| View Larger Image | Who Killed the Electric Car? | DVDStarring: Martin Sheen
| List Price: | $14.94 | | Price: | $12.49 | | You Save: | $2.45 (16%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | DVD | | Rating: |  | | Run Time: | 93 minutes | | Format: | AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC | | Studio: | Sony Pictures | | Number of Discs: | 1 | | Aspect Ratio: | 1.78:1 | | Release Date: | November 14, 2006 | | Genre: | none | | Sales Rank: | 4,184th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline. Ten years later, these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened? Why should we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car? |
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 |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 319 reviews)
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Great documentary by John K. Marshall  5 Stars
October 23, 2009
Our country is doomed to fascist government control and this DVD is just one way to prove it. I don't care if you are liberal or conservative, we are living in desperate times and when the government and corporations get together to destroy the electric car, you can see it as plain as the nose on your face.
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Great Movie about nothing but greed...... by Kevin Cramer (USA Michigan) 5 Stars
October 21, 2009
It showed me how the system worked - money - the more you have the more you can control - in this movie you will see cover ups, greed, fraud, and more from gm to the White House. Till this day we have and never will buy GM products any more. Gm shredded its electric cars after the California mandate was forced to be drooped by the oil tycoons in the white house. Toyota was the only company to continue its line and look where they are today. It is no surprise that a HYBRID is so named - GM purchased the controlling interest in the nimh technology from Stan Ovinski - then - placed a patent on it and said that if anyone would like to use the NiMh batteries in their cars - they would have to be 50% gas and 50% electric - that is forced by GM. They have a battery that a car ran over 300 miles - check out the T-ZERO - they have a newer model out now but the car company's are in bed with the oil company's so they wont put their batteries in the cars - except TOYOTA. I I will never buy a USA auto again.
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AWESON INFORMATION by D. RODGERS (ATLANTA) 5 Stars
October 10, 2009
THIS CD IS SO SOBERING THAT IT IS A MUST SEE. THRE ARE NOW ELECTRIC CAR DEALERSHIPS THROUGHT THE NATION. WE ALL SHOULD MAKE A CONSCIENCE DECISION TO BUY ONE OR CONVERT YOUR PRESENT CAR OR TRUCK TO A NEW GREEN ENERGY AND RELEASE YOURSEL FROM THE GRIP OF THE BIG OIL INDUSTRY WHICH RAKES IN SEVERAL TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR FROM ALL OF US AROUND THE WORLD. THEY LITTERALLY DICTATE HOW MUCH WE HAVE IN OUR POCKETS. THIS DVD IS ONLY 7.00 PLUS SHIPPING. HOSTED BY MARTIN SHEEN
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All should see by Judith K. Peterson (St. Charles,Illinois USA) 5 Stars
September 13, 2009
Everyone concerned about the energy crisis in our country should see this film! By now we should have an alternate form of energy for fueiling our cars. Who would have thought it was out there in the 70's. Think where we might be now if we had continued to improve the elec. car since then. Why did this happen this way??
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Who killed the Electric Car? by Edward C. Burgo (Mississippi)  4 Stars
September 05, 2009
Definitely worth watching if you are interested in the true story about the way our government really works, straight from the bed of big business and lobbyist!
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