1
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Ladies and gentlemen,
we are gathered here today

2
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to berieve the loss
of something dear to us.

3
00:00:41,708 --> 00:00:47,146
We are here today to say
goodbye to a special friend,

4
00:00:47,847 --> 00:00:50,407
to say goodbye to an idea.

5
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Some might say that
to be here gathered today

6
00:00:55,088 --> 00:00:59,821
to mourn the loss of a car
would be going too far.

7
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<i>In 1996, electric cars began to appear
on roads all over California.</i>

8
00:01:25,718 --> 00:01:27,845
<i>They were quiet and fast,</i>

9
00:01:27,921 --> 00:01:31,880
<i>produced no exhaust
and ran without gasoline.</i>

10
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<i>Ten years later, these futuristic
cars were almost entirely gone.</i>

11
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<i>What happened?</i>

12
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<i>Why should we be haunted
by the ghost of the electric car?</i>

13
00:01:48,875 --> 00:01:52,367
<i>This wasn't the first time
the electric car was killed.</i>

14
00:01:52,612 --> 00:01:56,275
<i>One hundred years ago,
there were more electrics on the road</i>

15
00:01:56,349 --> 00:01:58,476
<i>than there were gas cars.</i>

16
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<i>For many people electric
cars were the car of choice.</i>

17
00:02:02,922 --> 00:02:06,790
<i>They were quiet an smooth,
and could be charged at home.</i>

18
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<i>Gas cars by comparison required
cranking and produced exhaust.</i>

19
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I'm so old I remember electric cars,

20
00:02:19,405 --> 00:02:20,770
when they were around in the beginning.

21
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<i>I would've been about six years old
on the way to the symphony</i>

22
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<i>in that darling little electric car.</i>

23
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<i>They were very quiet, and it
had beveled glass windows.</i>

24
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It was almost like
sitting inside a huge lamp.

25
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<i>What happened?</i>

26
00:02:39,792 --> 00:02:43,853
<i>Why did the gas car win
over the electric car?</i>

27
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<i>As the 20th century gathered speed,</i>

28
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<i>the electric car lost momentum.</i>

29
00:02:49,936 --> 00:02:53,565
<i>Automatic starters, cheaper
oil and mass production</i>

30
00:02:53,640 --> 00:02:56,268
<i>gave the edge to the gasoline car.</i>

31
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<i>By 1920, the internal combustion
engine had won the race</i>

32
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<i>for control of the roads.</i>

33
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<i>And the modern automobile age was born.</i>

34
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<i>Of the hundreds of millions
of cars built in the 20th century,</i>

35
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<i>almost none were electric.</i>

36
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<i>They were sleek.
They were fast.</i>

37
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<i>And they gave Americans the open road.</i>

38
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<i>But as time went on, their
number one flaw became apparent.</i>

39
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<i>Smog.</i>

40
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<i>California has the worst
air quality in the nation.</i>

41
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And it impacts some of our
largest population centers.

42
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In my district, we have what is
called the "black cloud of death"

43
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<i>that hangs over the port areas
and the areas surrounding the ports.</i>

44
00:04:03,943 --> 00:04:08,039
We are seeing some
tremendously debilitating effects:

45
00:04:08,248 --> 00:04:13,413
asthma rates, cancer rates,
lung development in children,

46
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<i>children not being
allowed to play outside.</i>

47
00:04:16,489 --> 00:04:19,356
<i>In 1989, a study found</i>

48
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<i>that one out of four 15 to 25
year-olds in Los Angeles county</i>

49
00:04:24,197 --> 00:04:28,531
<i>had severe lung lesions
and chronic respiratory disease.</i>

50
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<i>In 1990, there were 41
stage one smog alerts.</i>

51
00:04:35,074 --> 00:04:37,406
<i>No matter what kind of car we drive,</i>

52
00:04:37,477 --> 00:04:39,536
<i>every gallon of gas we burn,</i>

53
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<i>adds 19 pounds of carbon dioxide to the air.</i>

54
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<i>The more gas we burn,
the more CO2 we create.</i>

55
00:04:48,187 --> 00:04:52,146
If you don't do something with
that CO2, if you don't sequester it

56
00:04:53,326 --> 00:04:54,918
it's going up into the atmosphere

57
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and CO2 is a global warming gas.

58
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<i>I believe the problems of
global warming will be far greater</i>

59
00:05:05,305 --> 00:05:06,667
than the problems of social security

60
00:05:07,740 --> 00:05:09,401
or even the problems of war on terrorism.

61
00:05:10,443 --> 00:05:13,879
<i>We've got the equivalent of a nuclear time bomb</i>

62
00:05:13,946 --> 00:05:16,642
<i>on our hand,
with global warming.</i>

63
00:05:16,816 --> 00:05:19,546
If lung disease from air
pollution is unimportant,

64
00:05:20,587 --> 00:05:23,918
if all those things don't count,
we're going to be in bad trouble.

65
00:05:24,023 --> 00:05:25,752
<i>And there's a public health crisis.</i>

66
00:05:25,825 --> 00:05:28,385
But we have to have incentives
and we have to have alternatives.

67
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<i>Car companies experimented
with alternatives over the years,</i>

68
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<i>but none of them ever seem to
make it out of the proving grounds.</i>

69
00:05:37,503 --> 00:05:42,668
I remember, I was the chairman of the
board of the Tennessee Valley Authority,

70
00:05:42,742 --> 00:05:47,008
and we were promoting the electric
car back in the late 70's.

71
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I had even planned a race

72
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from Gatlinburg, Tennessee
to Nashville

73
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between Paul Newman
and Robert Redford.

74
00:05:56,622 --> 00:06:01,525
And I had it all lined up, and then
I realised that we'd get a lot of national publicity,

75
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but there were no cars in the showrooms.

76
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<i>It would take a different kind of race to
make the electric car the car of the future.</i>

77
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The Sunraycer was a solar-powered vehicle
that was developed here, at AeroVironment,

78
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for the purpose of winning a race.

79
00:06:19,579 --> 00:06:23,913
<i>In 1987, GM won the World Solar
Challenge race in Australia</i>

80
00:06:24,050 --> 00:06:28,612
<i>with a one-of-a-kind solar-powered
electric vehicle, the Sunraycer.</i>

81
00:06:28,688 --> 00:06:33,091
<i>Emboldened by their success,
GM C.E.O. Roger Smith</i>

82
00:06:33,159 --> 00:06:38,461
<i>challenged the same design team to
build a prototype for a practical electric car.</i>

83
00:06:38,531 --> 00:06:41,557
<i>If we were to go full speed
ahead with electric cars</i>

84
00:06:41,634 --> 00:06:45,764
the electronics had to be good enough
in order to warrant that concept,

85
00:06:46,038 --> 00:06:48,302
and that's where the work
of Alan Cocconi came in.

86
00:06:49,442 --> 00:06:53,003
You've built the prototype
for this in your garage?

87
00:06:53,079 --> 00:06:55,070
Yes. Well, my garage
isn't quite the average garage,

88
00:06:55,148 --> 00:06:58,982
it's a pretty good machine shop and electronics
lab. But yes, I've built it there.

89
00:06:59,051 --> 00:07:02,919
It's like a three-channel stereo amplifier.
It provides the right size sinus waves

90
00:07:02,989 --> 00:07:06,823
at right frequency to drive the motor
for all the different driving conditions.

91
00:07:07,326 --> 00:07:09,920
So it's a 100 000 watt stereo amplifier.

92
00:07:10,196 --> 00:07:14,132
<i>Alan's breakthrough power system
helped create an electric car</i>

93
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<i>unlike any that had
ever been driven before.</i>

94
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They've kept this car also a secret,
much better than any Detroit secret

95
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because it was all developed
out here in California.

96
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<i>So it truly was a surprise
when it was introduced</i>

97
00:07:30,817 --> 00:07:32,546
<i>to Los Angeles auto show.</i>

98
00:07:33,085 --> 00:07:35,781
This is going to represent a great step
forward for people in terms of

99
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commuting to work,
from work

100
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<i>if you don't have to go more
than 120 miles a day.</i>

101
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Other than the jokes that we made

102
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about the wisdom of calling a vehicle the Impact

103
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it was very impressive, it was very high-tech
and it had an interesting premise

104
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that we've got this Corvette
electric-type car,

105
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two-seater, slick styling, and that
we can make a business out of it.

106
00:08:02,515 --> 00:08:03,573
It was interesting.

107
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Program manager called me and said:

108
00:08:07,220 --> 00:08:09,347
"Would you like to be on the
electric vehicle program?"

109
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<i>"That's fine. What do
you want me to do?"</i>

110
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And he said: "Develop demand for
electric vehicles worldwide."

111
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I said: "Do you have any instructions?"

112
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He took a blank piece of paper,
shoved it in front of me and said:

113
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"No instructions. You go figure it out." At
that point I joined the program.

114
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It got a lot of interest
flowing in the industry,

115
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but it did something else.

116
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It caught the attention of the
California Air Resources Board.

117
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<i>California's Air Resources Board,</i>

118
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<i>or CARB as it was known,</i>

119
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<i>saw the electric car as an
opportunity to solve another problem.</i>

120
00:08:46,526 --> 00:08:49,290
<i>Since GM had already announced</i>

121
00:08:49,362 --> 00:08:52,820
<i>that they were going to
produce an electric vehicle</i>

122
00:08:52,899 --> 00:08:55,868
<i>before we even adopted the mandate,</i>

123
00:08:56,269 --> 00:09:00,899
the electric vehicle technology
became the technology

124
00:09:00,973 --> 00:09:02,873
of greatest promise.

125
00:09:02,942 --> 00:09:06,241
<i>Knowing a modern electric
car was now possible,</i>

126
00:09:06,312 --> 00:09:10,339
<i>California regulators took a bold
and unprecedented step.</i>

127
00:09:10,416 --> 00:09:13,681
<i>They passed the Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate.</i>

128
00:09:13,819 --> 00:09:15,343
<i>The mandate was simple.</i>

129
00:09:15,421 --> 00:09:19,721
<i>If automakers wanted to
continue to sell cars in California,</i>

130
00:09:19,959 --> 00:09:23,918
<i>some of those cars would have
to be vehicles with no exhaust.</i>

131
00:09:23,996 --> 00:09:25,463
<i>They've decided to ramp it up.</i>

132
00:09:25,531 --> 00:09:29,160
They said 2% in 1998, 5% in 2001

133
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and 10% in 2003.

134
00:09:31,203 --> 00:09:34,434
<i>For the car companies there
were only two options;</i>

135
00:09:34,507 --> 00:09:36,873
<i>Comply with the law or fight it.</i>

136
00:09:37,577 --> 00:09:40,068
<i>In the end, they would do both.</i>

137
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<i>The electric car is here.</i>

138
00:10:02,101 --> 00:10:04,501
The EV1 from General Motors.

139
00:10:04,604 --> 00:10:07,732
<i>The Impact prototype became the EV1,</i>

140
00:10:07,807 --> 00:10:10,503
<i>the first modern electric
production car</i>

141
00:10:10,576 --> 00:10:14,637
<i>from a major US car company
in nearly a century.</i>

142
00:10:14,780 --> 00:10:19,911
<i>GM chose its Saturn division to market
it in California and Arizona.</i>

143
00:10:20,453 --> 00:10:23,047
<i>I'd bought my first Saturn at 17,
and they'd said;</i>

144
00:10:23,122 --> 00:10:24,453
<i>"Do you want to come work here?"</i>

145
00:10:24,725 --> 00:10:27,058
I thought it would be a good college job,

146
00:10:27,126 --> 00:10:28,991
I'll put myself through college this way.

147
00:10:29,128 --> 00:10:32,154
It turned out I loved the cars
more than what I was studying,

148
00:10:32,231 --> 00:10:36,133
<i>and three years later they announced
the EV1 program and I jumped on it.</i>

149
00:10:37,103 --> 00:10:41,437
<i>There were the 13 of us, most of
whom were mid-twenties, unattached,</i>

150
00:10:41,507 --> 00:10:45,466
single, no kids - willing to do
anything for a little money.

151
00:10:47,413 --> 00:10:50,041
<i>We all handled a particular
geographic region.</i>

152
00:10:50,116 --> 00:10:51,743
Mine started as Los Angeles,

153
00:10:51,851 --> 00:10:56,413
and I've worked with everybody:
from engineers and students to celebrities.

154
00:10:56,489 --> 00:11:00,118
<i>I say, I say, I say Alexandra !</i>

155
00:11:00,192 --> 00:11:01,682
I have a picture of myself...

156
00:11:02,895 --> 00:11:04,522
just hearing the Saturn song...
Just being so happy!

157
00:11:04,597 --> 00:11:08,966
I had one of those early EV1's,
and I used it here in the capital.

158
00:11:09,335 --> 00:11:10,632
I love the car.

159
00:11:11,504 --> 00:11:14,530
<i>It's everything Americans want in a car.</i>

160
00:11:15,675 --> 00:11:19,111
They're cool, fast, sexy.
I got in the car and felt like...

161
00:11:23,115 --> 00:11:27,745
It was fairly reasonably priced.
It was between 250 $ and 500 $ a month.

162
00:11:28,087 --> 00:11:31,250
I haven't tried accelerating too much,
because there is too many cops around.

163
00:11:31,323 --> 00:11:33,791
I'm afraid I'll get a ticket,
I'll be too excited.

164
00:11:34,627 --> 00:11:36,185
<i>Believe it or not, that sucker goes.</i>

165
00:11:36,262 --> 00:11:39,390
It will take you down the Pacific Coast
Highway so fast you could get a ticket.

166
00:11:44,804 --> 00:11:46,999
<i>I did kind of feel like Batman...</i>

167
00:11:48,474 --> 00:11:50,874
And the way it takes
off out of the cave.

168
00:11:51,510 --> 00:11:54,070
You know, I have this gate that opens...

169
00:11:55,047 --> 00:11:57,811
<i>You'd get inside,
and the console was really near you,</i>

170
00:11:57,883 --> 00:12:00,351
and the lighting is beautiful.

171
00:12:01,020 --> 00:12:02,214
It was quiet.

172
00:12:08,294 --> 00:12:11,923
The car was so fast it looked like it
would outrun its own shadow.

173
00:12:13,299 --> 00:12:15,096
It's an awesome car to drive.

174
00:12:17,670 --> 00:12:20,830
It was the crust of a wave that
we'd thought was coming in.

175
00:12:21,907 --> 00:12:24,876
It was going to change the
way everybody travels.

176
00:12:25,044 --> 00:12:30,004
<i>Other car companies began to comply,
often with conversions of gas cars</i>

177
00:12:30,249 --> 00:12:33,707
<i>but with many of the same
advantages of the EV1.</i>

178
00:12:39,058 --> 00:12:43,893
I'm not mechanical at all but I love dealing
wih my electric car, because it's so easy.

179
00:12:43,963 --> 00:12:48,798
I plug it in at night and when
I need to drive it I unplug

180
00:12:49,702 --> 00:12:50,896
<i>and drive it away.</i>

181
00:12:50,970 --> 00:12:52,767
They're for people who
love the environment.

182
00:12:52,838 --> 00:12:54,829
I said they're for people who love cars.

183
00:12:54,907 --> 00:12:56,465
They're for people who have to go somewhere.

184
00:12:56,575 --> 00:12:57,633
<i>This is amazing.</i>

185
00:12:57,710 --> 00:13:00,270
What you do with this electric car is,
you put the key in,

186
00:13:00,513 --> 00:13:02,242
- and you turn it.
- Wow.

187
00:13:02,381 --> 00:13:05,350
And there's this thing on
the floor called the pedal.

188
00:13:05,417 --> 00:13:08,511
The exciting thing about this is
that the cost of operating a car

189
00:13:08,587 --> 00:13:12,182
<i>is the same as if you're
driving a typical gasoline car.</i>

190
00:13:12,358 --> 00:13:14,986
<i>But the gasoline only
costs 60 cents a gallon.</i>

191
00:13:15,060 --> 00:13:19,190
Going to the gas station is a hassle,
believe it or not. Plugging a car in is not.

192
00:13:19,331 --> 00:13:23,995
The battery, that you charge at home,
gets between 70 and 80 miles per charge,

193
00:13:24,069 --> 00:13:27,800
which for me is more than all the driving that I
need to do in the course of a day.

194
00:13:28,908 --> 00:13:31,604
<i>People started seeing
the cars on the road</i>

195
00:13:31,677 --> 00:13:33,975
<i>and getting a better
understanding of what they could do.</i>

196
00:13:34,046 --> 00:13:35,775
<i>Friends and neighbors
and relatives are saying;</i>

197
00:13:35,848 --> 00:13:38,874
"Hey, that's a neat idea.
I should get one of those."

