Revenge of the Electric Car

I'm going to give it a much better review than previous posters. This is not filmed to be pure entertainment. It is great at capturing the history of the mainstream electric car transition at its earliest....and most uncertain beginnings. What one MUST keep in mind is that when each scene was filmed, the outcome was unknown in each case. In fact, the outcomes are still being determined. Tesla was considered finished, the Volt was considered a success, and the Leaf was considered a real gamble.

If you put your thinking cap on and consider the actual situation when each scene is filmed, you realize that this is well worth seeing and thinking about how each main player is handling the situation. Filming Elon Musk telling all of the Tesla owners in the owners meeting that his company is both delaying their cars AND increasing the price is not a staged scene. He's getting his butt kicked and he admits it.....but he is also out there front and center taking responsibility as well.

 

I thought the Tesla scenes were interesting because it showed the struggles they went through. Musk looked really worried when he saw the LEAF.

But the GM and Nissan stuff didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

 

Saw it yesterday. Not bad. Very little we on Prius chat weren't aware of. Was just kind of interesting watching the big dues like Lutz and Elon Musk. Also I found it quite entertaining, and it produced hearty laughs, to see the guys from jalopnik calling the Model S tesla vaporware and another one of their narrators basically saying it will never, ever happen.

I think I have laughed at Tesla in the past as well, but Musk is just determined as hell and quite compelling.

BTW, I found this better than who killed the electric car. That movie never made an argument I found convincing that it tried to make, about some great conspiracy. To this day I think the car was cancelled for more or less the reasons stated: just too expensive at the time and an insufficient market perceived by GM for the product. This current movie made very little argument, was just a biographical piece in a sense of the companies and another hobbyist guy and their desire to make EVs.

 

I will be the first to admit that the "emotions" usually sought in a movie were missing from this one. But there were a lot of subtleties that were revealed that get overlooked when sitting back just to be entertained. One of those subtitles was how each of the four paths depended very, very heavily on one "champion". How different would the EV situation be if the four main characters had decided not to pursue their respective EVs?

I'm pretty sure that SUVs would still be saturating the highways regardless of what SUV champions had decided differently. I'm not so sure any of the present production EVs would be here in now if those four had decided differently. What do you think?

 

Just watched it on Netflix streaming. I enjoyed it. But where "Who Killed the Electric Car" revealed a lot of information about the demise of the EV programs of the 90's, this was more of a feel-good film about how the big players are finally "getting it." Bob Lutz turning around and becoming the good guy; Carlos Ghosn betting the bank on the Leaf; Elon Musk plowing the last of his personal fortune in to Tesla to keep the company going long enough to find more capital, etc.

Of course, as a Roadster owner, the parts about Tesla were a real feel-good experience. I was reminded of the obstacles and close calls with bankruptcy, and happier than ever about my car (but also glad I waited as long as I did, and didn't have to suffer the uncertainty).

I think the movie gives Lutz too much credit. After all, the Volt isn't really an EV. It's a series hybrid with a little bit of battery range (less than my Xebra). But if the movie increases awareness of electric transportation, then that's a good thing.