Who killed the electric car?

Well I guess I’ve had a bit of an environmental kick in the last few days. Last night I saw An Inconvenient Truth, which I continued to watch tonight Who Killed the Electric Car ?, a look at what happened to electric cars produced in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Essentially, the documentary focused on the origins and demise of General Motor’s EV1, an electric car that was seemingly on the verge of becoming an American phenomenon, only to have the carpet pulled away. Obviously this movie was not a true documentary as it was very skewed (ie very professional electric cars), but it still brought up a lot of interesting points.

Essentially, electric cars existed before internal combustion cars, and they were actually the favorite car in the early 20th century because they were quiet and exhaustless. However, with the rise of Big Oil, coupled with mass production practices and the efficiency of internal combustion cars, electric cars fell by the wayside until California enacted radical “zero emission” legislation early on. from the 1990s.

It’s no secret that California has some of the worst air quality in the world and to combat smog and health problems that were developing due to poor air quality, the California State Legislature passed the “Emissions Zero, “which required a certain percentage of the cars sold in California to be zero emissions. This meant that the big automakers needed to create an electric car, and quickly.

So General Motors, Toyota, Ford, essentially all the big automakers, started releasing these electric cars, all while fighting against California’s new “Zero Emissions” law. In the process of introducing these vehicles, there seemed to be a lot of demand on the rise, however, one thing would eventually lead to the other, and by early 2004 the electric car had been officially killed.

The film spends most of its time spreading the blame among various groups: American consumers, the American federal government, automakers, the California Air Resources Board and Big Oil were singled out as the main culprits.

Anyway, I’ve probably already revealed too much, so I’m not going to sit here and list the reasons why each of the aforementioned groups is to blame, but there are two stats from the movie that left me completely blown away and I think they are important to share.

The first statistic shows the increase in the combined annual profits of three of the world’s largest oil companies: ExxonMobil, Chevron-Texaco, and ConocoPhillips:

2003 – $ 33 billion

2004 – $ 47 billion

2005 – $ 64 billion

2006 – $ 72 billion

Keep in mind that all of this is happening as oil prices rise. When I saw this exponential increase in profits (115% more over a four-year span), all I could do was shake my head.

The other statistic that left me speechless was the tax breaks available to hybrid and / or electric vehicle owners vs. 6,000-pound SUV owners. In 2004, the tax exemption available to a person driving a hybrid or electric vehicle was $ 4,000. It’s not that bad, I mean, I’d take it. That was until I saw that an owner of a 6,000-pound SUV could be entitled to a $ 100,000 tax break. Yes, a six-figure tax exemption for owning a gas-guzzling highway tank. Amazing.

Anyway, as I assume you have visited this site because you have an interest in getting better gas mileage or the environment in general, I highly recommend that you rent or buy Who Killed the Electric Car?

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