Who Killed The Electric Car? Page #2

production car

from a major US car company

in nearly a century.

GM chose its Saturn division to market

it in California and Arizona.

I'd bought my first Saturn at 17,

and they'd said;

"Do you want to come work here?"

I thought it would be a good college job,

I'll put myself through college this way.

It turned out I loved the cars

more than what I was studying,

and three years later they announced

the EV1 program and I jumped on it.

There were the 13 of us, most of

whom were mid-twenties, unattached,

single, no kids - willing to do

anything for a little money.

We all handled a particular

geographic region.

Mine started as Los Angeles,

and I've worked with everybody:

from engineers and students to celebrities.

I say, I say, I say Alexandra !

I have a picture of myself...

just hearing the Saturn song...

Just being so happy!

I had one of those early EV1's,

and I used it here in the capital.

I love the car.

It's everything Americans want in a car.

They're cool, fast, sexy.

I got in the car and felt like...

It was fairly reasonably priced.

It was between 250 $ and 500 $ a month.

I haven't tried accelerating too much,

because there is too many cops around.

I'm afraid I'll get a ticket,

I'll be too excited.

Believe it or not, that sucker goes.

It will take you down the Pacific Coast

Highway so fast you could get a ticket.

I did kind of feel like Batman...

And the way it takes

off out of the cave.

You know, I have this gate that opens...

You'd get inside,

and the console was really near you,

and the lighting is beautiful.

It was quiet.

The car was so fast it looked like it

would outrun its own shadow.

It's an awesome car to drive.

It was the crust of a wave that

we'd thought was coming in.

It was going to change the

way everybody travels.

Other car companies began to comply,

often with conversions of gas cars

but with many of the same

advantages of the EV1.

I'm not mechanical at all but I love dealing

wih my electric car, because it's so easy.

I plug it in at night and when

I need to drive it I unplug

and drive it away.

They're for people who

love the environment.

I said they're for people who love cars.

They're for people who have to go somewhere.

This is amazing.

What you do with this electric car is,

you put the key in,

- and you turn it.

- Wow.

And there's this thing on

the floor called the pedal.

The exciting thing about this is

that the cost of operating a car

is the same as if you're

driving a typical gasoline car.

But the gasoline only

costs 60 cents a gallon.

Going to the gas station is a hassle,

believe it or not. Plugging a car in is not.

The battery, that you charge at home,

gets between 70 and 80 miles per charge,

which for me is more than all the driving that I

need to do in the course of a day.

People started seeing

the cars on the road

and getting a better

understanding of what they could do.

Friends and neighbors

and relatives are saying;

"Hey, that's a neat idea.

I should get one of those."

And we started seeing the

momentum building for this,

and the waiting lists

being created for these cars.

- Cut two.

- Cut two.

I go online to look for other Toyota

RAV4's and I see Toyota RAV4 EV.

And wow!

My whole world opened up.

It's this electric vehicle.

It goes 100 miles to a

charge, blablabla...

I was like

"I didn't know this existed."

"How come I don't know about this?

Have you seen this on tv?"

When I first tried to buy the Honda EV Plus,

I drove in it and said:

"Hey, this is a great car."

The person who was trying to

sell it to us was dumbfounded.

He didn't know what to do.

He'd never leased one before.

Didn't know how to do it,

and it took me six weeks of negotiations

before I was able to get

the car from their hands.

There's nothing like driving a car

where you realise, as you sit in the traffic

there's no pollution

coming out of your tailpipe.

It's just the battery sound.

By driving an electric car,

what are you sparing us from?

I'm saving America Dave,

that's what I'm doing.

I am saving America

by driving an electric car.

Not everyone was sure that

electric cars would save Ameica.

Even as GM rolled out its first

batch of EV1's, there were skeptics.

Consumer acceptance and understanding

has been a key issue in all of this.

And what we discovered is that people

are very cautious about the electric car.

I would consider it, but I

haven't done enough research,

I don't know if they're going to

be strong, big and dependable.

I have to know where do

I have to go to recharge it,

what do I have to do for the battery...

People don't want a mini, tiny car

that has 15 inch wheels.

How's he gonna fix that up and

go around town and parade it?

While some consumers expressed

skepticism about electric cars,

California was pressured

to drop the mandate.

A group called "Californians

against utility company abuse"

fought a small utility

surcharge to build charging stations.

They would go to local city

council meetings and say:

"You don't want to put an electric

vehicle charging station there.

"That's a waste of taxpayer money."

They had this list of supporters.

Companies like Trader Joe's,

and others for which you'd say

"Why would they

support something like this?"

So the EV drivers got together

and started writing letters

to some of these people that

were listed on their web site.

as being supporters, and said

"Do you realise what you're supporting here?"

And they got all these names

removed from the list.

Further investigation

revealed that these groups

were consumer

organizations in name only

funded almost

exclusively by the oil industry.

Oil companies also paid for

editorials in national publications.

They even argued that the

environmental benefits of EV's were dubious.

With electric vehicles we're going

to have this shift of energy away from oil.

And if we shift it to coal,

there are some environmental

problems that are just very disconcerting.

Right now, in the United States,

we're 55 percent coal.

If you run the numbers with

standard coal power plants,

you don't end up with a better

environmental performance,

but with a longer tailpipe.

There have been numerous studies conducted

by the California Energy Commission,

that clearly show that electric

drive is substantially more efficient

and less polluting, even if you get

your electricity from coal plants.

But the arguments against

electrics didn't stop there.

They even made the

ridiculous argument

that there was an environmental

justice issue involved,

because they said only rich

people could buy electric cars.

Well, the air doesn't know a boundary

between Brentwood and south L.A.

Car companies began to argue

that the mandate was too strict.

We had to help with the regulations.

The regulatory people knew

nothing about this stuff,

and we began to get the eerie feeling

that we were going over a cliff.

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