I just finished an interview with ABC News' Bill Blakemore. I was a guest on his show covering the new movie Who Killed the Electric Car? The other guests were the film's director, Chris Paine, and a former EV1 sales assistant, Chelsea Sexton. The film has some basic points it tries to make, all of them quite predictable in a world where most Americans feel they pay too much for gas and faith in the stability of the Middle East is at an all-time low. In terms of timing I give Mr. Paine credit -- the political and cultural atmosphere is ripe for a film like this to make money. Now let's hit the basic points in the film, along with my responses to them:
1. Rumor: There were 5,000 people who wanted an EV1, but GM wouldn't let them buy it.
Fact: There were 5,000 people who expressed interest in an EV1, but when GM called them back and explained that the car cost $299-plus a month to lease, went between 60 and 80 miles on a full charge, and took between 45 minutes and 15 hours to re-charge, very few would commit to leasing one (not too surprising, is it?). The film likes to quote a figure of 29 miles as the average American's daily driving needs, but that is a national figure and the EV1 was only sold in California and Arizona, primarily in Los Angeles. Anyone wanna guess what the average L.A. resident's daily driving need is? I'm betting it's higher than that national average.
As a comparison I actually ran the numbers on a 1997 EV1 against a 1997 Volkswagen Jetta Turbodiesel based on electricity and fuel charges at the time. Between lease charges and fuel/electricity charges, the EV1 cost at least $500 more a year to operate than the Jetta, and the Jetta could hold over twice as many people (five versus two), 50 percent more cargo (15 cubic feet versus 10) and would go almost 600 miles on a tank of fuel versus 60 miles on a charge. And when the Jetta did need filled it took 10 minutes -- not 45 minutes for a partial re-charge and 15 hours for a full re-charge. Ask me again why the electric car died.
2. Rumor: The California Air Resources Board (CARB) originally required automakers to produce electric vehicles, but political pressure from the automakers and oil companies forced them to abandon this law.
Fact: Actually, CARB simply wanted the automakers to produce zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) and, in 1990, the only way to accomplish that was with electric vehicles. But in the past 15 years computer processing and fuel injection technology has allowed internal combustion engines to burn so cleanly that they are the equivelant of ZEVs (such as the Toyota Prius). Actually, some might argue gasoline-powered ZEV's are better than electric vehicles because they don't have to be charged by an electric power station, most of which have coal stacks that spew far more pollution than ZEV exhaust pipes. As an example, the average 1965 automobile emitted 2,000 pounds of hydrocarbons over 100,000 miles. Modern ZEVs (that still run on gasoline!) emit two pounds of hydrocarbons over 100,000 miles. Read more about ZEVs here. If you need further proof that the modern internal combustion engine has come a long way, consider the air quality in Los Angeles in 2006 versus 1976 -- despite having far more cars operating in the city today. And this air quality improvement came even with the death of the electric car!
3. Rumor: Many EV1 drivers and fans wanted to purchase their EV1 when the lease ended and GM killed the program, but GM crushed the cars instead to keep people from discovering how great they were.
Fact: All U.S. automakers are required to provide parts and service on a vehicle for a given number of years after it is produced. To support the 1,000 EV1s GM had made would have cost the company a lot of money because of its advanced technology and totally unique nature (it shared almost no parts with other GM products). This is not the case with, for instance, Toyota's electric RAV4, which shares the majority of its parts with regular RAV4s. I'm sure GM also worried about the potential for lawsuits if owners bought the cars and started modifying them (something that surely would have happened -- look at what's already happening with the Prius). "But Karl, these EV1 fans were willing to sign waivers against future liabilities if they could buy the cars." Waivers are great in theory, but any lawyer knows there is always a path around them -- especially if the payoff is big enough (which will always be the case when GM is the defendant).
4. Rumor: GM purposely made the EV1 perform poorly so that it could never succeed.
Fact: Before I define how "good" or "bad" the EV1 was let me first say that GM was given plenty of funding from the government to develop this car. They can cry about spending over a billion dollars, but much of that cost was covered by your and my tax money. That said, if GM was trying to make the EV1 fail, they did a poor job of it. The company tried to offer a vehicle that had every modern creature comfort (air conditioning, power windows, high quality audio system) and they offered free roadside assistance. They also developed a second-generation EV1 that used nickel-metal hydride batteries to get far better range on a charge (though these batteries were even more expensive, and hard to keep cool). They could have sabotaged the EV1 much more effectively by offering no creature comforts and no roadside assistance and spotty dealer training, yet most EV1 customers were thrilled with GM's support of the car. However, the company knew the vehicle would never offer the combination of utility and functionality demanded by 99 percent of U.S. consumers, and they knew it was a money loser for that other one percent. GM's biggest mistake was letting the R&D (largely funded by the government) from the EV1 program go to waste by not immediately transitioning it into hybrid drivetrain development. The film touches on this mis-step by GM, and it's the one point I completely agree with.
5. Rumor: The oil industry is evil because it's making a profit.
Fact: The American economy is based on capitalism. If you're doing business in America you're supposed to make a profit.
As a side note, what are the makers of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" hoping to achieve with their movie? Do they want it to make a profit? Did they pick this specific time to release the movie because they think it will make the most money now? The electric car died years ago, so why did it take this long for the movie to arrive? Maybe all proceeds will go to developing a new electric car or developing a cheap battery that has massive storage capacity and can be charged in a very short amount of time.
I personally believe the technology exists in 2006 to produce a far more effective electric car than was possible in 1997. But I make no promises on what it would cost to produce. If these filmakers want to subsidize this research for a new electric car, or subsidize the purchase of this new electric vehicle by consumers to offset the initial costs of producing it, I'd be all for that!
For those of you who want to learn more I found two interesting Web pages (here and here) devoted to the EV1 driving experience. These folks both loved their EV1s, but they also freely admit to the car's limitations. It'd be interesting to see what an EV1 with today's battery technology might accomplish, but like the original Star Trek I think the car was simply ahead of its time. And hey, we all know how well the subsequent iterations of Star Trek did when society finally caught up and "got it."
The ABC news interview was pre-taped and should air in the next few days. When I know the exact time I'll let you all know. I'm anxious to see the final cut.