198
00:13:38,984 --> 00:13:41,851
And we started seeing the
momentum building for this,

199
00:13:41,921 --> 00:13:45,322
<i>and the waiting lists
being created for these cars.</i>

200
00:13:46,059 --> 00:13:47,821
- Cut two.
- Cut two.

201
00:13:47,893 --> 00:13:52,796
I go online to look for other Toyota
RAV4's and I see Toyota RAV4 EV.

202
00:13:53,365 --> 00:13:57,597
And wow!
My whole world opened up.

203
00:13:57,670 --> 00:13:59,069
It's this electric vehicle.

204
00:13:59,471 --> 00:14:02,440
It goes 100 miles to a
charge, blablabla...

205
00:14:02,508 --> 00:14:06,604
I was like
"I didn't know this existed."

206
00:14:06,745 --> 00:14:09,771
"How come I don't know about this?
Have you seen this on tv?"

207
00:14:10,282 --> 00:14:12,341
When I first tried to buy the Honda EV Plus,

208
00:14:12,885 --> 00:14:16,215
I drove in it and said:
"Hey, this is a great car."

209
00:14:17,122 --> 00:14:20,091
The person who was trying to
sell it to us was dumbfounded.

210
00:14:20,159 --> 00:14:23,094
He didn't know what to do.
He'd never leased one before.

211
00:14:23,162 --> 00:14:26,563
Didn't know how to do it,
and it took me six weeks of negotiations

212
00:14:26,632 --> 00:14:28,998
before I was able to get
the car from their hands.

213
00:14:29,735 --> 00:14:33,229
There's nothing like driving a car
where you realise, as you sit in the traffic

214
00:14:33,305 --> 00:14:35,637
<i>there's no pollution
coming out of your tailpipe.</i>

215
00:14:35,708 --> 00:14:38,074
<i>It's just the battery sound.</i>

216
00:14:38,611 --> 00:14:41,808
<i>By driving an electric car,
what are you sparing us from?</i>

217
00:14:41,881 --> 00:14:43,644
I'm saving America Dave,
that's what I'm doing.

218
00:14:43,716 --> 00:14:47,447
I am saving America
by driving an electric car.

219
00:14:48,287 --> 00:14:52,383
<i>Not everyone was sure that
electric cars would save Ameica.</i>

220
00:14:52,625 --> 00:14:57,585
<i>Even as GM rolled out its first
batch of EV1's, there were skeptics.</i>

221
00:14:57,796 --> 00:15:01,823
Consumer acceptance and understanding
has been a key issue in all of this.

222
00:15:02,201 --> 00:15:07,104
And what we discovered is that people
are very cautious about the electric car.

223
00:15:07,172 --> 00:15:09,766
I would consider it, but I
haven't done enough research,

224
00:15:09,842 --> 00:15:14,779
I don't know if they're going to
be strong, big and dependable.

225
00:15:14,847 --> 00:15:16,838
I have to know where do
I have to go to recharge it,

226
00:15:16,916 --> 00:15:19,146
what do I have to do for the battery...

227
00:15:19,218 --> 00:15:24,679
People don't want a mini, tiny car
that has 15 inch wheels.

228
00:15:25,358 --> 00:15:28,827
How's he gonna fix that up and
go around town and parade it?

229
00:15:28,894 --> 00:15:33,354
<i>While some consumers expressed
skepticism about electric cars,</i>

230
00:15:33,432 --> 00:15:36,094
<i>California was pressured
to drop the mandate.</i>

231
00:15:36,168 --> 00:15:40,161
<i>A group called "Californians
against utility company abuse"</i>

232
00:15:40,239 --> 00:15:43,868
<i>fought a small utility
surcharge to build charging stations.</i>

233
00:15:43,943 --> 00:15:46,639
They would go to local city
council meetings and say:

234
00:15:46,712 --> 00:15:49,340
"You don't want to put an electric
vehicle charging station there.

235
00:15:49,415 --> 00:15:51,542
<i>"That's a waste of taxpayer money."</i>

236
00:15:51,917 --> 00:15:53,851
<i>They had this list of supporters.</i>

237
00:15:53,919 --> 00:15:56,513
Companies like Trader Joe's,
and others for which you'd say

238
00:15:56,588 --> 00:15:58,419
"Why would they
support something like this?"

239
00:15:58,557 --> 00:16:00,889
So the EV drivers got together
and started writing letters

240
00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:03,326
to some of these people that
were listed on their web site.

241
00:16:03,395 --> 00:16:06,887
as being supporters, and said
"Do you realise what you're supporting here?"

242
00:16:06,966 --> 00:16:09,764
And they got all these names
removed from the list.

243
00:16:09,902 --> 00:16:12,598
<i>Further investigation
revealed that these groups</i>

244
00:16:12,671 --> 00:16:15,765
<i>were consumer
organizations in name only</i>

245
00:16:15,908 --> 00:16:19,344
<i>funded almost
exclusively by the oil industry.</i>

246
00:16:22,314 --> 00:16:26,148
<i>Oil companies also paid for
editorials in national publications.</i>

247
00:16:27,687 --> 00:16:31,720
<i>They even argued that the
environmental benefits of EV's were dubious.</i>

248
00:16:32,791 --> 00:16:37,149
With electric vehicles we're going
to have this shift of energy away from oil.

249
00:16:37,463 --> 00:16:39,055
And if we shift it to coal,

250
00:16:39,131 --> 00:16:42,123
there are some environmental
problems that are just very disconcerting.

251
00:16:44,336 --> 00:16:47,032
<i>Right now, in the United States,
we're 55 percent coal.</i>

252
00:16:47,106 --> 00:16:49,597
If you run the numbers with
standard coal power plants,

253
00:16:50,276 --> 00:16:52,437
you don't end up with a better
environmental performance,

254
00:16:52,511 --> 00:16:53,569
but with a longer tailpipe.

255
00:16:53,645 --> 00:16:55,840
There have been numerous studies conducted

256
00:16:55,914 --> 00:16:58,075
by the California Energy Commission,

257
00:16:58,150 --> 00:17:02,712
that clearly show that electric
drive is substantially more efficient

258
00:17:02,788 --> 00:17:07,782
and less polluting, even if you get
your electricity from coal plants.

259
00:17:08,027 --> 00:17:11,895
<i>But the arguments against
electrics didn't stop there.</i>

260
00:17:12,464 --> 00:17:14,864
They even made the
ridiculous argument

261
00:17:14,933 --> 00:17:17,993
that there was an environmental
justice issue involved,

262
00:17:18,070 --> 00:17:22,404
because they said only rich
people could buy electric cars.

263
00:17:22,674 --> 00:17:27,702
<i>Well, the air doesn't know a boundary
between Brentwood and south L.A.</i>

264
00:17:27,813 --> 00:17:31,374
<i>Car companies began to argue
that the mandate was too strict.</i>

265
00:17:32,484 --> 00:17:34,042
We had to help with the regulations.

266
00:17:34,119 --> 00:17:36,451
The regulatory people knew
nothing about this stuff,

267
00:17:36,522 --> 00:17:43,121
and we began to get the eerie feeling
that we were going over a cliff.

268
00:17:44,396 --> 00:17:46,796
It wasn't going to be possible.

269
00:17:46,965 --> 00:17:50,492
California was faced with the
prospect of "What do you do

270
00:17:50,702 --> 00:17:53,034
"...if the car companies don't comply?"

271
00:17:53,472 --> 00:17:56,964
So rather than do brinksmanship

272
00:17:57,042 --> 00:18:00,637
about what would happen
if they didn't comply and stick with it,

273
00:18:00,712 --> 00:18:02,839
they started negotiating,

274
00:18:03,615 --> 00:18:07,608
a certain flexibility in the mandate.

275
00:18:08,487 --> 00:18:11,285
<i>California compromised
with the automakers</i>

276
00:18:11,356 --> 00:18:13,551
<i>adopting a memorandum of agreement.</i>

277
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:19,128
One of the agreements with the state
was that the automakers would build

278
00:18:19,198 --> 00:18:22,224
<i>and market electric vehicles
in accordance with demand.</i>

279
00:18:22,301 --> 00:18:24,292
<i>If they didn't want to build more of them,</i>

280
00:18:24,369 --> 00:18:28,533
<i>the car companies would have to make
the case that there was no demand.</i>

281
00:18:28,807 --> 00:18:30,297
The person will go unnamed,

282
00:18:30,375 --> 00:18:35,369
but we were having a lunch in the executive
dining room at the GM tech center one day.

283
00:18:35,447 --> 00:18:38,416
Just the two of us,
and he leans over to me and says:

284
00:18:38,484 --> 00:18:41,749
"Dabels, you know something?
You are my worst enemy."

285
00:18:42,354 --> 00:18:44,515
I asked why, and he said:

286
00:18:44,590 --> 00:18:49,186
"I'm out there lobbying to show that
there's no demand for electric vehicles,

287
00:18:49,261 --> 00:18:51,354
"and you're out there proving me wrong."

288
00:18:51,830 --> 00:18:55,732
We would sit down with Hal Riney
or with executives from GM and discuss

289
00:18:55,801 --> 00:18:58,497
how fast, how far, how much.
These were the three questions we were getting.

290
00:18:58,570 --> 00:19:01,232
"Please put it in the advertising.
It's not rocket science."

291
00:19:01,306 --> 00:19:03,501
And they would go back
and do the exact opposite.

292
00:19:03,775 --> 00:19:06,642
We never saw a tv ad

293
00:19:06,712 --> 00:19:09,704
with an electric car scampering
up the side of a hill

294
00:19:09,781 --> 00:19:12,579
with a good looking man or
woman draped around it.

295
00:19:12,651 --> 00:19:14,585
That's the way they sell cars.

296
00:19:22,928 --> 00:19:25,158
<i>How does it go without gas and air?</i>

297
00:19:26,665 --> 00:19:30,226
<i>How does it go without
sparks and explosions?</i>

298
00:19:31,069 --> 00:19:34,527
<i>How does it go without
gears or transmissions?</i>

299
00:19:35,674 --> 00:19:38,302
<i>How does it go, you ask yourself?</i>

300
00:19:40,946 --> 00:19:43,540
<i>And then, you will ask;</i>

301
00:19:44,116 --> 00:19:47,051
<i>How did we go so long without it?</i>

302
00:19:47,719 --> 00:19:49,311
<i>The electric car.</i>

303
00:19:49,922 --> 00:19:51,389
<i>It isn't coming,</i>

304
00:19:52,991 --> 00:19:54,424
<i>it's here.</i>

305
00:19:59,765 --> 00:20:02,757
<i>What was the objective
of these advertisements?</i>

306
00:20:03,001 --> 00:20:06,528
<i>Was it to entice consumers
or to scare them away?</i>

307
00:20:07,206 --> 00:20:10,903
Our goal at GM was to make the full
functioning, battery electric vehicle

308
00:20:10,976 --> 00:20:14,070
a commercially viable business
opportunity for General Motors.

309
00:20:14,146 --> 00:20:19,174
<i>GM spokesman, Dave Barthmuss,
has worked for GM for nearly ten years.</i>

310
00:20:19,418 --> 00:20:23,752
We spent in excess of one billion
dollars to drive this market.

311
00:20:23,822 --> 00:20:26,985
That means award-winning
advertising, developing the vehicle,

312
00:20:27,059 --> 00:20:29,960
developing the recharging infrastructure.

313
00:20:30,028 --> 00:20:33,987
In a four-year timeframe,
from roughly 1996 to 2000,

314
00:20:34,066 --> 00:20:36,261
we were able to lease 800 EV1's.

315
00:20:36,368 --> 00:20:39,337
We started this waiting list
in order to prove demand to GM,

316
00:20:39,404 --> 00:20:42,237
but no matter how many
people we got on that list,

317
00:20:42,674 --> 00:20:46,110
that was never considered enough demand.
Everything was anecdotal to GM.

318
00:20:46,245 --> 00:20:48,372
We have heard about
these long waiting lists,

319
00:20:48,447 --> 00:20:51,416
and frankly, we did have a
list of roughly 4000 people

320
00:20:51,483 --> 00:20:54,646
that raised their hands and said:
"I would be interested in getting a new EV1

321
00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:56,210
"and being an EV1 lessee."

322
00:20:56,288 --> 00:20:59,746
We contacted each of those folks
and we riddled that list down.

323
00:20:59,825 --> 00:21:02,089
And when we got down to
a point when we were able to have

324
00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:03,957
somebody sign on the dotted line,

325
00:21:04,029 --> 00:21:07,055
that list from 4000 people
shrunk to about 50.

326
00:21:08,367 --> 00:21:12,463
<i>Only recently did they finally
admit there actually was a waiting list</i>

327
00:21:13,005 --> 00:21:14,867
<i>and tried to explain
it in the way of;</i>

328
00:21:14,940 --> 00:21:19,206
"By the time we explained all the limitations
of the car to them only 50 would sign up."

329
00:21:19,344 --> 00:21:21,437
If you sincerely want to
market a product,

330
00:21:21,513 --> 00:21:24,914
you don't start out by describing
the limitations of the product.

331
00:21:25,317 --> 00:21:28,684
<i>Tom Everhart is president
emeritus at Caltech.</i>

332
00:21:28,987 --> 00:21:32,423
<i>He served on GM's board
of directors for 13 years.</i>

333
00:21:32,791 --> 00:21:35,021
I do not think General Motors tried hard

334
00:21:36,428 --> 00:21:39,021
to get the electric cars out rapidly.

335
00:21:40,098 --> 00:21:43,795
Whether the C.E.O. of General Motors
understood that, I don't know.

336
00:21:43,902 --> 00:21:47,030
We had to ask permission of
who everyone to give a car to,

337
00:21:47,105 --> 00:21:51,405
and by the end we were low on cars,
we had to write case statements.

338
00:21:51,810 --> 00:21:54,040
<i>We tried to put the cars
in hands of celebrities,</i>

339
00:21:54,112 --> 00:21:58,071
because they were the only ones
that stood a chance of getting the car.

340
00:21:58,150 --> 00:22:00,618
The 3rd grade science teacher
didn't stand a chance.

341
00:22:01,353 --> 00:22:04,481
<i>I had to write a resume for Mel Gibson,
and what he'd done and accomplished,</i>

342
00:22:04,556 --> 00:22:08,083
because the people I was talking to
didn't believe that he warranted a car.

343
00:22:08,260 --> 00:22:10,490
I was wondering: "Why do I
have to fill this out?"

344
00:22:10,562 --> 00:22:12,860
You had to tell them where
your birthmarks were.

345
00:22:12,931 --> 00:22:15,024
I mean it was everything.

346
00:22:15,434 --> 00:22:18,733
"Have you recently had
a proctoscope inserted into your..."

347
00:22:18,804 --> 00:22:20,499
"Well, no."

348
00:22:21,106 --> 00:22:24,974
You had to get really specific
about a whole bunch of things.

349
00:22:25,310 --> 00:22:29,246
Consumers wanted it, but they
regarded it as a limited vehicle

350
00:22:29,314 --> 00:22:32,147
and they expected to
pay a limited price for it.

351
00:22:32,217 --> 00:22:36,051
And there's nothing irrational about
the consumer that said that to us.

352
00:22:36,288 --> 00:22:38,449
That's a perfectly
reasonable statement.

353
00:22:38,924 --> 00:22:42,382
"You're giving me a vehicle that
does less, I wanna pay less."

354
00:22:43,462 --> 00:22:44,520
Okay.

355
00:22:45,263 --> 00:22:47,595
But unfortunately, I
couldn't make it for less.

356
00:22:47,799 --> 00:22:50,666
They argue things like money and that
they're too expensive to build,

357
00:22:50,736 --> 00:22:54,695
yet they're building four a day.
They were very hand built cars,

358
00:22:54,773 --> 00:22:56,434
<i>with specialized components.</i>

359
00:22:56,541 --> 00:22:59,533
And had they mass-marketed them,
they of course would have come down.

360
00:23:00,846 --> 00:23:03,974
<i>As car companies made the
case there was no demand</i>

361
00:23:04,049 --> 00:23:07,746
<i>electric vehicle advocates thought
they had a sympathetic ear</i>

362
00:23:07,819 --> 00:23:11,778
<i>with the appointment of environmental
scientist, doctor Alan Lloyd</i>

363
00:23:11,857 --> 00:23:15,258
<i>as chairman of the California Air Resources Board.</i>

364
00:23:15,327 --> 00:23:18,524
First time I presided over that,

365
00:23:18,597 --> 00:23:22,499
I felt that the car companies
weren't making significant effort,

366
00:23:22,567 --> 00:23:27,368
so i felt: "Flog them harder.
Flog them often. They need to do better."

