Who Killed the Electric Car?

May 3, 2007

Let me preface this by saying I’m not exactly a terribly “green” person. Our family just purchased a two and a half ton SUV that I hope averages 20 miles to the gallon. This to go along with a Jeep Liberty which may even be less fuel efficient. On the other hand I ride my a Suzuki scooter when weather permits and most of the bulbs in our house are compact fluorescents. Hopefully that puts me somewhere in the middle on the energy consciousness meter… for an American anyway.

So, this evening I watched “Who Killed the Electric Car?” not as an advocate, but just out of curiosity. It was a pretty good overview of the history of electric cars and in particular General Motors EV1. That is, if you can avoid snickering at some of more melodramatic moments. There were scenes such as the mock funeral for the EV1 and a slow camera zoom and transition to soft focus on the image of dozens of EV1s crushed by General Motors complete with a haunting soundtrack. Somehow these scenes failed to bring a tear to my eye.

Looking past some of the questionable presentation, there were some interesting questions raised by the movie. The movie raises the possibility of conspiracy by the usual suspects, big oil, government, so forth. Whether or not a conspiracy existed is open to debate, but personally, I agree (for the most part) with one of those interviewed in the movie who said “If GM could make money selling a car which ran on pig shit, they would do it.”

Still, at the end of the movie, there was one issue which left me scratching my head. That is, the manner in which the EV1 was killed. GM would by no means allow anyone to purchase an EV1. They could only be leased, with no option for renewal. When the EV1 was cancelled, the vehicles were reclaimed by General Motors, hauled away and destroyed. According to the movie, a group of fanatics enthusiasts offered General Motors $1.9 million (roughly $25,000 a piece) to buy 79 EV1s being awaiting destruction. General Motors declined.

So, why would General Motors find it preferable to destroy these cars rather than collect nearly two million dollars? According to an article or two, the answer is that GM worried about liability and the necessity of providing a supply of spare parts for a period of 10 years or so. This seems to make sense, unless you actually think about it. The liability risk for a hundred or so “high risk” vehicles is most certainly statistically less than the liability risk for the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of “low risk” vehicles that GM has on the roads today. Especially given that some of the purchasers were willing to sign waivers releasing GM from any liability. As for spare parts, I’m not sure where the 10 year figure comes from, but supposing there is a law, surely it cannot mandate that manufacturers supply parts and sell them for less than cost. Some of these pieces don’t seem to fit so neatly, so maybe there is more to it than meets the eye.

Whatever the case, the electric car isn’t quite dead yet, though perhaps pining for the fjords whist waiting for customers to take delivery of a new breed of a electric car, created by Tesla Motors, capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, with a range of greater than 200 miles, and a top speed of 130 MPH. If you have $92,000 laying about, the Telsa Roadster will do all this with delivery set to commence this October.