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Who Killed the Electric Car?

Ably marrying eco-documentary with murder mystery

By MATTIAS FREY | July 5, 2006

3.0 Stars

ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS: Who Killes the Electric Car?

In 1993, California passed a mandate that in 10 years 10 percent of cars sold in the state would have to produce zero emissions. Despite significant demand for and sales of electric cars, the law was repealed in 2003; today there are none left in California. Chris Paine’s documentary investigates the causes behind the sudden extinction and chronicles the EV drivers’ efforts to bring electric cars back onto the market. The usual suspects are implicated: Americans’ love for gas guzzlers, the oil industry, the Bush administration. Most fascinating is the complicity of the automakers themselves; whether out of defiance or ineptitude, car manufacturers consistently ignored consumer demand and botched the marketing of the vehicles. Both EV drivers and the film look foolish when they use the rhetoric of genocide to describe the disappearance of electric cars. Nevertheless, Paine ably marries eco-documentary and murder mystery.