367
00:23:27,472 --> 00:23:31,636
For the regulation - we felt it needed
to be changed drastically.

368
00:23:33,011 --> 00:23:36,469
And there was some movement that way,
but it didn't go away.

369
00:23:36,548 --> 00:23:39,676
<i>While the car companies
fought the mandate in Sacramento,</i>

370
00:23:39,751 --> 00:23:43,619
<i>GM quietly closed its EV1 assembly line</i>

371
00:23:43,688 --> 00:23:46,156
<i>and began laying off its sales force.</i>

372
00:23:46,224 --> 00:23:50,217
<i>All of a sudden, we were not only taken
off the project, but taken out of the company.</i>

373
00:23:50,328 --> 00:23:52,421
They started with the
ones with the most...

374
00:23:52,697 --> 00:23:54,927
the biggest waiting lists,
and the most customers.

375
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:58,128
The primary areas were
the ones that they dismantled first.

376
00:23:58,203 --> 00:24:00,433
And so, at the end of 2001,

377
00:24:00,505 --> 00:24:02,666
that was it in terms of my
employment with General Motors.

378
00:24:02,741 --> 00:24:05,301
Studying general Motors
practices over the years,

379
00:24:06,078 --> 00:24:08,275
and I don't speak for
the engineers and scientists

380
00:24:08,346 --> 00:24:11,975
who would really have liked to have done
a better job with motor vehicle technology,

381
00:24:12,050 --> 00:24:15,213
but the executives at the top,
their motto seemed to have been:

382
00:24:15,287 --> 00:24:17,380
"Going backwards into the future."

383
00:24:17,456 --> 00:24:20,391
And that's what they've
been doing for decades.

384
00:24:20,959 --> 00:24:25,396
<i>As a veteran consumer advocate,
Ralph Nader used grassroots campaigns</i>

385
00:24:25,464 --> 00:24:28,160
<i>to make cars safer
and more fuel efficient.</i>

386
00:24:28,433 --> 00:24:32,927
<i>He's familiar with the tactics used
by the car industry to resist change.</i>

387
00:24:33,538 --> 00:24:36,974
<i>There are all kinds of ways to take
and bring politicians to their knees.</i>

388
00:24:37,042 --> 00:24:39,806
Once the car companies
get a long delay time,

389
00:24:39,878 --> 00:24:42,676
then they go to work,
eroding, eroding.

390
00:24:42,747 --> 00:24:45,375
And than when the deadline is
approaching they say they can't do it

391
00:24:45,450 --> 00:24:47,816
and there are going to
be terrible consequences.

392
00:24:48,186 --> 00:24:50,848
<i>Automakers took
the fight to a new level.</i>

393
00:24:51,256 --> 00:24:54,657
<i>They sued
California's Air Resources Board.</i>

394
00:24:55,560 --> 00:25:01,465
<i>GM led the lawsuit, soon joined
by Chrysler and several auto dealerships.</i>

395
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:04,862
<i>As California withered
under the pressure,</i>

396
00:25:04,936 --> 00:25:07,166
<i>the carmakers
found a powerful new ally,</i>

397
00:25:09,007 --> 00:25:10,634
<i>the federal government.</i>

398
00:25:11,776 --> 00:25:13,801
<i>Shortly after joining the suit,</i>

399
00:25:13,879 --> 00:25:16,712
<i>the Bush administration
made another announcement.</i>

400
00:25:16,781 --> 00:25:20,273
<i>Tonight, I'm proposing 1.2 billion
dollars in research funding</i>

401
00:25:20,853 --> 00:25:22,750
<i>so that America can</i>

402
00:25:22,821 --> 00:25:26,985
<i>lead the world in developing clean,
hydrogen-powered automobiles.</i>

403
00:25:29,995 --> 00:25:33,260
<i>The federal government joined
the car and oil industries</i>

404
00:25:33,331 --> 00:25:36,664
<i>to embrace a new
clean car of the future.</i>

405
00:25:36,835 --> 00:25:39,861
<i>With more than a billion
federal dollars up for grabs,</i>

406
00:25:40,305 --> 00:25:44,765
<i>over the next few years,
the campaign for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles</i>

407
00:25:44,843 --> 00:25:46,970
<i>began to sway California.</i>

408
00:25:47,212 --> 00:25:50,272
<i>Hello there and welcome
to the California Fuel Cell Partnership</i>

409
00:25:50,348 --> 00:25:54,944
<i>where we're fuelling the future in
a new and enviromentally friendly way.</i>

410
00:25:55,353 --> 00:25:57,844
<i>Automakers, energy
and technology providers,</i>

411
00:25:57,923 --> 00:26:01,882
<i>along with government agencies
are voluntarily working together</i>

412
00:26:02,027 --> 00:26:05,326
<i>to commercialize the
fuel cell for cars and buses.</i>

413
00:26:05,931 --> 00:26:07,455
<i>Soon you may see some of these cars</i>

414
00:26:07,532 --> 00:26:09,796
<i>cruising through your
very own neighborhood.</i>

415
00:26:09,868 --> 00:26:12,735
<i>We will not just dream about
the hydrogen fuelling stations.</i>

416
00:26:13,172 --> 00:26:16,566
<i>We will not just dream about the
hydrogen cars. We will build it.</i>

417
00:26:16,641 --> 00:26:20,975
The hydrogen Hummer is not a production
vehicle, it's a concept vehicle.

418
00:26:21,212 --> 00:26:24,670
<i>It's a way for governor
Schwarzenegger to have a property</i>

419
00:26:24,749 --> 00:26:26,910
<i>at various events that ge
goes to when he unveils</i>

420
00:26:26,985 --> 00:26:30,614
a new hydrogen refuelling station.
At LAX for example.

421
00:26:31,089 --> 00:26:34,422
<i>I am going to encourage the
building of a hydrogen highway</i>

422
00:26:34,492 --> 00:26:37,086
<i>to take us to the
environmental future.</i>

423
00:26:37,228 --> 00:26:42,188
<i>While hydrogen fuel cells offered an exciting
alternative sometime in the future</i>

424
00:26:43,368 --> 00:26:45,632
<i>what would happen to
the technology of today?</i>

425
00:26:45,770 --> 00:26:48,295
<i>What would happen to the electric car?</i>

426
00:26:48,673 --> 00:26:53,770
<i>It all came down to a decisive meeting
at California's Air Resources Board.</i>

427
00:26:54,045 --> 00:26:56,878
<i>Citizens and industry alike</i>

428
00:26:56,948 --> 00:27:00,611
<i>testified as CARB prepared to
vote on the fate of the electric car.</i>

429
00:27:00,719 --> 00:27:03,745
<i>I'd also like to thank
all the other stakeholders,</i>

430
00:27:03,822 --> 00:27:06,950
<i>particularly also,
the auto industry</i>

431
00:27:07,025 --> 00:27:10,051
<i>who is going to have a major impact here.</i>

432
00:27:10,395 --> 00:27:13,922
<i>I like the fact that
hydrogen might be in a position</i>

433
00:27:13,999 --> 00:27:17,935
<i>to displace the petroleum products.</i>

434
00:27:18,036 --> 00:27:21,233
<i>I share your optimism on fuel cells,
just not to the extent.</i>

435
00:27:21,306 --> 00:27:25,743
<i>I think it's a bait and switch
strategy. I hope I'm wrong.</i>

436
00:27:26,211 --> 00:27:31,410
<i>I'm concerned that we've picked numbers
that are based entirely on fuel cells.</i>

437
00:27:32,584 --> 00:27:34,245
<i>What if fuel cells don't work?</i>

438
00:27:37,122 --> 00:27:40,114
<i>It seems that most of the
recent changes to the mandate</i>

439
00:27:40,191 --> 00:27:42,386
<i>have been designed to ease
the burden on the automakers.</i>

440
00:27:42,460 --> 00:27:45,020
<i>You're part of the
environmental protection agency,</i>

441
00:27:45,096 --> 00:27:47,621
<i>not the corporate profit protection agency.</i>

442
00:27:48,133 --> 00:27:50,992
<i>I think that we've been a
contributor to this marketplace to...</i>

443
00:27:51,069 --> 00:27:54,232
<i>I agree. But remember
there are many of you.</i>

444
00:27:54,305 --> 00:27:57,365
<i>We're not giving more time
to the auto manufacturers.</i>

445
00:27:58,143 --> 00:28:02,477
Lou Browning had the job
to present the report,

446
00:28:02,547 --> 00:28:04,538
<i>and he'd been promised ten minutes.</i>

447
00:28:05,050 --> 00:28:06,779
<i>- One of the things we've found is...
- Dr Browning,</i>

448
00:28:06,851 --> 00:28:09,547
<i>I would appreciate if you could
summarize this in three minutes.</i>

449
00:28:09,621 --> 00:28:11,589
<i>Okay, I thought I had ten, but...</i>

450
00:28:11,690 --> 00:28:15,786
Alan Lloyd cut him off,
whereas he had given the automakers

451
00:28:15,860 --> 00:28:18,158
unlimited time earlier in the day.

452
00:28:19,497 --> 00:28:22,989
<i>The improvements we need in
fuel cells are mainly to get the cost down.</i>

453
00:28:24,135 --> 00:28:27,866
<i>In addition, we have recently certified and
introduced the Honda FCX fuel cell vehicle.</i>

454
00:28:29,007 --> 00:28:32,875
<i>Largely this work has been pushed forward
through the California Fuel Cell Partnership</i>

455
00:28:32,944 --> 00:28:35,742
<i>which has been very valuable in
pulling together the diverse interests.</i>

456
00:28:35,980 --> 00:28:40,110
Any new information on
batteries that didn't mesh

457
00:28:40,185 --> 00:28:45,122
with overall conclusions was just
shut out very fast by Alan Lloyd.

458
00:28:45,190 --> 00:28:48,921
<i>Let's get it clear. I'm not trying
to show any bias or anything here.</i>

459
00:28:49,194 --> 00:28:52,027
There were 80 people who came
to speak for electric cars,

460
00:28:52,097 --> 00:28:56,534
and only two industry representatives
on the side to kill the mandate.

461
00:28:57,736 --> 00:29:01,069
<i>We have four people out of 78</i>

462
00:29:01,806 --> 00:29:03,899
<i>who are supporting this proposal.</i>

463
00:29:04,375 --> 00:29:06,172
<i>How did we end up with this?</i>

464
00:29:06,244 --> 00:29:10,738
<i>This is a tough, tough program.
It's a revolutionary program.</i>

465
00:29:10,815 --> 00:29:13,249
<i>It pushes the automakers hard.</i>

466
00:29:13,318 --> 00:29:15,479
<i>And they don't like it,
and they push back hard.</i>

467
00:29:15,553 --> 00:29:18,522
<i>As you deliberate today
on the fate of this program,</i>

468
00:29:18,990 --> 00:29:23,427
<i>I urge you to summon
all of your political courage</i>

469
00:29:23,495 --> 00:29:27,124
<i>to make the hard choices that you
know you need to make on this program.</i>

470
00:29:27,198 --> 00:29:31,032
<i>Because when it comes to protecting
the health of the people of California,</i>

471
00:29:31,102 --> 00:29:33,935
<i>there are simply no more
easy choices to make.</i>

472
00:29:55,493 --> 00:29:57,757
I saw this as losing
a wonderful opportunity

473
00:29:57,829 --> 00:30:02,596
that we have really invested a great
deal in the infrastructure, in the technology...

474
00:30:03,101 --> 00:30:04,534
It was like the rug was pulled out.

475
00:30:04,602 --> 00:30:08,504
They gave it away.
And to me that is just sad.

476
00:30:09,007 --> 00:30:13,000
It's a sad commentary on
the way our society

477
00:30:13,077 --> 00:30:16,171
and our system in the United States works.

478
00:30:16,314 --> 00:30:18,612
When GM introduced the EV1,

479
00:30:18,683 --> 00:30:22,119
California was setting the toughest auto
pollution standards in the nation.

480
00:30:22,688 --> 00:30:27,452
10% of all cars sold here this year
were to be zero emission vehicles.

481
00:30:27,592 --> 00:30:31,796
But California dropped those standards
after being sued by automakers.

482
00:30:31,796 --> 00:30:35,630
A lot of the vehicles, the Honda vehicles,
the General Motors vehicles,

483
00:30:35,767 --> 00:30:38,827
were all leased, and
nobody had the option to buy.

484
00:30:38,903 --> 00:30:43,704
<i>So the automakers took advantage of
that and pulled all the cars off the road.</i>

485
00:30:43,775 --> 00:30:46,505
They weren't willing to
let people take the cars

486
00:30:46,578 --> 00:30:49,376
and actually drive them and
keep driving them like normal cars.

487
00:30:49,447 --> 00:30:52,541
When I noticed that GM was losing interest

488
00:30:52,617 --> 00:30:56,951
was when I wanted to re-lease
my car, and they wouldn't let me.

489
00:30:57,021 --> 00:31:00,855
I've never had a product
I've had to beg and fight

490
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:07,023
and cajole and persist so much to get.

491
00:31:07,365 --> 00:31:10,732
And then I had to try and beg and fight

492
00:31:10,802 --> 00:31:13,532
and find any way
possible to try and keep.

493
00:31:13,671 --> 00:31:16,834
- They didn't give you the option...
- They didn't give you an option to buy.

494
00:31:16,908 --> 00:31:20,571
They said: "Thank you for leasing the car.
Goodbye. That's it."

495
00:31:20,645 --> 00:31:23,546
"Turn it in by such and such a date,
or you're going to be held liable."

496
00:31:23,615 --> 00:31:29,019
<i>GM had very quietly gone about taking
cars back, without anybody saying very much</i>

497
00:31:29,087 --> 00:31:30,577
<i>other than some of the drivers</i>

498
00:31:30,655 --> 00:31:32,646
<i>that complained
having their cars taken away</i>

499
00:31:32,724 --> 00:31:34,624
<i>but never in a big, organized fashion.</i>

500
00:31:34,692 --> 00:31:36,489
They had no choice but to turn them in

501
00:31:36,561 --> 00:31:41,021
or face legal consequences of stealing a car.

502
00:31:41,266 --> 00:31:45,168
<i>To my knowledge all the cars were
turned in because people had too much to lose.</i>

503
00:31:45,236 --> 00:31:49,297
To this day, the automakers
have fought anyone understanding

504
00:31:49,374 --> 00:31:51,968
how much demand there was,
and how much demand that there is.

505
00:31:52,577 --> 00:31:54,807
So we decided we were going to fight them

506
00:31:55,013 --> 00:31:58,574
in whatever way we could,
and we became organized.

507
00:31:58,983 --> 00:32:03,420
<i>Across California drivers held
protests to save electric cars.</i>

508
00:32:03,488 --> 00:32:06,423
<i>"...it turned my head around
about electric cars."</i>

509
00:32:06,491 --> 00:32:09,187
<i>"And it broke me of my addiction to oil. "</i>

510
00:32:35,420 --> 00:32:37,547
<i>Unable to change policy,</i>

511
00:32:37,622 --> 00:32:41,319
<i>activists staged a funeral
to raise public awareness.</i>

512
00:32:41,926 --> 00:32:45,885
<i>It was the same month as
the first stage 1 smog alert</i>

513
00:32:45,964 --> 00:32:48,933
<i>in southern California in five years.</i>

514
00:32:49,534 --> 00:32:54,535
I was an EV1 driver, still am, from
1998 until December of this year,

515
00:32:55,173 --> 00:32:59,273
when GM will have to pry it
out of my charger's dead cold hands.

516
00:33:00,445 --> 00:33:03,744
What the detractors and the critics of
electric vehicles have been saying for years

517
00:33:04,249 --> 00:33:08,646
is true. The electric vehicle
is not for everybody.

518
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:13,721
Given the limited range, it can only meet
the needs of 90% of the population.

519
00:33:18,596 --> 00:33:20,655
People used to ask me:
"Why do you do what you do?"

520
00:33:20,732 --> 00:33:23,530
And I say, especially
after my son had told them:

521
00:33:23,735 --> 00:33:25,862
"I figure if I do my job well enough,

522
00:33:25,937 --> 00:33:29,805
"my son will never know a time before
there were electric cars on the road."

523
00:33:29,974 --> 00:33:33,876
And he rode in an EV1 on the
way over here, and he said:

524
00:33:33,945 --> 00:33:36,846
"I wish we could keep the EV1 for a long time."

525
00:33:37,015 --> 00:33:39,074
And all I could say was: "Me too."

