A documentary on this topic was released a while ago, you can find the video link here:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Who-Killed-the-Electric-Car

It's just the trailer, but I believe there video is floating around in the tubes.

Ya they quote the director of that in this and I am looking for the video of it on the tubes. I bought that documentary on DVD

The General Motors EV-1 would have cost at least $40,000 to purchase, and possibly as much as $80,000, much more than comparable gasoline cars.

It required very highly-trained specialists to do even routine maintenance on it (because 1 mistake in its innards would get you electrocuted).

Because of this risk of electrocution, GM was scared to death of being sued if anything went wrong.

The batteries had to be air-conditioned in very hot conditions and heated even in merely cool conditions (which is why the lease program was only available in California and Arizona).

As soon as somebody invents a way to transport electricity that works better than the crappy rechargeable batteries that are the best we can do right now, the electric car will take off. Until then....

UmberGryphon is right in most places, expect that while the EV would cost more then a tradition gasoline car, the actual electrical cost to refuel it is 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of equivalent gas. The 80,000 dollar figure is taking into account the costs of R&D. And this is the firs time I have ever heard of any heating issues, as far as I know the lease program was implemented in places where there was ready areas to supply the electrical power.

My main problem is that the EV-1 was never marketed well at all, the people who leased them weren't even allowed to buy their leased vehicle. GM basically confiscated everything, shut up and went on to produce SUV and suburbans. Finding it self in the same position as the other Big 3, lagging behind innovative technologies from east Asian companies like Toyota.

The fact is that any new technology that comes out is imperfect and requires refinement, remember the first cars? Hell the first MP3 players? This is where economics of scale come in. GM had a golden opportunity, especially with emission laws California was pushing at the time and has started to only implement now.

The question should really be "Is profit of a few companies, a good enough reason to squander our environment?"

Meanwhile I drive my 1988 stand-up forklift at work for 18 hours on one charge running,lifting,constantly moving, using 10 times the juice a car would, and it takes just over 1 hour to fully recharge.

Anyone who thinks they don't have the tech to make an affordable car that runs for days on one charge is simply an idiot. They've had the technology for 20 years now.

agreed enzolube, and the capability to press forward with technology heralding in the 20 century, has been around since Nicola Tesla, walked into Edison's office and basically shot his little empire to shit with a few scribblings....genius is a threat to the powermad, and the fact is, that free energy has been here all the time, kept in a box by those whose pathetic puppets we get to vote for.....Do you know how many people have been paid off or eliminated, that have produced in their garages, cars that will run on gas, but that get a hundred miles to the gallon....go check it-

Marconi did not invent radio...Edison was not the father of anything but a fucking East coast, DC fire hazard, and of everything you think you know as fiction, the truth is even stranger.......Solar, wind, and nuclear energy is a schoolkid's Heath kit experiment, compared to what is out there that we don't get-Some day perhaps. But for now, keep voting, paying your taxes, and other such self-destructive and anti-evolutionary activities.........

" ...using 10 times the juice a car would,..."

That statement is utterly stupid. Your forklift doesn't have to go faster then a brisk walk on mostly flat surfaces, and the hydraulics use very little power. There are so many differences between the two, that it is less then worthless as a comparison.

Agreed that advances in battery technology and power consumption are requirements for numerous technologies to move forward. I work with very small devices, and providing power to them is a very significant engineering challenge.
Battery powered public transportation is a no-brainer, though; except for requiring specialized mechanics, battery buses should be everywhere by now... with friggin solar panels all on the roof of the bus depot.

jeez Sofa, so vitriolic. a simple "i disagree, here's why;..." probably would have worked. but to each his own.

> Who Killed The Electric Car ?

Wasn't it video that killed the electrical car? Or was that radio star?

oh yeah? It's the 21st century...we were supposed to have flying cars by now.

correction electric flying cars

Sofaking: If you drove one everyday you'd know. It goes 20mph and that's carrying loads, even though it weighs as much as a car without a load, it even has 2 fans and headlights that can melt paint. Even if you're right, car companies would have one that could go for a week on a charge by now if they were forced to compete. Hell, they would have solar panel like paint jobs and wind powered generators everywhere. Think about it.

Agreed that we could have had a viable electric car by now that could go hundreds of miles on one charge IF the big car companies set their R+D brains to it and it was fully backed by the government. You know it only took our engineers approx. seven years to develop a "vehicle" that took three men to the moon (in 1969 for a nice moon walk on the surface for two) and back here to Earth.

Our government needs to require the car companies to produce a workable affordable vehicle starting NOW to get out from under the need for Middle Eastern oil which is ruining the environment. It is a absurd situation we are in.

