who killed the electric car

[Options Remain]

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/whokilledtheelectriccar/trailer/

I didn't know if this had reached DU yet.

O.R.

[meegbear]

1. Thanks for the link ...

gonna track down this movie.

[Throckmorton]

2. Funny, I thought it was the stonecutters

[Coastie for Truth]

3. I was on the project with a primary vendor

Who killed the electric car?

• Roger "Squeaky" Smith, CEO of the General Motors Corporation
  I worked with and interacted with GM people who were his direct reports. There was no motivation to "develop and grow a business" - there was a commitment to show the California Air Resources Board that "it couldn't be done."
  
  
• A "Not Invented Here" Mind Set
  There was hostility that the "electric car" came from "California tree hugging hippies" and "Left Wing Politicians" and not from "Real mechanical engineers like us "Big Ten Land Grant School Midwestern Engineers."
  Make no mistake - the "Big Three" is as localized to the Upper Midwest as the oil industry is localized to Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana engineers.
  
  
  
• A Real Bias Against Electric Cars Per Se
  Remember - the GM EV1 was coincident with SUV's. And the image of many was that EV's were for old retirees in retirement communities for getting around the golf course and getting to the Rec Center.
  
  
• Too soon
  Remember - gas was still relatively cheap, we weren't at war in Iraq and facing "problems" with Iran, and global warming was only apparent to the cognoscenti.
  

I think if Toyota or Honda (and only Toyota or Honda) came out with an electric today - with gasoline at $3.30/gallon, and war in Iraq and instability in Iran and Venezuela hating our guts, and global warming driving storms into our southland - it would sell.