526
00:33:48,292 --> 00:33:50,385
<i>By the summer of 2004,</i>

527
00:33:50,461 --> 00:33:55,398
<i>there was only a single EV1 left in
private hands in southern California.</i>

528
00:33:55,466 --> 00:33:58,492
<i>Today is D-day. Today is the end.</i>

529
00:33:59,404 --> 00:34:02,734
<i>GM did do it right.
They did create a great, great car.</i>

530
00:34:02,807 --> 00:34:06,971
<i>It's well engineered, it's well designed,
and it's enjoyable to drive.</i>

531
00:34:07,045 --> 00:34:12,449
I've never seen a company be so
canniballistic about its own product before.

532
00:34:13,317 --> 00:34:15,945
It's such an odd experience.

533
00:34:32,036 --> 00:34:33,526
What makes that car go?

534
00:34:34,038 --> 00:34:38,202
- We press this button.

535
00:34:38,810 --> 00:34:41,108
It's an electric car like daddy's.

536
00:34:43,147 --> 00:34:45,081
Hey, you got here just in time.

537
00:34:45,149 --> 00:34:47,481
I know. I see that.

538
00:34:48,119 --> 00:34:49,484
It's so sad.

539
00:34:51,489 --> 00:34:55,323
This is the EV specialist I was talking
about, who gave me her car.

540
00:34:55,393 --> 00:34:58,294
It's really sad, heartbroken.
Are you kidding me?

541
00:34:58,463 --> 00:35:00,988
They are my babies, every one of them.

542
00:35:08,573 --> 00:35:12,202
A lot of human potential just drove off.

543
00:35:13,010 --> 00:35:15,444
- The fight continues.
- It does.

544
00:35:26,924 --> 00:35:29,552
<i>With no more electric cars on the road,</i>

545
00:35:29,627 --> 00:35:33,893
<i>General Motors now had
possession of their entire EV1 fleet.</i>

546
00:35:34,532 --> 00:35:36,329
<i>Pourquoi vouloir toutes les r�cup�rer ?</i>

547
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,834
<i>Why did they want them back?
What were they going to do with these cars?</i>

548
00:35:38,903 --> 00:35:42,964
We have discovered 78 EV1's
parked in the back parking lot

549
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,339
<i>of a facility that GM owns in Burbank.</i>

550
00:35:46,878 --> 00:35:50,678
Taking off the cars that were
on the road, that were running fine...

551
00:35:50,748 --> 00:35:54,184
Just let those people drive those
cars until they can't drive them anymore.

552
00:36:00,191 --> 00:36:03,319
- Where are you guys from?
- We're members of the EV1 club,

553
00:36:03,394 --> 00:36:06,261
and we want to come
and take a look at our cars.

554
00:36:06,330 --> 00:36:08,298
I know they are being mothballed here.

555
00:36:08,366 --> 00:36:12,063
I have no authorization for you guys to
come back there and look at the cars.

556
00:36:12,136 --> 00:36:14,434
- Can we just go and...
- No.

557
00:36:14,505 --> 00:36:17,702
<i>There were no clues as to
where the cars were going,</i>

558
00:36:17,775 --> 00:36:20,471
<i>until a rumor surfaced on the Internet.</i>

559
00:36:21,712 --> 00:36:25,079
We had the understanding,
through back channels

560
00:36:25,149 --> 00:36:29,415
that these vehicles were about to be
taken to the Arizona proving grounds.

561
00:36:29,487 --> 00:36:33,014
<i>Many EV1's had apparently
been trucked out of state</i>

562
00:36:33,090 --> 00:36:36,958
<i>to GM's vast proving
grounds in Mesa, Arizona.</i>

563
00:36:37,028 --> 00:36:40,395
...so large, it has the track denoted on it...

564
00:36:40,665 --> 00:36:43,190
<i>The location was off-limits to the public,</i>

565
00:36:43,267 --> 00:36:46,759
<i>and there was no way of knowing
where the EV1's might be.</i>

566
00:36:54,178 --> 00:36:55,668
<i>We're flying over GM.</i>

567
00:37:03,721 --> 00:37:05,279
<i>There they are.</i>

568
00:37:06,424 --> 00:37:07,789
<i>Wow.</i>

569
00:37:12,096 --> 00:37:13,757
<i>We flew over General Motors,</i>

570
00:37:13,831 --> 00:37:17,528
<i>and looking down, we could see,
right next to the racetrack</i>

571
00:37:17,602 --> 00:37:20,935
<i>where the EV1 was
first tested, we saw</i>

572
00:37:21,005 --> 00:37:23,803
<i>I don't know, maybe 50 EV1's crushed</i>

573
00:37:23,874 --> 00:37:27,776
<i>and put on top of semi-flatbeds,
right next to the yellow crusher.</i>

574
00:37:29,113 --> 00:37:31,809
<i>General Motors is
almost finished off i think.</i>

575
00:37:32,284 --> 00:37:36,451
<i>I imagine there isn't many EV1's
left that haven't been crushed out.</i>

576
00:37:36,954 --> 00:37:38,478
<i>It's pretty sad.</i>

577
00:37:44,862 --> 00:37:47,626
<i>There are one of four
things that will happen with the EV1's.</i>

578
00:37:47,698 --> 00:37:50,633
They'll go to colleges and
universities, to engineering schools.

579
00:37:50,701 --> 00:37:53,761
<i>They'll go to museums and
other displays across the country.</i>

580
00:37:53,838 --> 00:37:57,137
Other EV1 vehicles are
being driven by our engineers.

581
00:37:57,208 --> 00:38:00,666
And the other option for the EV1's
at the end of their life is recycling.

582
00:38:00,745 --> 00:38:04,306
<i>But know that ever part of
the EV1 is going to be recycled,</i>

583
00:38:04,382 --> 00:38:07,749
dismantled through a third party and then
reused. Everything is going to be recycled.

584
00:38:07,818 --> 00:38:10,787
We're not just going to go crush
it and then send it off to a landfill.

585
00:38:17,595 --> 00:38:20,655
When I saw the picture
of the pile of pressed cars,

586
00:38:20,731 --> 00:38:24,895
it hurt. I thought it
was pretty spiteful.

587
00:38:25,703 --> 00:38:30,367
To see on the computer,
on the Internet,

588
00:38:30,508 --> 00:38:33,534
the crushed EV1's that GM did...

589
00:38:34,111 --> 00:38:37,274
- It was wrong.
- Tragic. That was tragic.

590
00:38:37,348 --> 00:38:41,045
<i>But more wrong is the reasons for it.</i>

591
00:38:42,586 --> 00:38:45,919
"What do we do now?"

592
00:38:45,990 --> 00:38:48,686
At the time that most of this
was going on, no one had any idea

593
00:38:48,759 --> 00:38:51,193
that every automaker
was going to jump ship.

594
00:38:52,030 --> 00:38:55,399
<i>More internet tips
revealed that the EV1's</i>

595
00:38:55,466 --> 00:38:58,731
<i>were not the only
electric vehicles in jeopardy.</i>

596
00:38:58,903 --> 00:39:01,770
<i>A number of Ford Th!nks
and Ranger electric trucks</i>

597
00:39:01,839 --> 00:39:06,333
<i>were discovered in Palm Springs,
and rumored to be set for destruction.</i>

598
00:39:07,712 --> 00:39:12,649
<i>In Los Angeles, activists spotted
a truckload of Toyota RAV4 EV's.</i>

599
00:39:12,983 --> 00:39:16,714
<i>Fearing the destination was
a crushing facility, they chased it.</i>

600
00:39:16,787 --> 00:39:19,085
<i>The next morning the truck turned back.</i>

601
00:39:19,690 --> 00:39:24,024
<i>That guy was going as fast as he
possibly could in a big transporter like that,</i>

602
00:39:24,161 --> 00:39:26,026
<i>trying to lose us, it was clear.</i>

603
00:39:26,330 --> 00:39:30,289
but wasn't able to do it and, of
course, that did change Toyota's plans.

604
00:39:30,634 --> 00:39:34,331
<i>It was so inconsistent,
they didn't know what the hell to do.</i>

605
00:39:36,073 --> 00:39:40,442
Then he goes to the end of the pier,
and these two big security guards come out,

606
00:39:40,678 --> 00:39:42,646
<i>they open this locked gate,</i>

607
00:39:42,713 --> 00:39:46,843
<i>the truck goes inside, and then the
security guards come out and survey us.</i>

608
00:39:47,985 --> 00:39:50,783
<i>Somehow we ended up
at this god forsaken place.</i>

609
00:39:50,855 --> 00:39:51,913
She has everything.

610
00:39:51,989 --> 00:39:55,891
It has spewing smoke into the
harbor that kids have to breathe.

611
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,452
<i>It has an oil well, and it has
Toyota, which is supposed</i>

612
00:39:59,530 --> 00:40:03,489
<i>to be the greenest car company,
but which is simultaneously crushing</i>

613
00:40:03,567 --> 00:40:07,503
and hiding the fact that they're
crushing, clean RAV4 EV's,

614
00:40:07,571 --> 00:40:10,404
<i>instead of selling
them to willing customers.</i>

615
00:40:10,775 --> 00:40:15,144
<i>No one had seen Honda's electric car
since they were taken from customers.</i>

616
00:40:15,813 --> 00:40:19,647
<i>Then, an episode of
"California's Green" aired on PBS.</i>

617
00:40:20,818 --> 00:40:24,584
So we're going to be able
to see cars shredded today.

618
00:40:24,655 --> 00:40:25,679
Absolutely.

619
00:40:25,756 --> 00:40:28,122
Which is not something
most of us get to see.

620
00:40:28,192 --> 00:40:32,424
We shred the car, about a car a minute,
1000 cars a day on a good day.

621
00:40:32,496 --> 00:40:36,899
And what's interesting, the first thing
we noticed when we drove up here,

622
00:40:37,001 --> 00:40:39,629
you're going to be shredding
some new cars, too.

623
00:40:39,703 --> 00:40:43,764
These look like perfectly good cars.
Why are you shredding them up?

624
00:40:43,841 --> 00:40:47,208
A little bit of a mystery really,
since I've been here last eight years.

625
00:40:47,278 --> 00:40:49,803
They bring us these cars
from the dealerships,

626
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:51,541
and they say that they're test cars.

627
00:40:51,615 --> 00:40:54,379
And they've been brought
over to test various emissions

628
00:40:54,452 --> 00:40:56,477
and the insurance
companies won't reinsure them

629
00:40:56,554 --> 00:40:58,454
so they have to watch
them destroyed here.

630
00:40:58,522 --> 00:41:03,289
Boy, that seems like a shame. I'd like
to drive off in one of these things.

631
00:41:04,728 --> 00:41:09,529
Ladies and gentlemen, that's the
sound of a crushed automobile

632
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,831
being shredded into a million pieces.

633
00:41:26,884 --> 00:41:29,614
There's no precedent for a
car company rounding up

634
00:41:29,687 --> 00:41:31,518
every one of a particular kind of car

635
00:41:31,589 --> 00:41:34,353
and crushing them, as if they're
afraid one might get away.

636
00:41:35,125 --> 00:41:37,025
I think they wanted to be sure

637
00:41:37,094 --> 00:41:39,824
that none of them were driving
around the streets any more

638
00:41:39,897 --> 00:41:44,095
to remind people that there
is such a thing as an electric car.

639
00:41:44,235 --> 00:41:46,294
<i>People keep making
all these analogies,</i>

640
00:41:46,370 --> 00:41:49,999
"Crushing the EV is a
betrayal of the American dream."

641
00:41:50,074 --> 00:41:52,167
But it's not a dream.
It's here now!

642
00:41:52,243 --> 00:41:56,976
It may be a betrayal of my dream,
but it's a betrayal of the American reality.

643
00:41:57,748 --> 00:42:01,184
<i>After the discovery of the
crushed EV1's in Arizona,</i>

644
00:42:01,252 --> 00:42:03,584
<i>electric car drivers took action.</i>

645
00:42:03,654 --> 00:42:06,817
<i>They vowed to keep watch
over the remaining EV1's</i>

646
00:42:06,891 --> 00:42:10,122
<i>being stored at the GM
facility in Burbank.</i>

647
00:42:10,194 --> 00:42:13,186
There are about 70 cars left in California.

648
00:42:13,264 --> 00:42:17,963
They're in the parking lot behind me,
and they have plans to crush those as well.

649
00:42:18,502 --> 00:42:24,668
And we need to make a call to action
on General Motors to give them back.

650
00:42:24,808 --> 00:42:26,969
We ended up rallying enough troops

651
00:42:27,044 --> 00:42:29,945
in terms of interest and
organizations to join our coalition

652
00:42:30,014 --> 00:42:34,849
<i>and then we simply didn't leave,
and stayed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.</i>

653
00:42:34,919 --> 00:42:39,982
It's 6 A.M., and I've been here
for an hour, part of a vigil.

654
00:42:40,291 --> 00:42:44,387
We're making sure that GM doesn't
sneak out their cars in the back lot.

655
00:42:45,262 --> 00:42:48,254
The first two weeks we
were pretty much ignored.

656
00:42:48,332 --> 00:42:49,765
<i>It was like monsoon rains,</i>

657
00:42:49,833 --> 00:42:52,427
<i>it was kind of depressing
to be out there,</i>

658
00:42:52,503 --> 00:42:54,767
<i>but at the same time there
was such a sense of mission.</i>

659
00:42:54,838 --> 00:42:58,001
I was here this morning
from about 5:45 A.M.,

660
00:42:58,108 --> 00:43:00,702
and it's pretty quiet.

661
00:43:02,546 --> 00:43:06,107
Finally, on day 15, we did this
announcement of this offer.

662
00:43:06,317 --> 00:43:10,549
<i>As the EV activists recorded the
VIN numbers of the cars in storage,</i>

663
00:43:10,754 --> 00:43:14,952
<i>Chelsea led a last ditch
effort to buy the cars from GM.</i>

664
00:43:15,359 --> 00:43:18,795
<i>"Okay, General Motors contends
that no one wants these EV1's here."</i>

665
00:43:18,862 --> 00:43:22,127
<i>"Would anybody be willing to buy them
for the residual price of the lease?"</i>

666
00:43:22,199 --> 00:43:25,828
<i>And within 48 hours,
over 80 people had signed up.</i>

667
00:43:25,970 --> 00:43:27,733
There were only 78 cars in that lot,

668
00:43:27,805 --> 00:43:31,172
and already we had a waiting list
for a car that wasn't available.

669
00:43:31,241 --> 00:43:33,505
It was a tremendous d�j� vu moment.

670
00:43:33,577 --> 00:43:37,274
<i>At this point we thought
it would be appropriate</i>

671
00:43:37,348 --> 00:43:41,182
<i>to some full circle.
Join me in holding this check</i>

672
00:43:41,251 --> 00:43:45,085
<i>offering 1.9 million
dollars to General Motors</i>

673
00:43:45,155 --> 00:43:47,984
<i>to put these cars back on the road.</i>

674
00:43:51,195 --> 00:43:54,221
<i>Despite the offer,
GM did not respond.</i>

675
00:43:55,399 --> 00:43:59,130
<i>The fate of the last
78 EV1's remained in doubt</i>

676
00:44:00,471 --> 00:44:03,338
<i>A small group of activists
would continue their vigil,</i>

677
00:44:03,407 --> 00:44:05,967
<i>to keep the dream
of the electric car alive.</i>

678
00:44:08,846 --> 00:44:10,541
Who controls the future?

679
00:44:13,384 --> 00:44:17,946
Whoever has the biggest club.
In more ways than one.

680
00:44:18,922 --> 00:44:20,913
One they can bash you with,
and one they can belong to.

681
00:44:22,026 --> 00:44:24,685
Gentlemen! Gentlemen!

682
00:44:25,896 --> 00:44:28,956
I know you're all worried,
and I agree.

683
00:44:29,733 --> 00:44:34,363
There's plenty to be worried about.
Like this solar power plant

684
00:44:35,205 --> 00:44:37,696
already operational
outside Los Angeles.

685
00:44:38,609 --> 00:44:40,372
Photovoltaic cells,

686
00:44:40,611 --> 00:44:43,910
they converts sunlight
directly into electricity.

687
00:44:44,748 --> 00:44:48,809
Fluorescent, lasts ten times as
long as a conventional light bulb.

688
00:44:48,886 --> 00:44:50,979
uses only a quarter of the power.

689
00:44:51,321 --> 00:44:55,758
Superwindows, insulate as
well as ten sheets of glass.

690
00:44:56,193 --> 00:45:00,254
An electric car, partially
powered by solar panels.

691
00:45:01,298 --> 00:45:04,233
But the truth is, gentlemen,

692
00:45:04,334 --> 00:45:07,963
I'm not worried about
any of these things.

693
00:45:08,605 --> 00:45:12,200
Because no one is ever
going to know about them.

694
00:45:13,711 --> 00:45:18,148
There's all these conspiracy theories
out there about who killed the electric car.

