Firlapalooza

Not too long ago, I watched an excellent new documentary titled ‘Who Killed The Electric Car?‘, a story of how a great idea was hijacked over the pursuit of short-term and shortsighted gains.  The film depicts a fascinating, well-balanced history of a recently-introduced commercially-available electric car, the EV1, and the issues surrounding its eventual demise, with many associated surprises.  I’ll share some of the main points from the documentary, though I recommend all see it, to learn about how much effort higher-ups in industry and elsewhere are making to ensure a particular status quo (polluted and ecologically-unfriendly as it is) is maintained.

The U.S. state of California, long a bastion of disgustingly thick asthma- and lung-cancer-inducing smog, introduced strict guidelines in 1995 on what kinds of vehicles automobile companies could sell there, namely the zero-emission-vehicle (ZEV) regulations, with the hopes that it would foster the expansion of electric car production.  Prototype models of cars, emitting no pollutants at all and running entirely on an electrical battery, had already been showcased, and California regulators wanted to see these available to all, by legislating that all manufacturers selling their vehicles in that state had to ensure a certain percentage of their market share were electric (at least 10% by 2003).  The main intent was to reduce the air pollution in the cities by reducing the total quantity of internal-combusion engines on the roads.

It was not too long afterwards, just a year, before production of General Motors’ EV1 car began, and soon it was seen zipping throughout the streets, its smooth and sleek low-drag stylings making it a visual attraction for many car enthusiasts.  The closest thing I can compare its appearance to is a mid-90’s two-door Saturn, or even a Ford Probe.  The car’s engine was silent, and best of all, it did not require a regular income of Mid-East oil (and all its pollutive and politically-questionable implications).  These vehicles had a decent top speed (controlled by a computer to 130 kkm/h, though far higher was achievable) and great acceleration (0-100 km/h in 8 seconds).  Their batteries were of a superior design, as they could go 120 miles (190 kilometers) on a single charge, which is more than enough for 95% of the commuters out there who would typically charge their car while they slept, and if necessary, rent a gasoline-powered car for longer trips.  Fuelling stations in the form of the common “electrical outlet” were available if one had a standard extension cord, and many special quick-charge hub stations were also put up in the cities.  The EV1 was only available on a closed three-year lease from GM, at a rate of $300-500 a month, a very reasonable price, considering the 100% fuel savings.

Well then, with all those great advantages, who actually held back the electric car (and while we’re at, who keeps making Steve Guttenberg a star)? [if confused, see the Stonecutters chorus from Simpsons episode 2F09 for further explanation of this reference]. The answer to the question (at least the first one) is due to a whole host of guilty parties:

Car Companies

GM struck several blows against its own popular EV1 product.  It persistently lobbied the California air quality regulators until the ZEV legislation was withdrawn.  They also seemed to be purposely promoting it poorly, advertising the EV1 vehicle with odd, artsy, avante-garde commercials, wholly lacking the edgy zip and beautiful people found in 99% of the car advertisements shown on television. 

As well, electric cars have a unique type of engine with no moving parts, which reduces the amounts of repair needed, and moreover, do not require the replacement of oil filters, spark plugs, and a great number of other components which dealerships and part manufacturers make large profits from.  You certainly can’t allow a new car design if you do not need to spend all that extra money anymore.

So it was that in the year 2000, GM decided to cancel production of the electric car, and not long after, began the process of recalling all of their electric vehicles on the road out there.  Apparently, there was a long waiting list of people hoping for an Ev1 cars, but it didn’t matter, as GM claimed that their decision was due to “a lack of consumer interest.”  Since the cars were all leased (you could not purchase them), they were technically owned by GM, and they were within their legal right to take them back; with any other leased car, you can ask to purchase the vehicle from the dealership when the lease period is up, and they will gladly give you a deal on it, but in the EV1 leaser’s case, it was impossible to bargain with them; all of the EV1’s were to be returned, no matter how much you were willing to offer GM.  Further investigation indicated that nearly all of these electric cars, most in pristine condition, were shipped off, and eventually pulverized and crushed down into their component parts in a vast scrap yard in the Arizona desert in 2005. 