I do wonder what our world would be like if the inventions of Nicola Tesla were allowed to be developed. Wireless free energy is quite a concept. He had hundreds of patents for his numerous inventions---a true genius. It is a shame that his competitor, Edison, resorted to Mafioso thuggery to stamp out the ideas of any competitor he viewed as a threat (including Tesla). It is hard to fathom the fact that the man who developed + invented the electric light bulb as well as the "recording arts" of 35 mm film movies (around 1888) and audio recording had a group of thugs sent out to stop his competition. Edison was inspired by the work of Muybridge in 1888 who made some rudimentary "movies" which had some very beautiful nude+natural females in them as the very first movie actresses. Edison went on to invent 35 mm film and the first Movie Production Studio. He was an enigma who had genius none the less.

It is also an amazing fact that Edison actually developed+produced Electric Cars from 1907 to 1915--the Bailey-Edison Electric Phaeton Cars which ran on electricity A CENTURY AGO ! They could go 100 miles on a single charge purportedly. Amazing, isn't it ?

Who killed the electric car a century ago ?

Edison may have invented alot of electrical devices that we use today, but is Tesla who invented alternating current, without which we would be using direct current that requires power step-up machines every 100 yards or so. Not only did Tesla refine AC concept, he went on to blueprint nearly all the devices we use today to transmit power for long distances. I believe the electrical car wouldn't have worked the previous century simply because it was easier and cheaper to develop a combustion engine. Remember that the discovery of oil created a new industry altogether, that lead to many of the products we use today - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_products

Agreed Farhad---I admire Tesla's work and yes...we wouldn't have AC if it weren't for Tesla's brilliance. Edison did not support AC as he thought DC was the only safe way to go and that AC was too dangerous as you know. The old Tesla AC Production Plant still stands next to Niagara Falls.

We are still using the same excuse a century later about how much more cheaper the combustion engine is. I'm aware of the multi-billion dollar oil industry and the politics that keep solar and electric development "on the back burner". A century ago we were un-aware of the the disasterous effects emissions would have on our health and planet. We know better now and need to get beyond fossil fuels before it's too late.

lol deathcow

Actually there was a bit more to why Edison wanted to push forward DC, he had invested heavily in DC power transmission and expected to make alot of money providing the actual infrastructure to provide the power. When Tesla present AC, it instantly looked far more practical and not to mention affordable. Edison lost alot of money, and started his campaign to discredit/destroy Tesla.

Corporations will always keep it in their best interest to keep things as they are, adaptation for the benefit of society as a whole is not something built into the corporate structure, rather it is the expansion of profits at any cost. Remember it took Ralph Nader going to the Supreme Court to argue for basic safety features to be implemented in vehicles. The Tobacco industry for years denied any connection between smoking and various health ailments, even though their own internal research showed that it did. And now we have various corporate interest groups arguing against climate change for one reason only, because it would mean cutting down on the SUV market that they have created. American auto companies don't want stricter environmental laws because all they see in that is costs to them.

The oil companies of course argue against it because really who the hell wants to stop making billion dollar profits for simply pumping something out of the ground and transporting it? Energy markets is the most lucrative in the world, if all of a sudden that disappears through new sources of energy where would that leave Exxon, BP and Shell? No they would rather wait until it is them providing the technology, at a cost, with probable parts or components you would need to buy on a weekly basis.

I've actually worked with an Edison electrical system - the American Theater in St. Louis, Missouri. The lighting system was DC, with huge knife switches. The stagehands had to throw the switches with a wooden hook, and they had to wear cotton draw-string pants. If they had any metal on their bodies, the charge could jump and fry them.

Viable electric motors and batteries are only half the equation. We still burn fossil fuels to produce around 70% of our electricity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sources_of_Electricity_in_the_US_2005_New.png). All this talk about electric and hydrogen is posturing. Companies are fishing for exaltation by removing the pollution from the public eye instead of actually decreasing it.

Widespread hydrogen-powered vehicle adoption would be accompanied by a large increase in air pollution. It would just be coming from the hydrogen plants instead of the cars.

A good point overcast. We rely on coal-fire plants near where I live.

If transportation (private,public,service) were battery powered from grid-electricity, the focus would then be towards cleaner, more efficient power plants (mainly through legislation and friggin' incentives). Strickly regulating power plant carbon output and focusing money and prestige on the development of related technolgies at the level of electricity supplier could be more productive than building a new fueling infrastructure.

The idea, which I'm sure you're aware of, is that there are multiple ways to get electricity, while there is one widely accepted way to move a car/truck/bus/semi and hardly a strong challenger in sight. Hydrogen-powered vehicles being 'cleaner' relies on the prediction that there will be breakthroughs in the process of hydrogen fuel manufacturing (which I agree is faulty logic).

Right Farhad! Corporate profit motives and sheer selfish greed oppressing technologies that would be better for the health of our environment (planet) and ourselves (the people) is another example of evil in action perpetrated on all of us by big business corporations.

Your right about Edison.

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Nobody killed the electric car. There are lots of electric cars on the market.

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Adding video to channels (Wheels) - requested by schmawy.

You can see the electric car at the end in action here: http://www.videosift.com/video/White-Zombie-Electric-Datsun-Beats-Corvette-in-Drag-Race

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Awarding eric3579 with one Power Point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

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