695
00:45:18,215 --> 00:45:20,513
So really, who killed the electric car?

696
00:45:20,718 --> 00:45:23,243
Unfortunately, I can't
summarize that in one sentence.

697
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:25,515
What killed the electric vehicle,

698
00:45:25,589 --> 00:45:27,819
very simply, I think,
is lack of corporate wisdom.

699
00:45:27,925 --> 00:45:30,723
In my opinion it's big oil
that killed the electric car.

700
00:45:30,794 --> 00:45:33,854
Alan Lloyd killed the electric car project.
I was there when he did it.

701
00:45:33,964 --> 00:45:37,092
The California Air Resources Board
killed the electric car

702
00:45:37,167 --> 00:45:40,603
under huge pressure
from the auto companies.

703
00:45:40,671 --> 00:45:42,798
They were an accessory
to the murder,

704
00:45:42,873 --> 00:45:45,603
but the murder was commited
by the General Motors.

705
00:45:45,809 --> 00:45:47,743
I don't believe that for a minute.

706
00:45:48,245 --> 00:45:54,411
GM would sell you a
car on pig shit if it sold.

707
00:46:00,491 --> 00:46:04,860
<i>Carmakers argue that there was not
enough demand for the electric car.</i>

708
00:46:04,928 --> 00:46:08,091
<i>Claiming to have spent millions
of dollars on advertising,</i>

709
00:46:08,165 --> 00:46:10,360
<i>they said buyers weren't interested.</i>

710
00:46:10,467 --> 00:46:13,868
<i>But did consumers even know
that the car existed?</i>

711
00:46:13,937 --> 00:46:16,872
Did you ever see this
car advertised?

712
00:46:16,940 --> 00:46:20,706
Never. That's what I'm trying to say.
It's totally under the scope of the radar.

713
00:46:20,878 --> 00:46:23,403
I don't know who drives
an EV1 actually.

714
00:46:23,647 --> 00:46:25,137
- You don't know anybody?
- Anybody.

715
00:46:25,382 --> 00:46:28,783
Maybe Fernando. I know Fernando...
Did you ever drive an EV1?

716
00:46:29,086 --> 00:46:31,350
- I've heard of them.
- He's heard of them.

717
00:46:31,455 --> 00:46:34,015
They're not making these
cars in California anymore?

718
00:46:34,091 --> 00:46:35,888
No. They're not
making them anywhere.

719
00:46:35,959 --> 00:46:38,154
That's really too bad.
We need those cars.

720
00:46:38,328 --> 00:46:40,455
Why are they getting rid of it?

721
00:46:42,065 --> 00:46:44,932
They said that there was
no demand for the car.

722
00:46:45,002 --> 00:46:46,367
Are they insane?

723
00:46:46,670 --> 00:46:48,262
That's a no-brainer.
Of course there's a demand.

724
00:46:48,338 --> 00:46:51,637
Save gas, save people, save air,
save oxygen, save the world.

725
00:46:51,708 --> 00:46:53,300
All sounds good to me.

726
00:46:56,079 --> 00:46:58,604
<i>We've been selling
vehicles for a century,</i>

727
00:46:58,715 --> 00:47:02,310
<i>and as you might imagine,
we've figured out what people wanted.</i>

728
00:47:02,386 --> 00:47:05,480
If you ask them, they say:
"I want a 300 mile range."

729
00:47:05,556 --> 00:47:08,889
<i>"I want to be able
to go 85 or 90 mph</i>

730
00:47:08,959 --> 00:47:12,122
<i>"I want to carry four passengers
and have a big trunk. "</i>

731
00:47:12,629 --> 00:47:15,359
Which is basically
what we were already selling.

732
00:47:15,432 --> 00:47:17,059
<i>I've said this
time and time again.</i>

733
00:47:17,134 --> 00:47:19,329
<i>People will buy anthing
you convince them to buy.</i>

734
00:47:20,504 --> 00:47:24,873
Feed people enough, and
they believe that's a diet.

735
00:47:25,976 --> 00:47:28,376
Consumers, they
couldn't see the difference

736
00:47:28,445 --> 00:47:30,675
between electric car and
the car they're already driving

737
00:47:30,747 --> 00:47:33,238
because they don't
read environmental impact.

738
00:47:33,884 --> 00:47:36,318
They don't read political instability
caused by oil production

739
00:47:36,386 --> 00:47:37,410
in the Middle East.

740
00:47:37,487 --> 00:47:41,082
All they read is does this car
work and how much does it cost.

741
00:47:42,492 --> 00:47:45,325
<i>What really killed EV's,
is American consumers</i>

742
00:47:45,395 --> 00:47:49,058
because they did not accept this
idea, did not embrace it,

743
00:47:49,500 --> 00:47:53,131
that vehicles could have
these limited ranges

744
00:47:53,203 --> 00:47:55,603
and still be functional,
useful, practical.

745
00:48:01,912 --> 00:48:05,541
<i>Did the electric car die
because of the battery technology ?</i>

746
00:48:05,616 --> 00:48:08,346
<i>Did EV's really not
have enough range?</i>

747
00:48:08,418 --> 00:48:11,751
<i>Did car companies use
the best batteries available?</i>

748
00:48:11,822 --> 00:48:15,781
<i>Battery technology at that
time was lead accid batteries</i>

749
00:48:15,859 --> 00:48:18,521
<i>and allowed the car to go 60 miles.</i>

750
00:48:18,695 --> 00:48:23,053
If you started out on a trip knowing
that you were going to go dead in 60 miles,

751
00:48:23,367 --> 00:48:25,358
you'd be nervous about
making the trip.

752
00:48:26,503 --> 00:48:29,529
<i>People think that they need
a car that will go 300 miles</i>

753
00:48:29,606 --> 00:48:32,905
and be able to charge it up
or refuel it in five minutes.

754
00:48:33,143 --> 00:48:37,835
<i>For virtually 90-95% of your driving,
you really don't need that.</i>

755
00:48:38,148 --> 00:48:41,049
You need a vehicle that will go
at least 60 miles or so,

756
00:48:41,118 --> 00:48:44,110
and that way your daily
commute is covered.

757
00:48:44,187 --> 00:48:48,647
<i>For those who wanted greater
range from an EV, a 100 miles or more</i>

758
00:48:48,725 --> 00:48:50,989
<i>a better battery already existed.</i>

759
00:48:51,061 --> 00:48:54,394
<i>Developed by a well known
inventor working in Troy, Michigan,</i>

760
00:48:54,464 --> 00:48:57,058
<i>about 30 miles from
General Motors headquarters.</i>

761
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:01,102
- I'm Stan and...
- And lris Ovshinsky.

762
00:49:01,972 --> 00:49:03,234
I think you shouldn't do that.

763
00:49:03,307 --> 00:49:06,242
You should say you're Stan Ovshinsky,
and I'll say I'm Iris Ovshinsky.

764
00:49:06,310 --> 00:49:07,902
Don't do that. It's funny.

765
00:49:07,978 --> 00:49:13,177
<i>With over 200 patents to his name,
Stan Ovshinsky had pioneered a new battery</i>

766
00:49:13,250 --> 00:49:16,276
<i>and GM purchased
controlling share of his company.</i>

767
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:20,786
We were chosen over
60 different big companies,

768
00:49:20,958 --> 00:49:22,619
like Westinghouse and others,

769
00:49:22,793 --> 00:49:26,889
who wanted to win the
race to make the batteries

770
00:49:27,264 --> 00:49:30,859
that would be used in pure electric cars.

771
00:49:31,368 --> 00:49:34,337
And we were chosen
because we had a battery.

772
00:49:34,938 --> 00:49:39,272
<i>And to us,
putting it into a car</i>

773
00:49:39,343 --> 00:49:42,005
<i>was not the most
gigantic thing.</i>

774
00:49:42,212 --> 00:49:43,941
What were we supposed to do?

775
00:49:44,014 --> 00:49:46,141
But you did expect
champagne and roses.

776
00:49:46,216 --> 00:49:48,241
I expected
champagne and roses.

777
00:49:48,919 --> 00:49:53,083
When I said that we were going to
put a paragraph into a newspaper,

778
00:49:53,156 --> 00:49:54,817
that said we had achieved this,

779
00:49:54,891 --> 00:49:58,554
I really expected
congratulations to flow in.

780
00:49:58,929 --> 00:50:02,888
And then I knew that something was
different when the opposite happened.

781
00:50:02,966 --> 00:50:07,630
<i>Ovshinsky was censored for publicizing
his battery advances without permission</i>

782
00:50:08,772 --> 00:50:12,139
<i>and asked not to run
advertising in national publications.</i>

783
00:50:12,909 --> 00:50:15,810
<i>The EV1 debuted
with a weaker battery.</i>

784
00:50:16,046 --> 00:50:18,844
<i>It would be another 2 years
before Ovshinsky's batteries</i>

785
00:50:18,915 --> 00:50:20,678
<i>were installed in the EV1.</i>

786
00:50:22,219 --> 00:50:25,848
The first version of the EV1
had defective Delco batteries,

787
00:50:25,922 --> 00:50:27,116
and they kept failing.

788
00:50:27,190 --> 00:50:29,681
That was GM's failure,
on those batteries.

789
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:32,354
Once they put good batteries in,
they didn't have any problems.

790
00:50:32,462 --> 00:50:36,125
<i>Ultimately, GM sold its
share in Ovshinsky's company</i>

791
00:50:36,199 --> 00:50:37,894
<i>to an unlikely buyer.</i>

792
00:50:38,168 --> 00:50:40,602
<i>Then, when the Ni-MH
batteries were improved,</i>

793
00:50:40,670 --> 00:50:45,403
so that they're now lasting longer than
the life of the car and cheaper than an engine,

794
00:50:46,076 --> 00:50:51,173
Chevron Texaco stepped in and
purchased control from General Motors

795
00:50:51,248 --> 00:50:53,145
<i>of Ovshinsky technology.</i>

796
00:50:54,117 --> 00:50:56,950
<i>The oil companies do not feel
threatened by battery technology,</i>

797
00:50:58,121 --> 00:50:59,918
because they
effectively crushed it.

798
00:50:59,990 --> 00:51:02,185
The electric car is an
interesting case study.

799
00:51:02,259 --> 00:51:05,293
It was such an abysmal failure,

800
00:51:05,629 --> 00:51:08,325
that there are a lot of people
involved in the initial decision making

801
00:51:08,398 --> 00:51:11,458
that are pointing fingers
at whose responsibility it is.

802
00:51:21,878 --> 00:51:26,611
<i>To Basrah and all of Iraq comes good
news with the opening of a new oil field.</i>

803
00:51:26,683 --> 00:51:30,710
<i>The pipeline runs across the
desert to the Persian Gulf at Al Faw.</i>

804
00:51:31,488 --> 00:51:35,720
<i>There, tankers load up with the
precious fuel the world needs so badly.</i>

805
00:51:36,460 --> 00:51:40,521
<i>Yes, it's a big day for Iraq,
and there's a feast to celebrate.</i>

806
00:51:40,931 --> 00:51:44,059
<i>Sheep stuffed with rice
and host of other good things.</i>

807
00:51:44,601 --> 00:51:49,265
<i>But that's only the first of the good
things that will come to Iraq, thanks to oil.</i>

808
00:51:51,641 --> 00:51:54,474
<i>Oil companies have rarely
shied away from global issues.</i>

809
00:51:54,544 --> 00:51:58,002
<i>But why did they lobby so
hard to build a public opposition</i>

810
00:51:58,081 --> 00:52:00,106
<i>to the electric car in California?</i>

811
00:52:00,183 --> 00:52:02,777
I find it difficult to rationalize

812
00:52:04,688 --> 00:52:07,384
why the oil industry got so
intimately involved in this.

813
00:52:07,457 --> 00:52:10,824
Other than maybe
they saw it as a threat

814
00:52:10,894 --> 00:52:15,297
to the monopoly they had on
providing the transportation fuel.

815
00:52:15,432 --> 00:52:19,499
There's no question that the oil companies
who control the market today

816
00:52:20,804 --> 00:52:23,898
have a strong incentive
to discourage alternatives,

817
00:52:24,474 --> 00:52:27,500
except the alternatives
that they themselves control.

818
00:52:27,644 --> 00:52:30,704
Just as General Motors,

819
00:52:32,082 --> 00:52:35,779
<i>40 or 50 years ago, bought up
the trolley systems and shut them down,</i>

820
00:52:35,852 --> 00:52:41,415
<i>the oil companies have opposed
the creation of an electric infrastructure.</i>

821
00:52:43,326 --> 00:52:46,784
I differ strongly with that.
We did not kill the electric car.

822
00:52:46,863 --> 00:52:48,626
The petroleum industry
did not kill the electric car.

823
00:52:48,698 --> 00:52:51,758
<i>What killed the electric car
was antiquated technology.</i>

824
00:52:52,202 --> 00:52:55,501
It's a good example of
something we should not repeat,

825
00:52:55,572 --> 00:52:57,437
an example we need to avoid.

826
00:53:00,977 --> 00:53:05,209
<i>There's still roughly a trillion barrels
worth of oil in the Earth's crust.</i>

827
00:53:05,582 --> 00:53:10,485
And if you figure that the average price
of that subsequent oil will be 100 $ a barrel,

828
00:53:10,554 --> 00:53:14,251
that's a 100 trillion dollars
worth of business yet to be done.

829
00:53:16,293 --> 00:53:20,320
<i>However, at some point when
an alternative is good enough,</i>

830
00:53:20,397 --> 00:53:25,130
<i>people will snap over, and that's
what the oil companies fear the most.</i>

831
00:53:25,769 --> 00:53:28,966
<i>We use 180 million gallons
of gasoline a week in California.</i>

832
00:53:29,039 --> 00:53:33,840
Right now, the price is 2,20 $.
A year ago, it was 1,20 $.

833
00:53:34,010 --> 00:53:35,910
There's a dollar more a gallon.

834
00:53:35,979 --> 00:53:40,177
Somebody's making 180
million dollars more a week.

835
00:53:40,250 --> 00:53:43,651
<i>It's the same gas, the same
pipeline, the same refinery.</i>

836
00:53:43,720 --> 00:53:45,585
The profits are outstanding.

837
00:53:53,764 --> 00:53:56,359
<i>What the oil companies feared,</i>

838
00:53:56,433 --> 00:54:01,166
is that electric vehicles would
become successful six years from now.

839
00:54:01,238 --> 00:54:03,468
What the automobile
companies feared,

840
00:54:03,540 --> 00:54:06,634
was that they'd be losing money
on electric vehicles in the next six months.

841
00:54:13,083 --> 00:54:17,611
<i>Even as car companies made electric
cars, they fought them at every step.</i>

842
00:54:17,887 --> 00:54:19,320
<i>What was their motive?</i>

843
00:54:19,389 --> 00:54:22,483
<i>Why were they so determined
to take them off the road?</i>

844
00:54:22,926 --> 00:54:24,894
I think in the beginning,

845
00:54:24,961 --> 00:54:27,327
General Motors didn't believe
the car would catch on.

846
00:54:27,397 --> 00:54:29,922
I don't think they'd thought
they'd ever have to worry about

847
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:33,902
something like a conspiracy to keep it
from happening. They hated the mandate.

848
00:54:33,970 --> 00:54:36,632
They hated it so much that they
ended up not really wanting

849
00:54:36,706 --> 00:54:38,139
to be in the business of EV's.

850
00:54:38,208 --> 00:54:42,975
What I detected was a huge
resentment about being told

851
00:54:43,079 --> 00:54:45,639
<i>what type of motor
vehicle had to be made.</i>

852
00:54:45,715 --> 00:54:50,243
<i>And it became a fight of
principle rather than one of trying</i>

853
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:53,221
to technologically
solve the problem.

854
00:54:53,556 --> 00:54:57,925
I do know that I was surprised
at some of the stances they took

855
00:54:57,994 --> 00:55:00,656
in Sacramento in arguing.

856
00:55:03,166 --> 00:55:04,724
End of comment.

857
00:55:06,569 --> 00:55:09,732
<i>In a confidential 1995 memo</i>

858
00:55:09,806 --> 00:55:13,242
<i>the American Automobile
Manufacturers Association</i>

859
00:55:13,310 --> 00:55:16,973
<i>sought to hire a PR firm
to manage a so-called </i>

860
00:55:17,047 --> 00:55:19,880
<i>"grassroots and educational campaign"</i>

861
00:55:20,083 --> 00:55:22,916
<i>to create a climate
to repeal the mandate.</i>

862
00:55:23,286 --> 00:55:25,481
<i>The challenge,
according to the document,</i>

863
00:55:25,555 --> 00:55:29,116
<i>was "greater consumer
acceptance of electric vehicles."</i>

864
00:55:29,859 --> 00:55:34,626
<i>Why would the car companies campaign
so hard against their own creation?</i>

865
00:55:34,898 --> 00:55:38,299
I made the case at the
General Motors board,

866
00:55:39,269 --> 00:55:43,399
that the reason for the EV1
was to give General Motors

867
00:55:43,473 --> 00:55:48,274
<i>a very big head start
in how you transform electricity</i>

868
00:55:48,345 --> 00:55:50,870
<i>into the drive power of a car.</i>

869
00:55:50,947 --> 00:55:54,212
And we give them two or three years lead,

870
00:55:54,284 --> 00:55:56,582
and in my judgement it did.