Oh, and please also note that production of the EV1 stopped just one month after GM purchased the obnoxiously bloated Hummer brand of vehicles.  Yeah, that wasn’t too obvious of them.

Oil Companies

These are some of the largest corporate behemoths in the world today; in only the last few years, their profits have doubled from the ‘ridiculous’ to the ‘obscene’ levels of billions.  These companies have the political and financial clout to be significant power players, and certainly saw the advent of the electric car as a potential threat that would eventually affect their huge sales to vehicle commuters.  The oil companies did several things, including outright buying the EV1’s battery manufacturer, intensely lobbying the government against the legislative changes favouring non-combusting engines, and putting out full-page ads in California newspapers editorializing against the electric car.  By working to undermine ethical efforts to correct the air-polluting aspect of car travel, this helped them to continue the maintain the status quo, by asserting their dominance as the primary supplier of energy.  It would be absolutely naive to assert that the unsavoury likes of Mobil or Esso would not get involved to thwart an EV1 or similar vehicle; there is much money to be made in depleting oil reserves, after all. 

The Government

After several years, the California Air Resource Board ended up capitulating to the demands of both the oil and auto lobbies and federal government to remove the ZEV legislation.  Moreover, the head of the Board, Alan C. Lloyd – very shortly after effectively removing the electric car regulations - went over to head the lobby group of a competing and (far less viable) vehicle technology, the hydrogen fuel cell.

The U.S. federal government also complicated things by deciding to put $1.4 billion into research for this technology following the State of the Union address of January 2003, despite the proof of working, highly-feasible, non-polluting, electric vehicles (as proven by the EV1).  Hydrogen fuel-cell cars have shown themselves to have myriad problems that electric cars do not: safe mass storage of the highly combustible hydrogen gas fuel source is a still-complicating aspect of design (hydrogen gas is, after all, the same substance that explosively brought down the Hindenburg blimp in 1937); the individual cost of a vehicle is still extremely high (in the hundreds of thousands); the range is also comparatively low per unit of fuel; and, the infrastructure is definitely not there compared to the ubiquity of gas stations for regular cars, and power outlets for electric cars.  Finally, hydrogen fuel still uses a lot more total energy to produce, store, and transport than it takes to charge an electric battery, and, moreover, most of the energy associated with hydrogen generation and transportion is still generated by fossil fuel sources.  And therein lies the origin of the strange, silly, mass support for the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

Consumers

Well, in a roundabout way.  Due to the half-hearted marketing by GM and the resulting lack of awareness on the part of consumers, the car could have been even more successful.  The well-funded anti-electric car editorializing in major newspapers by the petroleum lobby also helped in underminding the image of the EV1.  As well, the car was introduced at a time (the mid-to-late-1990’s) when the economy was roaring limitlessly ahead, gas prices were at the lowest they had ever been in a long time, and big bloated vehicles were in demand as a nearly prerequisite status-symbol that did not actually seem that expensive to maintain.  ‘Fuel efficiency’ likely came somewhere below ‘heated head-rests’ in the list of priorities for the average buyer then.  Oddly enough, the fact still remains that there were long, unfulfilled waiting lists of interested consumers waiting to get an EV1 even after the whole production line was destroyed, and actually getting one involved going through many hoops not set up for gasoline car purchasers.  Certainly in today’s highly pricey oil-subordinate economy, an EV1 would be even more desirable for many drivers than ever before. 

Conclusion 

Well, there you have a convenient summary of this excellent documentary.  Go rent it anyway, even if my description was more than thorough enough for you.  It showed how a brilliant product, despite its array of non-pollutive advantages, could be sabotaged by larger power-players with far more vested interests than the average human being’s lungs.  Their actions were quite odd, to not only take the EV1 off the roads, but to completely destroy them to their irreproducable component parts.  One would think that these executives and their children also breath the same air, and can’t really leave our planet for unsullied climates.

So, the very least you can do is to not even consider buying a General Motors product.  Eschew Chevrolet.  Renounce Hummer.  Shun Pontiac.  Rebuff Cadillac.  Avoid Buick.  Scorn Saab.  Reject GMC.  Snub Saturn.

Let GM pay the price for their lack of vision.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 12th, 2006, and is filed under Automobiles, Environment. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. I reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments.