Who Killed the Electric Car?

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? I have to admit that I have watched or read almost all of the adventures of Adrian Monk, Lieutenant Columbo, Quincy, Ellery Queen, Barnaby Jones, Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason, Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Jim Rockford, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Mike Hammer. I have a feeling it would take all their brainpower to figure out the mystery of who killed the electric car, more specifically the General Motors EV-1 that came out in 1996. Most people are shocked to learn that when cars were first invented there were more electric vehicles on the road than gas powered. (Iowans should be proud that William Morrison created the first successful electric automobile in Des Moines in 1890. His vehicles operate for up to 13 hours on the muddy rural roads of the Midwest.) Until the early 1900s, electric cars held most of the land speed records. It was mass production and cheap gasoline that pushed the electric cars off the road. Cut to the 1980s, concerns over environmental issues and the realization that the flow of cheap oil cannot last forever. The state of California set up the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to find ways to reduce air pollution. In 1990, CARB mandated 2 percent of the cars sold by the Big 7 automakers have no tailpipe emissions by 1998. The volume of Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) was to be increased to 10 percent by 2003. Don’t see California’s highway packed with electric cars, do you? This mystery is made all the more stranger by the fact the most of the costs of research and development of electric vehicles was footed by the US taxpayer under the Clinton Administration’s $1.25 billion gift of corporate welfare to auto manufactures to explore a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV).
So with all that money, what did we get? Over 800 EV-1 on the roads of California and Arizona from 1996 to 1999. This electric bad boy could cruise down the highway at 75 to 130 miles per hour. One little problem, the cars could only go 55 to 95 miles on a charge and each charge took a full eight hours, although you could get the battery 80 percent charged in 40 minutes. GM would not allow anyone to own these cars, but rather insisted on a lease program where the individual would make payments somewhere between $33,995 to $43,995 over a three-year period. The large sticker price was offset by the fact that the owner would spend about 1/3 of what they would have spent on gas over the next few years. In other words, it was a run around town car for people with more money than common sense. In other words, the perfect Californian car and there was a long waiting list of people who wanted one in their garage. These drivers were also extremely vocal in their love for the vehicle, freely promoting it wherever they could. Yet, in 2003, GM claimed that they would never be able to produce EV-1s in quantities to make it profitable and recalled all of the electric cars. After giving several to universities and colleges for engineering students to study, the rest were crushed despite over 100 people offering to purchase them from GM. Still, a handful of EV-1s were able to spill through the cracks and remain on the road. GM was so keen to get these last few vehicles off the road that they have contacted the last few remaining EV-1 owners and offered them a brand new 2006 Saturn in exchange. So, who killed the electric car?
The answer is one of those Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express kind of answers. The number of suspects with knives in their hands makes it almost impossible to figure out who struck the fatal blow. The obvious answer is big oil that lobbied long and hard with California legislators to get the ZEV regulations overturned. If such vehicles reached the road, it would have cost the industry billions of dollars, so they twisted every arm and greased every pocket they could. They also set up consumer groups to act as stalking horses to oppose any technology that they did not control. The Oil industry was able to fight a delaying action, getting the implementation deadlines delayed until suspect #2 came to power. Suspect #2, the Bush administration is the Presidency oil bought. The President, Vice-President, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice all have strong ties to the oil industry. There is a reason it is called in certain Texas circles the "oil and gas administration.” They quietly dropped the funding for the New Generation of Vehicles, then turned around and offered companies tax credits for buying SUVs, and fought any increase in fuel efficiency standards. Suspect #3, the auto manufactories. The Big 7 drug their feet and fought California’s mandates. Even when GM grudgingly released the EV-1, critics claim it was only to show that an electric vehicle would never work. Unlike their Hummer and SUV lines, marketing was spotty and almost non-existent. They were unwilling to allocate any more factory space or time for the EV-1 despite a lengthy waiting list of people wanting the car. Suspect #4, the American consumer who fell head over heels for the SUV in the 1990s. Moms who only drove to and from the store, to pick their children up at soccer practice and an occasional trip to the Mall suddenly needed a vehicle that could survive the apocalypse. The SUV became the newest sign of being a success and driving around in a small car became something to be made fun of. Suspect #5 is a surprise, the one group that no one would ever have suspected in being involved in this death, environmentalists. Hydrogen and alternative fuel vehicles became the rage in these circles and the electric car became the wallflower at the dance. This is the kind of who done it I like.

Almost 30 years ago, President Jimmy Carter was moving us to an energy conserving society.  I remember sitting at a table with him one day and I was raging all the enivronmental programs that had been killed since he left office.  How Reagan has symbolically torn down the solar panels he had installed in the White House and how we would be self-seficiant if we had just listend to him. Finally, he said, “Stop being concerned about who did what and who killed what program and focus on what you’re doing.  Because if you and other good people don’t start doing something, we are going to be going to a lot of funerals.”

Verdict: A fun little movie