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Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm
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This movie was amazing!!!!!
The thing is, the electric car is always on the "brink" of being released into the mainstream, but it never is.
In 1996, California created a mandate that stipulated all car companies that want to sell cars in California must have a certain percent that are emissions free. All the car companies created an electric vehicle line, GM, Ford, Toyota, etc. The thing is, they wouldn't ALLOW people to buy the cars, only lease them. Then, the car companies (along with the Bush administration) sued the government of California and they came up with an agreement, the car companies would create the cars based on "customer demand". What ended up happening is after the leases were done, they would not
allow any car owner to renew, there were application processes to try and get a lease on a car (
), long waiting lists were created, but the same week GM closed their electric car plant - they bought out Hummer and a new era of gas-guzzling started...
People wanted to know what was happening to their cars that they wanted to keep after their lease was up. GM said that they were dismantling the cars and recycling them. A bunch of EV owners flew over GM's dump site in some state... Arkansas maybe... and they came up with aerial views of all the EV cars flattened and staked up.
The thing is, you never saw an add with supermodels driving the electric cars down the PCH. They actually had an infrastructure in place as well where people could charge their cars at charging stations.
A lot of people said there were limitations for how far the car could go, but a gentleman created a super-efficient battery that was far better than the one placed in the EVs. GM bought the majority of shares in his company and would not allow him to advertise it or use it commercially. Years later GM sold their shares to Texaco Inc. and well, they're not in a big hurry to use it, obviously...
This movie depressed the **** out of me. Big oil is just too powerful to allow this to happen. GM has the technology to release these cars right now, but they won't be out by 2010... apparently. What will probably happen in 2010 is GM will say there is a better technology that they will release in another five years... like a hydrogen fueled car, but they will probably stiffen the idea like they did in California.