871
00:55:56,720 --> 00:56:00,156
<i>But my frustration was
they didn't capitalize on the lead.</i>

872
00:56:00,357 --> 00:56:03,417
<i>And the reason, which
was discussed with the board,</i>

873
00:56:03,626 --> 00:56:08,359
was that there was not a
profit seemed to be coming out

874
00:56:08,531 --> 00:56:11,056
<i>of either electric cars or hybrids.</i>

875
00:56:11,301 --> 00:56:15,795
<i>They could not understand how
Toyota could possibly make a profit</i>

876
00:56:15,872 --> 00:56:19,638
<i>out of the Prius, for example.
They were gonna lose their shirt.</i>

877
00:56:20,176 --> 00:56:25,010
<i>And as evidence have shown,
I don't think Toyota is losing their shirt.</i>

878
00:56:25,882 --> 00:56:28,578
<i>If loss of revenue
worried car companies</i>

879
00:56:28,718 --> 00:56:32,347
<i>than the electric car posed
another problem altogether:</i>

880
00:56:32,422 --> 00:56:37,359
<i>it had no internal combustion engine,
the cornerstone of the auto industry.</i>

881
00:56:38,094 --> 00:56:40,494
These parts represent a large
part of a dealership's income,

882
00:56:41,631 --> 00:56:44,632
through the replacement
and the maintenance.

883
00:56:44,734 --> 00:56:48,602
Esentially, this group of parts
is a visual representation

884
00:56:48,671 --> 00:56:52,163
of the profits the auto industry
doesn't make when they sell an EV1,

885
00:56:52,242 --> 00:56:53,732
or an EV in general.

886
00:56:53,810 --> 00:56:58,076
I can actually identify a lot of these
that didn't get used on the EV1 program.

887
00:56:58,148 --> 00:57:00,116
<i>Oil filters you need
four times a year.</i>

888
00:57:00,183 --> 00:57:01,480
<i>It was the most prominent thing,</i>

889
00:57:01,551 --> 00:57:04,281
<i>along with several
quarts of oil every time.</i>

890
00:57:04,487 --> 00:57:07,115
I didn't enjoy working on the
internal combustion engines,

891
00:57:07,190 --> 00:57:09,055
just due to the fact
you got so dirty.

892
00:57:09,125 --> 00:57:12,788
And working on the EV1, I
basically go home looking like this.

893
00:57:13,997 --> 00:57:17,398
<i>Servicing the EV1 was pretty simple.</i>

894
00:57:17,467 --> 00:57:20,561
It came in about every 5000 miles.

895
00:57:20,637 --> 00:57:26,473
We'd rotate the tires, add washer fluid
to it, and send it back out on the street.

896
00:57:27,744 --> 00:57:31,510
It's amazing. Look how dirty
I've gotten just handling this stuff.

897
00:57:31,915 --> 00:57:33,041
It's kind of sad.

898
00:57:33,116 --> 00:57:35,141
<i>In order to sincerely
market a clean car,</i>

899
00:57:35,218 --> 00:57:38,312
you have to suggest
that your core product is dirty,

900
00:57:38,455 --> 00:57:40,753
that it uses oil, that it uses gas,

901
00:57:40,824 --> 00:57:43,384
and that increases our
dependance on foreign oil.

902
00:57:43,460 --> 00:57:44,757
And here's this
product that doesn't.

903
00:57:45,028 --> 00:57:48,293
It looks very schizophrenic,
but I think, when it started...

904
00:57:48,364 --> 00:57:50,730
"We can show the people in California

905
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:54,566
we can meet the zero
emission requirements."

906
00:57:54,771 --> 00:57:57,968
And later on: "Do we
want to show them?"

907
00:57:58,041 --> 00:57:59,668
"That means, all of
our other cars..."

908
00:57:59,909 --> 00:58:02,776
But the more it caught on, the more
that there was this dichotomy

909
00:58:02,846 --> 00:58:08,216
between clean and efficient and
non-polluting versus a Suburban.

910
00:58:09,052 --> 00:58:11,213
<i>Car companies
had convinced themselves</i>

911
00:58:11,287 --> 00:58:15,018
<i>that they couldn't make money
in the short term with the electric car.</i>

912
00:58:15,091 --> 00:58:19,289
<i>In order to do that, they would
need an entirely different vehicle.</i>

913
00:58:19,796 --> 00:58:22,856
<i>General Motors made a
commitment to the Hummer,</i>

914
00:58:23,066 --> 00:58:26,194
because they could see that
the Hummer would make them money.

915
00:58:29,606 --> 00:58:32,666
When SUV's first came out,
people said: "I can't drive that."

916
00:58:32,742 --> 00:58:34,801
- "That big old truck?"
- Especially for the ladies.

917
00:58:34,878 --> 00:58:36,903
- "I can't see out of there."
- "I'm going to murder somebody in that."

918
00:58:36,980 --> 00:58:39,676
- "That's too big."
- "That's too big for me."

919
00:58:39,749 --> 00:58:42,912
- But they convinced people. "This is safer."
- "You need this car."

920
00:58:42,986 --> 00:58:44,920
- "You need a big car."
- "This is a safe car."

921
00:58:44,988 --> 00:58:46,546
- "You need this for your family."
- "Bigger, safer."

922
00:58:46,623 --> 00:58:52,687
The idea of a penny-pinching EV1
that was super-green,

923
00:58:52,762 --> 00:58:54,195
that didn't get a lot attraction.

924
00:58:54,264 --> 00:58:57,722
Whereas the idea of a gigantic SUV

925
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:01,065
that would crush your neighbor,
that did get a lot attraction.

926
00:59:01,137 --> 00:59:03,970
<i>Basically, that tells us
what the 90's was about.</i>

927
00:59:05,642 --> 00:59:11,080
<i>What began as a 25 000 $ tax
break, grew to a 100 000 $</i>

928
00:59:11,247 --> 00:59:15,445
<i>when Congress passed the President's
economic stimulus package last spring.</i>

929
00:59:15,585 --> 00:59:18,350
We think small businesses need
to have support at this time

930
00:59:18,621 --> 00:59:20,987
to keep them afloat, to
keep the economy moving ahead.

931
00:59:21,090 --> 00:59:23,684
But there's an encouragement
for the small business person,

932
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:27,389
not just to stay afloat, but to go
the biggest gas guzzler there is.

933
00:59:27,463 --> 00:59:31,593
The 6,000-pound car, the biggest.
Does that make sense?

934
00:59:31,801 --> 00:59:35,635
I don't think we can dictate
what vehicles people buy.

935
00:59:35,705 --> 00:59:37,673
- The goal here is...
- This is encouraging them!

936
00:59:37,740 --> 00:59:40,334
You can almost buy the
whole car for the tax break.

937
00:59:40,410 --> 00:59:42,970
I'm not going to concede

938
00:59:43,046 --> 00:59:45,606
that that would be the
way that this would be used...

939
00:59:45,682 --> 00:59:47,513
There is some evidence that
is how they are being used.

940
00:59:47,584 --> 00:59:49,711
I don't know. We'll have
to wait and see what happens.

941
01:00:29,025 --> 01:00:32,586
I don't want to see Hummers driven
off the market by the government.

942
01:00:33,029 --> 01:00:37,363
I want to see everything given
a level, equal chance.

943
01:00:37,433 --> 01:00:41,460
The thing that bothers me is that
it's not a level, equal chance.

944
01:00:41,537 --> 01:00:44,370
We're using our military
to ensure the flow of oil.

945
01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:48,433
We're using tax dollars to support
the car companies in different ways,

946
01:00:48,511 --> 01:00:53,107
and we're not using our tax money to do
the things that we really need to do

947
01:00:53,182 --> 01:00:54,450
to prepare for the future.

948
01:01:01,257 --> 01:01:05,785
<i>Federal policy has always had
tremendous power to shape the future.</i>

949
01:01:06,262 --> 01:01:09,629
<i>As it gave enormous
incentives to buy SUV's</i>

950
01:01:09,699 --> 01:01:14,398
<i>the federal government also sued
California to stop the electric car.</i>

951
01:01:15,071 --> 01:01:19,363
<i>Some pointed to the influence
of the oil and auto industries.</i>

952
01:01:20,343 --> 01:01:24,007
<i>They control things in Washington,
they and the automobile industry.</i>

953
01:01:25,381 --> 01:01:27,042
<i>Now they've got Andy Card there,</i>

954
01:01:27,116 --> 01:01:31,143
<i>former lobbyist, as chief
of staff in the White House.</i>

955
01:01:31,220 --> 01:01:34,189
I guess they don't have to
pay the lobbyists anymore.

956
01:01:34,257 --> 01:01:36,088
So they're saving a little money there.

957
01:01:36,292 --> 01:01:38,351
<i>Andrew Card was chief of staff</i>

958
01:01:38,428 --> 01:01:42,023
<i>when the Bush administration
joined the suit against California.</i>

959
01:01:42,331 --> 01:01:45,129
<i>Card had also been
president and C.E.O.</i>

960
01:01:45,201 --> 01:01:48,762
<i>of the American Automobile
Manufacturers Association</i>

961
01:01:48,838 --> 01:01:53,036
<i>during its campaign to kill
California's electric car mandate.</i>

962
01:01:53,509 --> 01:01:57,946
Industries began to see if we
don't kill this cancer in California,

963
01:01:58,014 --> 01:02:00,005
<i>it's going to spread to
the rest of the country.</i>

964
01:02:00,083 --> 01:02:04,349
<i>I think it became a strategy
on the part of many companies</i>

965
01:02:04,420 --> 01:02:06,650
<i>to make it a national issue.</i>

966
01:02:06,756 --> 01:02:09,350
I was even told once by a very
prominent congressman

967
01:02:09,425 --> 01:02:11,222
who I shall not mention
by name, that

968
01:02:11,294 --> 01:02:16,095
"I could understand and tolerate
what you're doing in California,

969
01:02:16,199 --> 01:02:19,965
"but if you ever try to spread
your California program"

970
01:02:20,036 --> 01:02:23,631
"to the rest of my country,
I'm going to have to do battle with you."

971
01:02:24,807 --> 01:02:28,140
Sometimes, I listen
to the energy debate

972
01:02:28,211 --> 01:02:33,148
and I think I'm watching an old
movie that was made back in the 70's.

973
01:02:33,349 --> 01:02:40,050
Because the discussion is exactly
the same as it was 30 years ago.

974
01:02:40,423 --> 01:02:43,483
<i>Our average vehicle,
average car on the road,</i>

975
01:02:43,559 --> 01:02:46,084
<i>is less efficient than
it was 20 years ago.</i>

976
01:02:46,329 --> 01:02:48,661
And this is just a complete
abdication of leadership.

977
01:02:48,731 --> 01:02:50,596
Political leadership, really.

978
01:02:50,967 --> 01:02:55,802
Because it's impossible to get fuel economy
standards passed through the U.S. Congress.

979
01:02:58,040 --> 01:03:01,476
<i>After the OPEC
oil embargo in the 1970's,</i>

980
01:03:01,544 --> 01:03:05,344
<i>the U.S. government created
Corporate Average Fuel Economy</i>

981
01:03:05,414 --> 01:03:10,082
<i>or CAFE standards, to improve
fuel economy in American vehicles.</i>

982
01:03:10,486 --> 01:03:16,789
<i>As a result, in less than 10 years, fuel
economy increased by more than 50 percent.</i>

983
01:03:17,059 --> 01:03:21,496
<i>Unfortunately, two decades later,
there has been virtually no change.</i>

984
01:03:21,564 --> 01:03:23,759
Jimmy Carter was the last president

985
01:03:23,833 --> 01:03:28,395
that really made
energy a high priority.

986
01:03:28,471 --> 01:03:33,306
He devoted his first 90 days in office
to put together an energy plan.

987
01:03:33,810 --> 01:03:35,607
I was there as part of it.

988
01:03:35,845 --> 01:03:39,337
No president since then
has put that kind of effort into it.

989
01:03:39,682 --> 01:03:45,051
I am tonight setting a clear goal for
the energy policy of the United States.

990
01:03:45,621 --> 01:03:49,682
Beginning this moment, this
nation will never use

991
01:03:49,759 --> 01:03:55,254
more foreign oil than
we did in 1977. Never.

992
01:04:04,006 --> 01:04:08,204
<i>There was a radical change
when Ronald Reagan came in</i>

993
01:04:08,277 --> 01:04:12,976
<i>and took down the solar panels off the
White House roof that Jimmy had put up,</i>

994
01:04:13,049 --> 01:04:16,109
and esentially, declared
war on the sun.

995
01:04:16,185 --> 01:04:20,184
I've put a freeze on pending
regulations and set up a task force

996
01:04:20,623 --> 01:04:23,649
under vice president Bush
to review regulations

997
01:04:23,726 --> 01:04:26,422
with an eye toward getting
rid of as many as possible.

998
01:04:26,696 --> 01:04:30,496
I have de-controlled oil, which should
result in more domestic production

999
01:04:30,566 --> 01:04:32,693
and less dependance
on foreign oil.

1000
01:04:32,768 --> 01:04:36,295
When Reagan came in, he was not
a supporter of fuel economy,

1001
01:04:36,372 --> 01:04:38,738
of conservation,
of renewables.

1002
01:04:38,975 --> 01:04:42,843
In the mid 1980's, he basically
stopped any improvement

1003
01:04:42,912 --> 01:04:45,244
in fuel economy
standards for cars.

1004
01:04:45,448 --> 01:04:48,110
And then, in 1985,
the prices of oil collapsed.

1005
01:04:48,551 --> 01:04:52,814
I would not lay all of the blame
at Ronald Reagan's feet, by any means.

1006
01:04:53,956 --> 01:04:57,517
I think he had his share of
responsibility, but so did the Saudis,

1007
01:04:57,760 --> 01:05:01,218
who made a very
calculating decision,

1008
01:05:01,797 --> 01:05:04,231
to drop the price
of oil dramatically,

1009
01:05:04,934 --> 01:05:08,836
<i>principally to ensure that
none of these alternative fuels</i>

1010
01:05:10,039 --> 01:05:16,069
<i>and energy saving measures
really produced the desired results.</i>

1011
01:05:16,746 --> 01:05:21,376
<i>So they kept the junkie
hooked up, in other words.</i>

1012
01:05:21,450 --> 01:05:26,979
<i>And as a result, we are
today still addicted to oil.</i>

1013
01:05:28,858 --> 01:05:31,156
When Clinton came in,
and I worked for Clinton,

1014
01:05:31,227 --> 01:05:35,891
we were definitely quite interested
in trying to come up with alternatives

1015
01:05:35,965 --> 01:05:37,990
and improve the fuel
economy of the fleet.

1016
01:05:38,067 --> 01:05:40,968
<i>Politically, it was still very unattractive.</i>

1017
01:05:41,070 --> 01:05:43,504
<i>The automobile lobby
was quite powerful then,</i>

1018
01:05:43,572 --> 01:05:47,440
<i>so the administration kind of made
a bargain with the automobile companies,</i>

1019
01:05:47,510 --> 01:05:50,172
<i>this partnership for
new generation of vehicles</i>

1020
01:05:50,246 --> 01:05:52,237
<i>where we would develop
hybrid vehicles,</i>

1021
01:05:52,315 --> 01:05:55,614
<i>a combination of a gasoline
engine and an electric drive train.</i>

1022
01:05:55,718 --> 01:05:59,154
<i>In return, we wouldn't really
pursue fuel economy standards.</i>

1023
01:05:59,822 --> 01:06:02,154
I've never met a five year
old kid like this in my life.

1024
01:06:02,224 --> 01:06:05,193
He said: "I'm glad
to meet you, Mr. President."

1025
01:06:05,261 --> 01:06:08,856
"I want you to make a car that runs
on electricity and doesn't pollute the air."

1026
01:06:10,266 --> 01:06:12,393
I was so impressed,
I went to get Al Gore

1027
01:06:12,468 --> 01:06:14,197
and I introduced him
to this five year old boy,

1028
01:06:14,270 --> 01:06:18,969
and he said: "Hello, Mr. vice pr�sident.
I intend to spend my life working on this."

