Who Killed The Electric Car?

Kelly and I enjoyed watching the movie Who Killed The Electric Car? [warning: flash] two nights ago. I was fascinated by the story it told of the incredible GM EV1 car and how GM couldn’t wait to pull it off the streets. The EV1 seemed like the perfect electric vehicle: fast, sexy, and decent range. In spite of enthusiastic demand, GM took posession of every car at the end of its 3 year lease and sent it off to the crusher.

I thought the movie was surprisingly fair in this controversy. GM looks like the bad guy – clearly appearing to be threatened by the success the EV1 was starting to show. Had the electric car caught on, it would have instantly exposed cars with internal combustion engines as the dinosaurs they truly are.

While I was in South Bend two weeks ago, I took a moment to tour the excellent Studebaker museum, showcasing the beautiful automotive creations of this now-defunct car company. Like all car manufacturers of the early 1900s, Studebaker’s first cars were electric, with a range of 60-70 miles and speed of 25 MPH: plenty fast for the unimproved roads on which they drove. Their huge advantage at the time was that their competition – the internal combustion engine – was unreliable, loud, and smelly. Since carriages were largely open-air, these last two drawbacks made electric cars seem to be the clear choice. Its been 100 years since electric cars debuted in America and I’m still waiting for mine.

The movie openly mocked the car manufacturer’s research into hydrogen-powered vehicles, and for good reason. Hydrogen fuel-cell cars cost more than $1 million. Hydrogen is the lightest element in the universe, thus its the least-dense gas. It provides poor energy density per volume, making any hydrogen-powered vehicles need highly-pressurized tanks to provide any range. In the movie Joseph J. Romm, author of The Hype About Hydrogen, takes apart the auto industry’s hype about hydrogen, pointing out that by the time any hydrogen infrastructure get put in place other technologies will have left hydrogen in the dust.

I read today that Ford is unveiling their first hydrogen vehicle this week. Its hydrogen tank is pressurized to 10,000 pounds per square inch, twice the pressure of other hydrogen cars. Can you imagine what that would look like in a collision?

The movie made me pine for the past when electric cars ruled the roads. Perhaps someday they will again once people realize there’s a better way to travel.