The Mysterious Murder of the Electric Car

By Hannah Eaves, Grist.org. Posted June 30, 2006.

Chris Paine, the director of Who Killed the Electric Car?, looks a little embarrassed as he walks toward his waiting limo. "I should really have them drop us off a block away from the theater," he says, laughing uneasily.

At least he's carpooling.

With him are Dean Devlin, one of the film's executive producers (whose other projects include "Independence Day," "Godzilla" and "The Patriot"); former electric-vehicle sales rep Chelsea Sexton, who appears in the film; and Sexton's husband, Bob, who helped launch Saturn before becoming the go-to technician for EV owners.

They have come to San Francisco for the city's International Film Festival, after having premiered "Who Killed" at this year's Sundance. So far, the local audience has responded strongly to the alternative-vehicle whodunit, since a large percentage of the country's former electric-car owners -- indoctrinated in the late '90s during California's short-lived pro-electric mandate -- were from the Bay Area. Most of the rest lived in Los Angeles, allowing filmmakers to draw on the support of the Hollywood elite, both on-screen and off.

Roughly divided into two segments, "Who Killed" first addresses the broad history of the electric car, from its birth in the early days of the automobile through its sudden realization and untimely demise. Leased in limited quantities beginning in 1997, the EV was developed by auto companies to fulfill California's mandate even as the companies sought to have the law repealed. When the requirement was altered to their liking in 2003, the cars were taken back and destroyed.

The passion and ire of the drivers left behind is touchingly captured in a funeral held for General Motors' flagship electric car, the EV-1. This sets the stage for a dramatic unmasking. Who were the players behind the car's death? Paine pinpoints many possible culprits, including consumers, corporations, and the government. Underneath its tongue-in-cheek premise, "Who Killed" is deadly serious -- not just about the fate of the cars, but about some of the most essential questions America faces today.

For the most part, the media has portrayed EV enthusiasts as a likable, ragtag bunch who just won't shut up, and that's not too far off-base. They really, really loved their fast, sexy cars. But they are also reasonable, intelligent debaters who come off, more than anything, as justifiably angry. And what do you do if you're mad about something and live in L.A.? Like, obviously, duh. You make a movie.

HANNAH EAVES: When did you start driving an electric car, and what were your first experiences?

CHRIS PAINE: My boyhood hero was Paul MacCready, who designed the bicycle-powered airplane and the solar-powered airplane that crossed the English Channel. I had heard that he was working on an electric car for General Motors, so I wrote and said I'd like to be a test driver. I didn't get accepted, but when the car came out I immediately went and got one. It was amazing. I didn't really like cars before, and suddenly I was a car lover. And I drove the thing for years -- then GM said they were going to take it away. It was leased, so I said I'd buy it, and they said I couldn't. Finally, I took it in for a repair one day, and they wouldn't give me my car back.

We started getting the feeling that there was a lot more to the story than met the eye. We thought Frontline or 20/20, or Michael Moore, somebody would do it. Nobody did. So rather than have our [story] rewritten by the media, we decided we would dive in and try to tell the story the way it really happened.

EAVES: Was there a moment when you said, no, really, we have to make this?

PAINE: I guess the moment was when we put together the funeral. We thought, this is going to do it, the media is going to pay attention. We had all these engineers and politicians come and speak. The story that ran the next day was: EV drivers bid a fond farewell to a car they loved and get ready for the hydrogen car of the future. We were pissed! This was a great technology that was working well today.

I knew from making documentaries that you can spend years on a documentary and no one ever sees that. Dean, it turned out, had a similar experience. So [he got involved and] suddenly we had the resources to make a film that could achieve another level -- not just be about a car, but about why America's having a hard time getting out of the 20th century. What are the obstacles that keep making the status quo win?

EAVES: Dean, the film is dedicated to your father, who had been outspoken about GM's seeming unwillingness to promote the EV.

DEAN DEVLIN: That's right. My father had one of the very first EV-1's that were delivered. He was a huge enthusiast of the cars and the future he hoped they could bring. But he was suspicious from day one that the car companies had been forced to do this, and their hearts weren't really in it ... The advertising got worse and worse. My father was [complaining to the company]: why aren't you saying that the car's fast, why aren't you saying it's sexy? Why aren't you showing the car?

Hannah Eaves is a writer and filmmaker based in San Francisco. Her writing has appeared on GreenCine.com and in SOMA Magazine and the Santa Cruz Sentinel.