Proper Context for viewing "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

I recently watched Who Killed the Electric Car? and am embarrassed to say I had no idea that the GM EV1 vehicle was so close to mass market viability. The impact of the actions taken together by GM, other car companies, oil companies buying battery technology and the California Air Resources Board (whose principles clearly had conflicts of interest and bad ethics) are incredibly tragic, irresponsible and possibly negligent.

But, the movie really has to be viewed as a companion to Taken for a Ride: Detroit's Big Three and the Politics of Air Pollution, whose story WKtEC? only alludes too once. Taken for a Ride tells the story of how GM illegally and surreptitiously bought up street cars around the country and gradually dismantled them over time at a rate just slow enough to prevent popular revolt - and ultimately paid only $1 in fines.

The subsequent investments by Congress in urban development centered around highways, roads and cars instead of livable cities with urban communities linked by public transit and rail has had a devastating impact on all aspects of American culture - or what some people today call America, as its the culture they've been raised in.

When taken in combination with the fact that GM has bankrupted itself and is bringing a portion of the American economy (and one could argue the habitability of planet earth) down with it as it pleas for further taxpayer bailouts, the impact of this greedy, misguided company is unfathomable and beyond deplorable.

Seeing GM's crushed electric cars (EV1s) (which owners wished to keep) alongside its crushed streetcars is damning evidence of GM's misguided profiteering which ultimately failed its shareholders.

The lesson to learn here and the lens to view this by is that there is something systemically wrong with a government and a culture that allows its corporations to manipulate policy so easily in a direction that is counter-productive to our communities, our health and the planetary environment. 

Those intrigued may want to visit CELDF's website now. The TfaR DVD is played as part of CELDF's Democracy School curriculum.

 

Comments

[Beth A. Robelia]

Thanks for adding the other movie as a companion to "Who Killed the Electric Car." I knew about GM's electric vehicle program and about the street cars from the local historical accounts. I agree that they need to be sanctioned for being so irresponsible on both accounts. Bailouts need to come with serious consequences and stipulations if they are deserved at all.

[Andrew Gianni]

I have had WKtEC in my netflix queue for a while, but other things keep moving ahead of it.

What goes around comes around I guess. My city (Buffalo) is definitely one of those whose street cars suffered from the policies you allude to. Occasionally you'll see street car tracks uncovered when roadwork is being done around here.

Damn you GM and damn you Robert Moses!

[Contrarian]

"The subsequent investments by Congress in urban development centered around highways, roads and cars instead of livable cities with urban communities linked by public transit and rail has had a devastating impact on all aspects of American culture - or what some people today call America, as its the culture they've been raised in."

Oh, don't be silly. Streetcars and passenger rail were abandoned because they are grossly inferior to the private automobile as a mode of personal transportation. They remain so. A "livable city" is one whose residents may travel via the mode they prefer, and not be forced to use an inefficient, uncomfortable, and inconvenient mode because it has been mandated by despotic politicians who presume, in their arrogance, to know what's best for everyone.

"The lesson to learn here and the lens to view this by is that there is something systemically wrong with a government and a culture that allows its corporations to manipulate policy so easily in a direction that is counter-productive to our communities, our health and the planetary environment."

Where did you get the idea that government has any business making transporation "policy" in the first place? It is the custodian of public rights-of-way. Its job is to configure those rights-of-way as desired by the traveling public, as demonstrated by their transportation choices in the market --- not as desired by regressive lefties and greenie ideologues (it is amusing that advocates of public transit systems --- a 19th century technology --- consider themselves to be "progressive"). I'll make my own transportation policy, thank you.