Director of ‘Who Killed The Electric Car?’ Reveals Next Project

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by Michael dEstries January 31, 2007
Categories: Transport.

While at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show, Groovy Green’s Steve Balogh had the opportunity to chat with Chris Paine, the man behind ‘Who Killed The Electric Car?’. The video below is the tail-end of their conversation (with the beginning revolving around GM’s new hybrid Volt), but features a few juicy tidbits on some upcoming projects.

In the vid, Paine reveals that he’s working on a film about alternative fuel vehicles driving to Antarctica in a race tentatively titled ‘Test Zero’. The race will include a bio-fueled car, a hydrogen fuel-cell car, and battery-based car. According to Chris, the vehicles will race to the South Pole and back in an effort to prove they can tackle the harshest of conditions.

Steve Wozniak and Buzz Aldrin will be involved and Paine seems really psyched to get started. He also talked about a certain feeling of vindication with ‘Who Killed The Electric Car?’ telling Steve that he feels he was able to “make a difference.”

About Michael dEstries

Michael has been blogging since 2005 on issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, philanthropy, and healthy living. He regularly contributes to a slew of publications, as well as consulting with companies looking to make an impact using the web and social media. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his family on an apple farm.

View all posts by Michael dEstries →
  • Kerry Beaauhrt

    The major accomplishment of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” is that it’s easy to pawn off a basketfull of stupid lies on the public if it concerns a subject that no one is familiar with.
    If Chris Paine feels vindicated, I can’t understand why. It has become painfully obvious that even with the advancements of batteries since the days of the EV-1 and Honda EV and Rav 4 electric, that the automakers still have no means of producing a practical affordable electric car. The best any have promised for so far is a plug-in hybrid within 3 years, assuming battery problems are overcome, a far cry from Paine’s birdbrained assertions that electric cars were viable in 1997. He always knew that was a lie – that the batteries in the Ev-1 cost over $20,000
    and lasted about five years, and powered a car that couldn’t reliably get its owners to a destination and
    back over 35 miles away, a distance that grew smaller as the batteries deteriorated. It’s absolutely amazing
    how ignorant the media has been about Paine’s
    juvenile lies and conspiracy theories. I suppose that proves they know even less about electric cars in general, and the EV-1 in particular, than even their embarassingly gullible audiences. I wonder how many know such things as, What the EV-1 cost, or why it was not legal to sell it to the public, or how few morons actually were foolish enough to lease the piece of crap. Or the fact that the Honda Insight hybrid was more energy efficient overall than the EV-1 and prosuced fewer harmful emissions.

  • Richard

    Well Kerry, It’s obvious you work for the auto industry or the oil industry because you make so many general inferances without any proof. The EV1 was a “viable” car. All the owners loved it and it had a 130 mile range (not 35 as you said). Even the Ford Ranger EV had a 50 mile range! The batteries did cost a great deal of money to replace, unfortunatley the EV1 was recalled long before the batteries could go bad even after a six year operating life, so we may never know how long they could have lasted before needing replacing.
    The EV1 was legal to sell in California or any state, for that matter, as was the Rav4ev and Ford Ranger. It was GM that decided not to sell the car. Last I check, free commerce means that you can sell anything legal in the US. That of course means an electric car! I don’t know where you get your foolish assumptions, but they are wrong and it would seam to me that you were trying to foolishly sabatoge the EV movement becasue you are afraid that the oil industry will suffer!
    As far as making a practical affordable electric car, there are many on the market right now, and will be many more in the near future. Feel Good Cars, Zap, and many others.
    As far as the Honda Insight is concerned, it does not produce less emmisions than a comprable EV. In fact not only is the Insight no longer being produced, there were so few of them made that I doubt you’ll find a used one around. The Tesla has the equivalent of 135 mpg compared to 60mpg for the insight. How do they even compare???
    Stick to your little oil stories, I think they make more sense in your head!

