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Films

Who Killed the Electric Car?
Introduction

Who Killed the Electric Car ? is a documentary film directed by Chris Paine about the development of electric vehicles in the United States, focusing on the EV1 which was built by General Motors. Dean Devlin executive-produced the film together with Tavin & Richard Titus.

A working title for the film was EV Confidential . The tagline on the new poster reads:

In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline. -- Ten years later, these cars were destroyed.

Dean Devlin (who was a proud owner of an EV1) describes his motivation for contributing in the making of Who Killed the Electric Car ?:

For those of us who drove and loved these cars it was enormously frustrating because this story was never told in the press. We couldn't understand why. Every time the story of the electric vehicle was told, it was from the car companies' point of view, and filled with bad information, even from very good media outlets. It shocked me. We only knew about this because we were personally involved as EV1 drivers. We realized that this story was not going to get told unless we told it.

In another interview Dean Devlin revealed that the electric car is what gave Electric Entertainment its name.

The film had its worldwide premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2006.

More about the film's background is available in production notes from Sony Pictures Classics. We also have a synopsis and Chris Paine's statement online.

written by Stefan