I was at the screening of "Who Killed the Electric Car" at Humanist Hall in Oakland Friday. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It basically answers the question, "what happened to the electric car and to California zero-emission mandates." Basically, California CARB (CA Air Resources Board, a governing body with offices in Sacramento) "caved" to industry, at least according to this movie, in 2003 when the "zero-emission vehicle" requirement, established in the early 90s, was being challenged.
Mark Geller from the organization Plug-in America showed up at the movie and did a great Question and Answer afterwards. One interesting answer I thought was to my question "what about BioFuel?". Mark's opinion (granted, it is a biased opinion), is that biofuel is great, as long as biofuel / ethanol / vegetable oil is available LOCALLY, in sufficient quantity, for those people who need it. Apparently we are still far below the level where biofuel could "run out" in Northern CA... I don't know. In a mass industry scenario, according to Mark, this would not work. Callifornia would have to import biofuel from Nebraska (which is of course better, than importing oil from Saudi Arabia ...). He thinks the electric vehicles are better overall, because the "grid is available already. We don't need to build a separate infrastructure" (biofuel filling stations). I know this probably sounds like anathema to biofuel advocates. But it's an opinion worth considering ...
Studies have come out both for and against the ZEV program.
For: http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?page=article&storyid=691
(this article is by an EV advocate)
Against: http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/rr.12.02/driven.html
(RAND corporation - they argue that a "Partial ZEV vehicle" is more effective that a ZEV - and also have good ideas about the CARB buyback program to get old polluting engines off the road )
The movie is great at pointing out how far industry, for instance General Motors (and other automakers) as well as BIG OIL, are willing to go, to protect their established industry, that is, an industry based on carbon-based fuel, and carbon-burning parts, that wear out, and need to be replaced (auto parts, which are not found in ZEVs).
Interestingly, I asked Mark afterwards, did he ever talk about the subject to any international folks, and he mentioned he met some German engineers from BMW. He said they're ignoring electrics just like we are, and are focusing on the fantasy-hydrogen cars (as are the big 3, at the encouragement of our president). So it sounds like the German auto industry has its own government in its pocket, as well.
"Who Killed The Electric Car" can be rented at Blockbuster and other major DVD /video stores.