  • Pingback: Catching Up With Directors Leila Petersen and Chris Paine // Archives // ecorazzi.com :: the latest in green gossip

  • David Lassiter

    Kerry Beaauhrt also goes by the name Kent Beuchert and has beem paid extensively by the oil and gas lobbies to reject current electrc car technologies. He posts usually in the first or second listing and works at a lobbying firm in Virgina. He has recently changed his name to continue receiving salary targets while trying to throw others off his efforts. Regards – David Lassiter

  • Tom C Gray

    Chris Paine, who created the crockumentary about killing electric cars, is about as unreliable as his beloved Evs, which have not, and will not, be resurrected until their price comes way down, their performance goes way up, and they can be recharged quickly. The all-electric car is as dead as it’s ever been, since they were made obsolescent by the Model T in 1906. Plug-ins are the only viable alternative to
    gasoline vehicles. Certainly the EV-1, recently named by Time auto analysts as one of the worsty cars ever made, is not
    the wonder car that Chris Paine’s fictitious script describes – at a price 3 times that of the Honda Civic, and a range that might (or might not) get you to a destination a mere 40 miles away and back, with a $20,000 plus battery pack that needed replacement about every 5 years, the car was a total disaster – wildly inconvenient, exorbitantly expensive now and forevermore. Notice that GM is not travelling the easy road and resurrecting the EV-1 : they are creating a practical EV this time, one that actually can take their drivers anywhere they want to go. It will accomplish everything that all-electric battery-only EVs can and more – it will actually be drivable.

  • Brendan Cameron

    Kerry thanks for the usual bucket of bile that accompanies the baseless facts that your kind stack on top of the comments section of anything that move away from your oil economy.

    Kerry.. you smell like an old oily rag..

  • Jack Morrison

    Wow! Kent/Kerry accuses others of “juvenile lies” and he lies about his own name! We must be winning the war when they are that desperate.

  • http://www.rockthereactors.com RemyC

    I think maybe Tom C Gray and Kerry Beaauhrt are the same person… or roboto… there’s a room somewhere in oil, coal, nuclear land, where these bloggers typing from pre-written scripts just pollute the digital landscape… It’s all they got left, clinging to straws… pathetic.

  • Castillonis

    You must remember that there is an incredible amount of profit at stake. If electric automobiles begin to be successful, Auto repair shops, Auto part manufacturers, Petroleum related business have much to lose. Exxon mobile has recently realized the most profitable quarters for a corporation. Most of the profit has been achieved before the refinery in extraction. I would say that GM’s volt is further placation or a distraction. They didn’t use the best battery technology in the EV1. They didn’t want to sell you an EV1. The lady in Who killed the electric car said that she needed to create a resume for a famous actor to get a lease. My opinion is that GM is using the volt to placate people since some are realizing that a hydrogen car will not be viable and is actually an electric car w/ an expensive hydrogen battery that requires a another distribution network in addition to the electrical grid. Remember that an incredible amount of money is at stake.

  • http://www.oeva.org Oregon EV Driver

    Interesting.. Battery Electric vehicles are not viable. My 1985 Ford Escort had 75,000 miles on it when it was converted to electric. It now has 155,000 miles, so it has over 80,000 electric, lead acid battery miles. I drove it for many years 30 miles one way to work, charged it up and drove 30 miles home, in a carpool. The battery replacement cost was approx 7 cents a mile, add in the cost for charging and additional maintenance (watering the battery, other misc and the cost is no more than 10 cents per mile, and that is a high estimate)

    So compare that to any gas car that is now 20+ years old and see how much you spend in maintenance, Tune-ups, oil changes, water pump failures, belt replacements, exhaust system repairs, emmission equipment repairs, valve job, air filters, and……. add that to the cost of just the fuel- 10 cents per mile ($3 a gallon and if you are lucky your 20 year old car gets 30 mpg)

    These results are with just plain ordinary lead acid batteries. I wish they would mass produce a better battery (lighter, more power, more cycles) that I could afford that would make it even better, but for now, I am just happy the way it is. Also, I am now using wind power to charge my battery, so now I am truely emmission-free.

  • Lauri Arrington

    If the EV’s are so worthless, why are the oil companies so hostile toward them? I would think that if they were really junk that exxon wouldn’t buy a battery patent nor would they bother lobbying against the technology.

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