1029
01:06:19,041 --> 01:06:22,010
"I am going to help you
develop an electric car"

1030
01:06:22,078 --> 01:06:23,773
"that has no pollution."

1031
01:06:24,080 --> 01:06:27,311
Al Gore says: "That means
we're going to be partners."

1032
01:06:27,383 --> 01:06:28,941
He said: "Yes, I guess so."

1033
01:06:29,018 --> 01:06:32,078
"But you don't understand. I'm
going to spend my whole life on this."

1034
01:06:36,425 --> 01:06:40,657
For 8-9 years, we've spent about
a billion dollars of taxpayers' money

1035
01:06:40,730 --> 01:06:42,527
to develop hybrid vehicles.

1036
01:06:43,132 --> 01:06:48,160
Ironically, the U.S. car companies
didn't put any hybrids on the road.

1037
01:06:48,237 --> 01:06:50,899
<i>In fact, the minute George Bush
got elected president,</i>

1038
01:06:50,973 --> 01:06:53,533
<i>the U.S. car companies
walked away from hybrids.</i>

1039
01:06:53,609 --> 01:06:55,941
But, and this is the irony,

1040
01:06:56,012 --> 01:06:59,379
the U.S. program got the
Japanese very nervous.

1041
01:06:59,448 --> 01:07:03,885
So Toyota and Honda, in
response, developed hybrids,

1042
01:07:04,053 --> 01:07:06,214
because they didn't
want to be beaten by the U.S.

1043
01:07:12,795 --> 01:07:16,162
Now, they lure people into
thinking they're doing something

1044
01:07:16,232 --> 01:07:18,393
but they sweet-talk.

1045
01:07:18,467 --> 01:07:21,927
I remember way back we
used to have this joke,

1046
01:07:22,171 --> 01:07:24,002
<i>but it's not a joke anymore.</i>

1047
01:07:24,073 --> 01:07:27,531
<i>We're giving the environmentalists 
the music and the industry the action.</i>

1048
01:07:27,610 --> 01:07:30,738
<i>The second step toward making 
America less dependant on foreign oil</i>

1049
01:07:30,813 --> 01:07:33,805
<i>is to produce and refine 
more crude oil here at home</i>

1050
01:07:33,883 --> 01:07:36,477
<i>in environmentally
sensitive ways.</i>

1051
01:07:37,953 --> 01:07:40,217
<i>By far the most promising 
site for oil in America</i>

1052
01:07:40,289 --> 01:07:43,622
<i>is the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.</i>

1053
01:07:49,398 --> 01:07:53,528
<i>While it is predicted that 
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</i>

1054
01:07:53,602 --> 01:07:58,232
<i>could supply America with slightly 
more than one year's supply of oil,</i>

1055
01:07:58,607 --> 01:08:03,067
<i>simply raising fuel economy 
standards to 40 miles per gallon</i>

1056
01:08:03,145 --> 01:08:07,172
<i>could save the same 
amount of fuel within 15 years.</i>

1057
01:08:15,324 --> 01:08:19,260
<i>The oil industry and 
the automobile companies</i>

1058
01:08:19,328 --> 01:08:20,989
<i>are resistant to change.</i>

1059
01:08:21,063 --> 01:08:25,898
The American people need to be reminded
that it took a law to get seatbelts in the cars.

1060
01:08:26,068 --> 01:08:28,502
It took a law to get airbags in the cars.

1061
01:08:28,571 --> 01:08:32,871
It took a law to get the mileage up 
from 12 to 20 miles per gallon.

1062
01:08:32,942 --> 01:08:36,605
<i>It took a law to get catalytic
converters to control the pollution.</i>

1063
01:08:37,012 --> 01:08:40,971
I think clean cars are too important 
to be left to the automobile industry.

1064
01:08:48,491 --> 01:08:52,985
<i>The California mandate forced
automakers to make electric cars.</i>

1065
01:08:53,195 --> 01:08:56,722
<i>When California changed it, 
the cars vanished.</i>

1066
01:08:57,333 --> 01:09:01,736
<i>Why did California retreat
from the bold law it created?</i>

1067
01:09:02,204 --> 01:09:05,037
Having visited all the car 
companies, they were saying:

1068
01:09:05,307 --> 01:09:09,107
"Look, we can't produce 
these increasing numbers of the

1069
01:09:09,178 --> 01:09:11,146
<i>battery electric vehicles."</i>

1070
01:09:11,213 --> 01:09:13,408
<i>And I became convinced that...</i>

1071
01:09:14,083 --> 01:09:17,416
What are we supposed to do here?
Is our job to clean the air?

1072
01:09:17,486 --> 01:09:22,583
Or is it to force a certain number of a
type of technology out on the road?

1073
01:09:23,759 --> 01:09:27,695
<i>Alan Lloyd failed in his 
leadership to really steer</i>

1074
01:09:27,763 --> 01:09:31,597
the zero emission vehicle mandate 
toward a successful outcome.

1075
01:09:31,667 --> 01:09:33,134
Oh, I know Alec very well.

1076
01:09:33,202 --> 01:09:35,693
I know Alec very well. And we had some...

1077
01:09:35,771 --> 01:09:39,229
heartfelt memos come back.

1078
01:09:39,308 --> 01:09:42,835
And it pained me, because I 
have the utmost respect for Alec.

1079
01:09:43,179 --> 01:09:47,707
And it pained me to be accused

1080
01:09:47,850 --> 01:09:50,910
of basically abanding
the battery electrics.

1081
01:09:51,253 --> 01:09:55,053
<i>In addition to his role as 
chairman of the Air Resources Board,</i>

1082
01:09:55,191 --> 01:09:57,557
<i>Alan Lloyd had another position.</i>

1083
01:09:57,626 --> 01:10:01,494
<i>Just four months before the 
meeting that killed the electric car,</i>

1084
01:10:01,830 --> 01:10:06,290
<i>Lloyd accepted the chairmanship
of the California Fuel Cell Partnership.</i>

1085
01:10:07,636 --> 01:10:09,797
<i>I've been involved with 
hydrogen since the early 90's.</i>

1086
01:10:09,872 --> 01:10:14,332
When I became chair of ARB ten years 
later, I knew a lot about hydrogen.

1087
01:10:14,510 --> 01:10:18,640
So for me, I'm very much 
fact-technology driven.

1088
01:10:18,781 --> 01:10:22,512
Maybe you can say that's an asset 
or a handicap in the terms of hydrogen

1089
01:10:22,585 --> 01:10:25,315
because I knew what could be done.

1090
01:10:34,096 --> 01:10:36,690
Excuse me while I watch 
my baby get off here.

1091
01:10:36,765 --> 01:10:38,995
<i>Carmakers convinced California</i>

1092
01:10:39,068 --> 01:10:43,927
<i>that the facts supported the
development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.</i>

1093
01:10:44,240 --> 01:10:46,936
<i>Were they a better 
option than electric cars?</i>

1094
01:10:47,543 --> 01:10:51,604
<i>Toyota's national manager of 
advanced technologies, Bill Reinert,</i>

1095
01:10:51,680 --> 01:10:56,208
<i>took their prototype hydrogen 
fuel cell SUV on a press tour.</i>

1096
01:10:56,485 --> 01:11:01,184
One of our customers didn't really like this 
car anywhere nearly as much as the EV1.

1097
01:11:02,458 --> 01:11:06,485
And the reason was not because it 
would have anything bad about the car,

1098
01:11:06,562 --> 01:11:08,189
the reason was because his EV1,

1099
01:11:08,264 --> 01:11:10,892
he could charge it at home,
charge it at work,

1100
01:11:10,966 --> 01:11:13,867
and even though it provided limited range,

1101
01:11:13,936 --> 01:11:17,133
he didn't have to worry about
getting his car charged up.

1102
01:11:17,206 --> 01:11:20,903
With this car, with a limited access 
to a hydrogen filling station,

1103
01:11:20,976 --> 01:11:23,877
he said he'd spend his whole day 
planning how to get hydrogen

1104
01:11:23,946 --> 01:11:24,970
in the car and how to get back.

1105
01:11:25,047 --> 01:11:26,742
It's growing humbly.

1106
01:11:26,815 --> 01:11:29,249
The more you know, the more you realize

1107
01:11:29,318 --> 01:11:33,015
you really don't know what 
issues are going to be put forward.

1108
01:11:33,222 --> 01:11:34,883
The number one worst question is:

1109
01:11:34,957 --> 01:11:37,585
"When can...
When will that be on the market?"

1110
01:11:38,360 --> 01:11:41,727
When will that be on the market?
That's the worst question.

1111
01:11:41,964 --> 01:11:44,091
Consumers are probably
going to want to know

1112
01:11:44,166 --> 01:11:46,760
how long it would be for 
this to be mass produced.

1113
01:11:46,835 --> 01:11:48,234
That's quite a ways off.

1114
01:11:48,304 --> 01:11:51,432
We've got some real technical issues 
we've got to solve, with hydrogen storage

1115
01:11:51,507 --> 01:11:53,441
with durability,
with cost reduction.

1116
01:11:53,509 --> 01:11:55,977
Is it a practical solution at this point?

1117
01:11:56,078 --> 01:11:57,841
The cars have a limited range,

1118
01:11:57,913 --> 01:12:02,407
the durability of the car isn't very good...
Let me see, what else?

1119
01:12:02,484 --> 01:12:04,509
They don't do well in cold weather.

1120
01:12:04,586 --> 01:12:06,520
Other than that, they're great.

1121
01:12:06,955 --> 01:12:08,445
Have you ever been to a dog race?

1122
01:12:08,524 --> 01:12:11,357
There's the mechanical 
rabbit that's out in front

1123
01:12:11,427 --> 01:12:13,486
and the dogs never quite reach it.

1124
01:12:13,562 --> 01:12:18,158
Well, the fuel cell is the equivalent 
of that mechanical rabbit.

1125
01:12:18,300 --> 01:12:19,324
We're going for it.

1126
01:12:19,401 --> 01:12:24,464
For the last 15 years they've been telling 
us the fuel cells are 10 to 15 years off.

1127
01:12:25,874 --> 01:12:26,863
<i>You're an oil company.</i>

1128
01:12:26,942 --> 01:12:29,100
<i>Your business is to be selling a fuel.</i>

1129
01:12:29,712 --> 01:12:32,146
They think that it's a long time off, 30 years,

1130
01:12:32,414 --> 01:12:34,075
and they want to have a product that sells.

1131
01:12:34,149 --> 01:12:36,242
From that point, 
they're protecting themselves

1132
01:12:36,318 --> 01:12:39,617
but the other side is that 
they're protecting the status quo.

1133
00:12:39,989 --> 01:12:42,618
<i>We see in Scientific American</i>

1134
01:12:42,691 --> 01:12:46,388
<i>a double page ad by 
General Motors and Shell both</i>

1135
01:12:46,462 --> 01:12:48,896
<i>touting both the fuel cell 
that General Motors is doing</i>

1136
01:12:48,964 --> 01:12:51,865
<i>and also Shell as a potential
supplier of hydrogen.</i>

1137
01:12:55,304 --> 01:12:59,866
<i>If hydrogen can do a better job 
as an energy carrier than electricity,</i>

1138
01:13:00,042 --> 01:13:03,808
<i>then by gosh, it should
be the carrier of choice.</i>

1139
01:13:04,613 --> 01:13:06,808
The problem is, it's not even close.

1140
01:13:06,882 --> 01:13:09,510
How far would this car ride 
on environmental fuel?

1141
01:13:09,585 --> 01:13:14,522
It's approximately about a 100-125 miles.

1142
01:13:14,757 --> 01:13:17,590
Good. Interesting.

1143
01:13:17,826 --> 01:13:21,853
<i>A fuel cell car powered by 
hydrogen made with electricity</i>

1144
01:13:21,930 --> 01:13:26,697
<i>uses three to four times more 
energy than a car powered by batteries.</i>

1145
01:13:27,603 --> 01:13:30,333
This is the beginning of a fantastic technology,

1146
01:13:30,406 --> 01:13:32,897
and thanks for having us out here.

1147
01:13:32,975 --> 01:13:35,205
We're going to look at 
some other vehicles in a minute,

1148
01:13:35,277 --> 01:13:39,407
but, hydrogen is the way of the future.

1149
01:13:39,515 --> 01:13:42,916
<i>Today, there's a lot of 
enthusiasm for hydrogen cars</i>

1150
01:13:43,185 --> 01:13:46,120
<i>but, I wrote the whole book
"The Hype About Hydrogen".</i>

1151
01:13:46,523 --> 01:13:51,115
I think it's pretty clear that hydrogen 
is a much tougher alternative fuel

1152
01:13:51,193 --> 01:13:53,957
than any other alternative 
fuel we've ever pursued.

1153
01:13:54,029 --> 01:13:55,997
<i>These are the five miracles that you need</i>

1154
01:13:56,064 --> 01:13:57,793
<i>for a successful hydrogen 
car in the marketplace.</i>

1155
01:13:58,334 --> 01:14:01,829
<i>First, your average hydrogen 
car costs a million dollars.</i>

1156
01:14:02,104 --> 01:14:03,230
<i>That's got to drop.</i>

1157
01:14:04,673 --> 01:14:09,337
<i>Second, no known material to humankind 
can store enough hydrogen onboard the car</i>

1158
01:14:09,411 --> 01:14:10,901
<i>to give you the range people want.</i>

1159
01:14:11,281 --> 01:14:15,348
<i>Miracle number three. 
The fuel is wildly expensive.</i>

1160
01:14:15,417 --> 01:14:20,377
<i>Even hydrogen from dirty fossil fuels
is 2 or 3 times more expensive than gasoline.</i>

1161
01:14:20,757 --> 01:14:24,191
<i>Fourth, you have to have 
the fueling infrastructure.</i>

1162
01:14:24,259 --> 01:14:26,523
We have a 180 000 gas stations.

1163
01:14:26,595 --> 01:14:30,258
Someone's going to have to build at least
10 or 20 thousand hydrogen fueling stations

1164
01:14:30,332 --> 01:14:32,926
before anybody is going to be very interested.

1165
01:14:33,269 --> 01:14:35,627
<i>Miracle five is - you have to hope and pray</i>

1166
01:14:35,704 --> 01:14:39,196
<i>that the competitors in the 
marketplace don't get any better.</i>

1167
01:14:39,274 --> 01:14:44,143
Because right now, the best car in 
the marketplace just got a lot better,

1168
01:14:44,213 --> 01:14:45,237
the hybrid vehicle.

1169
01:14:45,581 --> 01:14:47,905
<i>Still runs on gasoline,
you can fuel it everywhere,</i>

1170
01:14:47,983 --> 01:14:49,678
<i>it has twice the range of a regular car.</i>

1171
01:14:49,886 --> 01:14:52,615
<i>Current hybrid vehicles
depend on gasoline,</i>

1172
01:14:53,755 --> 01:14:57,213
<i>but use an electric motor
to increase their fuel economy.</i>

1173
01:14:57,292 --> 01:15:01,355
<i>And if battery technology 
keeps getting steadily better,</i>

1174
01:15:02,097 --> 01:15:06,397
<i>than the best hybrid, and then 
plug-in hybrid in the year 2020</i>

1175
01:15:06,468 --> 01:15:10,234
will be vastly superior 
to the best hydrogen car.

1176
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:15,007
You guys have filmed me long enought to know

1177
01:15:15,077 --> 01:15:18,240
that I'm not going to 
dance around the issue.

1178
01:15:18,313 --> 01:15:21,771
And these could be a 
long ways out into the future.

1179
01:15:24,319 --> 01:15:27,117
Toyota says: "Fuel cell 
cars, 30 years away."

1180
01:15:27,189 --> 01:15:30,386
Then I get the calls from the Department 
of Energy and the State of California:

1181
01:15:30,459 --> 01:15:31,721
"What the hell are you doing?"

1182
01:15:31,793 --> 01:15:34,091
And all the other fuel cell manufacturers:

1183
01:15:34,162 --> 01:15:37,893
"We're trying to make a living here..."

1184
01:15:37,966 --> 01:15:39,228
It's awful.

1185
01:15:40,369 --> 01:15:43,338
<i>Just because a lot of people 
want it to work, it's no guarantee.</i>

1186
01:15:43,405 --> 01:15:46,272
That's Disneyland, you know - 
wishing makes it come true.

1187
01:15:46,341 --> 01:15:48,434
I don't work in Disneyland.

1188
01:15:48,777 --> 01:15:51,439
I work in the real world, where 
wishing doesn't make it come true

1189
01:15:51,513 --> 01:15:55,449
and you really have to work hard
to make it come true. Hopefully we do.

