national scale. Anybody and everybody that is concerned about the environment, clean energy and the security of the U.S.A. should watch this and see how Corporate Greed has taken over politics and the practical applications of principles that work. With the electric car, we had accomplished a goal: a non-polluting vehicle that got up to 300 miles per charge, and we were forced to abandoned it because of Corporate politics and greed. This documentary also tells you how the big oil companies lead you on and now they talk of the hydrogen cell car which the experts in the documentary state is not economically feasible and cannot work.
This documentary is truly an eye opening experience. It is one of these films that remind me of a statement of a famous person (who I cannot recall at this time, and the saying is not verbatim): "A mind once expanded, cannot return to it's former state"
I highly recommend this documentary and hope all reply with a call to action to your representatives.
Brian
DVD lauched my interest not to buy another gas car. November 3, 2008
Share it with as many people as you can. I shared my copy with a US Senate candidate.
Corporate malfeasance once again exposed November 2, 2008
On its surface, Who Killed the Electric Car? is an excellent but ultimately disturbing and depressing documentary about what happened to GM's EV-1 and Toyota's RAV4. What the film is really about, though, is how pervasive and nefarious the influence of corporate America is on most of our domestic policy decisions.
We all know that corporate America has infiltrated our lives in various ways (from non-stop advertising to the push to use more pharmaceuticals), but this documentary will disturb you anyway, because it also shows how easily politicians and scientists fold under pressure from corporate interests -- even when those interests are clearly not in the best interest of our population.
What's interesting about the electric cars featured in this documentary is that they worked so well GM and Toyota had to remove them from the marketplace lest they disturb the balance sheets of the hundreds of companies that depend on combustion-engine vehicles -- auto makers, big oil, auto parts manufacturers/distributors, fueling stations, etc. Now they sell us on hybrids and hydrogen powered vehicles, and you'll understand why that's largely bunk after watching this movie.
I would laugh at what's happening to the auto industry today -- they're reaping what they've sown, let's face it -- if it weren't for the fact that thousands of people will continue lose their jobs and soldiers will continue to die in the Middle East as auto and Big Oil executives skate away with millions.
There is one glimmer of hope, and it's the same thing we've come to expect re: change in our society. It's not the politicians, bureaucrats or corporations that invite change, it's individuals with a passion/drive for change. From Rosa Parks to the engineers and activists who are working on alternative fuel solutions, it's the little people who somehow break through and say, no more.
 made many good points but missed one October 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
As we expected, the documentary is very informative and well-developed. It seems to miss a suspect that might have killed the electric car, the car designer who failed to give an option for a hybrid electric working mode. The consumers should NOT be the convicted suspect, because they are the judge and measure how successful a product is to be. If a hybrid electric plug-in car was available, I believe that both manufacturers and consumers would have more confidence in such a product.
Informative - an Eye Opening Look at the U.S. Auto Industry October 14, 2008
Anyone who wonders why our transportation system is dedicated to maximum short term profits on inefficient vehicles should take a look at this story.
Hopefully this will stir us to look at increasing our choices for moving around from nearly total auto dependency to a mix of fuel efficient private vehicles, transit, and better pathways for non motorized travel.
The alternative is to keep pumping money to the Saudis, and multi-billion dollar military actions in the Mid East.
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