1190
01:16:02,691 --> 01:16:07,685
<i>On the 27th day of their vigil,
activists finally heard from GM.</i>

1191
01:16:17,039 --> 01:16:21,271
Paul Scott called: "Are you guys busy?
They're hauling in the cars right now."

1192
01:16:21,343 --> 01:16:23,903
<i>"GM is loading the cars 
on trucks right now!"</i>

1193
01:16:23,979 --> 01:16:24,968
"What, what?"

1194
01:16:25,047 --> 01:16:28,210
"Yeah, we'll drop everything 
and run on out there right now."

1195
01:16:35,424 --> 01:16:37,016
They've loaded them up,

1196
01:16:37,092 --> 01:16:40,152
tires screeching, and panels 
cracking against each other

1197
01:16:40,228 --> 01:16:42,389
as they shoved them onto the tracks.

1198
01:16:47,302 --> 01:16:49,532
<i>We're up against most
of the money in the world.</i>

1199
01:16:49,605 --> 01:16:52,904
We're up against the oil industry,
the automobile industry.

1200
01:16:53,308 --> 01:16:57,836
<i>It's David versus Goliath
in a very big way</i>

1201
01:16:58,614 --> 01:17:02,277
but if there are enough 
Davids in the world, we can win.

1202
01:17:09,725 --> 01:17:12,057
<i>GM, shame on you!</i>

1203
01:17:15,063 --> 01:17:18,931
<i>General Motors is taking the EV1's out of here,</i>

1204
01:17:19,434 --> 01:17:20,765
<i>destroying them,</i>

1205
01:17:20,836 --> 01:17:22,997
<i>doing the work of the oil companies.</i>

1206
01:17:24,339 --> 01:17:27,672
We're going to ask you guys just 
to give us some grass area

1207
01:17:27,743 --> 01:17:29,734
If you could just get out 
of the driveway for us

1208
01:17:29,811 --> 01:17:32,939
so we don't have to put 
cuffs on anybody. Thank you.

1209
01:17:57,239 --> 01:17:59,070
Don't crush the EV1.

1210
01:18:14,623 --> 01:18:20,755
<i>On March 15th, 2005,
the last EV1's in the Burbank lot</i>

1211
01:18:20,829 --> 01:18:22,990
<i>were taken away and destroyed.</i>

1212
01:19:29,399 --> 01:19:32,262
- Alright, come on in.
- Cool.

1213
01:19:32,334 --> 01:19:34,928
We'll go down to the vault 
and I'll show you the car.

1214
01:19:36,471 --> 01:19:37,870
I miss this little car.

1215
01:19:37,939 --> 01:19:40,373
Yeah. We love having it.

1216
01:19:40,442 --> 01:19:43,570
We have a number of electric 
vehicles in the collection, and the hybrids,

1217
01:19:43,645 --> 01:19:45,977
but we're especially happy about this.

1218
01:19:47,315 --> 01:19:49,340
This is a special one.

1219
01:19:49,951 --> 01:19:52,784
- There she is.
- My baby!

1220
01:19:58,160 --> 01:19:59,252
Number 99.

1221
01:20:00,929 --> 01:20:03,762
- You might recognize this car.
- I do. It was Chris's car.

1222
01:20:03,832 --> 01:20:04,924
Sure was.

1223
01:20:07,469 --> 01:20:08,697
Please, have a seat.

1224
01:20:08,770 --> 01:20:11,500
There's only one challenge, 
it doesn't start up.

1225
01:20:12,874 --> 01:20:15,866
You know that General Motors disabled them.

1226
01:20:15,944 --> 01:20:18,208
- I know.
- We wish they didn't, but they had to.

1227
01:20:18,280 --> 01:20:20,441
So we understand that.
We're just happy to have it.

1228
01:20:20,515 --> 01:20:21,504
Yeah.

1229
01:20:21,783 --> 01:20:24,115
That is such an important 
part of automotive history.

1230
01:20:24,186 --> 01:20:25,653
- It is...
- To have a manufacturer like

1231
01:20:25,720 --> 01:20:28,780
General Motors participate 
in this program. It's wonderful.

1232
01:20:28,857 --> 01:20:32,088
The thing is, it shouldn't be 
a part of automotive history.

1233
01:20:48,944 --> 01:20:52,045
Ever since 1939, they 
would dangle this electric car.

1234
01:20:52,581 --> 01:20:54,014
They'd have a few models out there.

1235
01:20:54,082 --> 01:20:56,573
They'd say that's something
in another few years.

1236
01:20:56,651 --> 01:20:59,484
And it never came. Because 
they never intended it to come.

1237
01:20:59,554 --> 01:21:02,682
They make too much money 
with the technological stagnation

1238
01:21:02,757 --> 01:21:04,315
in the internal combustion engine.

1239
01:21:08,296 --> 01:21:12,699
If somethin becomes scarce, then there's 
economic pressures to find alternatives.

1240
01:21:12,801 --> 01:21:15,269
And as long as no alternatives exist,

1241
01:21:15,871 --> 01:21:18,999
the scarce item can become 
increasingly profitable.

1242
01:21:23,311 --> 01:21:25,506
These are the same batteries that 
are used in your laptop computer.

1243
01:21:25,580 --> 01:21:28,174
We have 6800 cells.

1244
01:21:28,250 --> 01:21:30,912
And it can go 300 miles on one charge,

1245
01:21:31,219 --> 01:21:33,210
running along at 70 mph.

1246
01:21:33,388 --> 01:21:35,879
It's now 0-60 in 3.6 seconds.

1247
01:21:36,958 --> 01:21:40,257
It's an amazing performance for 
any car, not just an electric car.

1248
01:21:40,328 --> 01:21:41,886
<i>Those same batteries could be put in EV1</i>

1249
01:21:41,963 --> 01:21:44,591
and make it a 300-mile-range car very easily.

1250
01:21:45,166 --> 01:21:48,226
It's a shame seeing these cars destroyed 
when you could upgrade them.

1251
01:21:51,273 --> 01:21:53,503
I know what I did and why I did it.

1252
01:21:53,808 --> 01:21:57,039
And if I had to do the same 
thing again based on the data,

1253
01:21:57,178 --> 01:21:58,577
and I've seen what has happened to date,

1254
01:21:58,647 --> 01:22:00,615
I would do exactly the same thing.

1255
01:22:03,952 --> 01:22:06,284
When we talk about sensible energy policy

1256
01:22:06,354 --> 01:22:09,517
most people hear is: "You're going 
to make me drive a small car,

1257
01:22:09,591 --> 01:22:11,354
"you're going to make 
me keep my house cold,

1258
01:22:11,426 --> 01:22:13,519
"and essentially, you're going 
to make me live like a European."

1259
01:22:18,266 --> 01:22:20,097
It's a lack of leadership.

1260
01:22:20,402 --> 01:22:23,929
It's a lack of being able 
to take on the oil industry,

1261
01:22:24,139 --> 01:22:26,198
and the automobile industry,

1262
01:22:26,274 --> 01:22:28,606
and recognize that they are not Uncle Sam.

1263
01:22:28,677 --> 01:22:30,838
Uncle Sam has to be Uncle Sam,

1264
01:22:30,946 --> 01:22:33,506
and Uncle Sam is acting 
like they're General Motors.

1265
01:22:37,218 --> 01:22:39,948
They're squandering 
huge amounts of money

1266
01:22:40,021 --> 01:22:43,650
on hydrogen cars, which,
by any reasonable estimate,

1267
01:22:43,725 --> 01:22:46,091
are not going to be 
selling in the consumer market

1268
01:22:46,161 --> 01:22:48,493
for two decades at the earliest.

1269
01:22:48,596 --> 01:22:51,531
<i>I think it will go down as 
one of the biggest blunders</i>

1270
01:22:51,599 --> 01:22:54,067
<i>in the history of the automotive industry.</i>

1271
01:22:58,406 --> 01:23:01,898
Have you never heard that expression:
"Death by a million cuts"?

1272
01:23:01,977 --> 01:23:05,242
Little tiny cuts, eventually 
someone will bleed to death.

1273
01:23:08,550 --> 01:23:13,078
<i>The fight over electric cars was 
quite simply, a fight about the future.</i>

1274
01:23:14,155 --> 01:23:18,717
<i>Goliath won this round, but 
now Goliath has new problems.</i>

1275
01:23:19,594 --> 01:23:22,028
<i>Oil prices have soared.</i>

1276
01:23:22,097 --> 01:23:25,396
<i>America is further 
entangled in the Middle East,</i>

1277
01:23:26,301 --> 01:23:29,566
<i>and global warming is an 
increasingly serious threat.</i>

1278
01:23:30,205 --> 01:23:32,969
<i>What can we do to reshape the future?</i>

1279
01:23:33,041 --> 01:23:37,171
<i>This city is replete with famous 
names that are no longer here.</i>

1280
01:23:38,346 --> 01:23:41,674
<i>Why? Because they 
couldn't adapt to change.</i>

1281
01:23:42,183 --> 01:23:44,045
We all have to adapt to change.

1282
01:23:44,586 --> 01:23:47,954
<i>Don't debate about 
who's to blame or what to blame.</i>

1283
01:23:48,223 --> 01:23:49,815
Let's build new industries.

1284
01:23:49,891 --> 01:23:52,257
Let's make America strong again.

1285
01:23:52,560 --> 01:23:56,690
<i>Chelsea continues her work with
a new group called Plug In America,</i>

1286
01:23:56,898 --> 01:23:59,196
<i>working with citizens 
across the political spectrum</i>

1287
01:23:59,267 --> 01:24:02,202
<i>to promote an independant energy future.</i>

1288
01:24:02,804 --> 01:24:05,830
I met Jim Woolsey at an 
event, and as it turns out

1289
01:24:05,907 --> 01:24:08,239
he was already a bit of a fan 
of stuff that we were doing,

1290
01:24:08,309 --> 01:24:10,539
<i>and he's come to work
with Plug In America.</i>

1291
01:24:10,612 --> 01:24:14,275
That's one example of the types 
of relationships that have to exist

1292
01:24:14,349 --> 01:24:16,544
in order to further what we all want.

1293
01:24:16,852 --> 01:24:21,913
I've served in four administrations,
with presidential appointments,

1294
01:24:21,990 --> 01:24:25,187
<i>all in different aspects 
of national security.</i>

1295
01:24:25,260 --> 01:24:28,093
And the fact that two thirds of 
the world's proven reserves of oil

1296
01:24:28,163 --> 01:24:31,564
are in the Middle East, and that we're 
so dependant on that part of our world,

1297
01:24:31,633 --> 01:24:34,124
<i>is a very big national security question.</i>

1298
01:24:34,869 --> 01:24:36,268
Behind me there are two things.

1299
01:24:36,337 --> 01:24:39,898
One is a Prius, hybrid 
gasoline-electric Toyota,

1300
01:24:40,208 --> 01:24:42,267
<i>and an electrical substation.</i>

1301
01:24:42,343 --> 01:24:44,607
<i>Today, they don't have 
much to do with one another,</i>

1302
01:24:44,679 --> 01:24:48,410
but there's a chance that they might be able 
to have something to do with one another

1303
01:24:48,483 --> 01:24:49,814
in a positive way.

1304
01:24:49,884 --> 01:24:54,685
And that's where I think that the
plug-in hybrid is the natural next step,

1305
01:24:54,989 --> 01:24:57,219
<i>and that it is avilable to us today.</i>

1306
01:24:57,992 --> 01:25:00,017
<i>This is a plug-in hybrid Prius,</i>

1307
01:25:00,095 --> 01:25:04,156
which is a modification 
to a normal Toyota Prius

1308
01:25:04,232 --> 01:25:06,666
that allows you to travel...

1309
01:25:06,734 --> 01:25:10,864
<i>Which gives you up to 
150-180 miles per gallon</i>

1310
01:25:10,939 --> 01:25:12,963
<i>for the first 50 to 60 miles of the day.</i>

1311
01:25:13,775 --> 01:25:16,903
<i>We don't need an expensive 
charging infrastructure to use this car.</i>

1312
01:25:16,978 --> 01:25:19,242
<i>You can just plug it in 
anywhere in your garage.</i>

1313
01:25:19,314 --> 01:25:22,477
So we make the environmentalists
happy because it's cleaner.

1314
01:25:22,550 --> 01:25:27,817
We make the neo-conservatives
happy because it uses less gasoline.

1315
01:25:27,889 --> 01:25:30,380
Well, everyone's happy
because it uses less gasoline.

1316
01:25:30,458 --> 01:25:34,451
<i>Plugging in could go a long way to 
reducing our dependence on oil.</i>

1317
01:25:35,830 --> 01:25:39,095
<i>And generating that electricity 
with the wind and the sun</i>

1318
01:25:39,167 --> 01:25:41,727
<i>would create even less pollution.</i>

1319
01:25:42,403 --> 01:25:47,431
<i>With his battery technology in most 
hybrid cars, Ovshinsky has also built</i>

1320
01:25:47,509 --> 01:25:50,945
<i>one of the largest thin-film 
solar factories in the world.</i>

1321
01:25:51,012 --> 01:25:53,446
This is just an ordinary steel roof.

1322
01:25:55,083 --> 01:25:57,278
And this is with the adhesive.

1323
01:25:57,352 --> 01:26:00,810
You just put the shingles down.

1324
01:26:00,889 --> 01:26:03,255
You're in there. You've 
run your wires down.

1325
01:26:03,324 --> 01:26:05,155
Everything is plug-and-play.

1326
01:26:06,094 --> 01:26:09,928
Anybody that wants to make a 
revolution shouldn't grab a gun.

1327
01:26:10,231 --> 01:26:13,359
Just go and start 
working like we do

1328
01:26:13,434 --> 01:26:16,767
to change the world by 
using science and technology.

1329
01:26:19,174 --> 01:26:20,903
I am so optimistic about the future.

1330
01:26:20,975 --> 01:26:24,342
Even given everything that we've 
seen, and all of the EV wars,

1331
01:26:24,412 --> 01:26:25,936
I remain an optimist.

1332
01:26:27,115 --> 01:26:29,379
<i>One of the things that makes America work</i>

1333
01:26:29,450 --> 01:26:36,520
is this rampant grassroots 
agitation for things that are new.

1334
01:26:37,125 --> 01:26:40,720
When you get a coalition of that size,
and that surprising character,

1335
01:26:40,795 --> 01:26:42,353
<i>you get politicians' attention.</i>

1336
01:26:42,631 --> 01:26:44,759
<i>And here we have a serious problem:</i>

1337
01:26:44,832 --> 01:26:46,891
<i>America is addicted to oil.</i>

1338
01:26:46,968 --> 01:26:50,335
I call all this a potential coalition 
between the tree-huggers,

1339
01:26:50,405 --> 01:26:54,136
<i>the do-gooders, the sod-busters,
the cheap-hawks and the evangelicals.</i>

1340
01:26:54,843 --> 01:26:57,743
That's a pretty good-sized coalition.

1341
01:26:57,812 --> 01:27:04,115
We are about to enter into a world that
is truly renewable and completely clean

1342
01:27:04,185 --> 01:27:07,052
if we just had the willpower to implement it.

1343
01:27:07,121 --> 01:27:09,782
You don't have to wait for major 
auto companies. You can do it yourself,

1344
01:27:09,924 --> 01:27:11,221
like I'm doing here.

1345
01:27:11,292 --> 01:27:12,691
<i>Old cars, new cars -
doesn't really matter.</i>

1346
01:27:12,760 --> 01:27:14,387
<i>I can convert anything.</i>

1347
01:27:14,596 --> 01:27:15,961
You haven't seen anything yet.

1348
01:27:16,030 --> 01:27:17,897
The future is going to be 
very bright in this area,

1349
01:27:18,166 --> 01:27:20,327
<i>and the forces are all 
pushing in that direction,</i>

1350
01:27:20,401 --> 01:27:23,462
<i>both the economic
and technological forces.</i>

1351
01:27:23,738 --> 01:27:25,672
Once people see these things,

1352
01:27:25,740 --> 01:27:27,901
they say: "Wow, I want to do this!"

1353
01:27:28,076 --> 01:27:30,067
And so the word is getting out.

1354
01:27:30,712 --> 01:27:33,272
<i>That gives us hope.</i>

1355
01:27:33,915 --> 01:27:39,114
Hope that we can end up our lives 
having achieved what we set out to do.

1356
01:27:39,187 --> 01:27:40,279
And we have.

1357
01:27:40,355 --> 01:27:43,119
And you still have so many 
years you want to do things.

1358
01:27:43,191 --> 01:27:44,249
I wouldn't have enought time..

1359
01:27:52,776 --> 01:27:55,967
Subtitles by timbouctou