Toyota VP steps up to defend GM record on electric cars
Do you remember the old saying about statistics? Tell me which side of the argument you're on and I'll give you the statistics to prove you're right. Well the same thing applies to documentary movies. Film makers generally have a story they're trying to tell, and they select the footage they need to tell that narrative. Earlier in 2006 the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" really slammed General Motors and their role in the demise of the EV1 electric car.
In an article today by Detroit Free Press columnist Mark Phelan, Toyota steps up to the plate and defends General Motors actions. Toyota also had an electric car program in California, as did Ford, Chrysler, Honda and others. All of them pulled their EVs from the market, but only GM was featured in the film. Toyota sold an EV based on the RAV4, that was heavily subsidized and made available for the same price as the Prius. The market had an opportunity to select an EV but the Prius is still with us today, and the RAV4 EV isn't. Toyota was interviewed extensively for the film, but according to Toyota VP Ernest Bastien, all of that footage was cut from the film and "It was not balanced at all." Clearly what Toyota had to say did not conform to the director's narrative.
Bastien says that both Toyota and GM heavily promoted their respective electric vehicles. The problem is that not enough customers wanted them. As GM has said, customer's don't want to plan their life around the next battery charge. Director Chris Paine acknowledges that he used the footage he wanted to tell the story he wanted. He focused on GM because it didn't handle the PR around canceling the program as well as Toyota did. Go check out Mark Phelan's article at the Read link
[Source: Detroit Free Press]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
George Krpan 3:18PM (12/20/2006)
I was down on that movie from the start. My feelings were that they rode the coat tails of "Inconvenient Truth". I called it ecological opportunism and the makers econistas. No one killed the electric car. The big automakers withdraw only opened up opportunities for others. Why do "liberals" bash their own and elevate the foreign competition? What is this self destructive behavior? Bravo for Toyota for telling the truth. Shame on the filmmakers. I'm sure they don't find the truth very convenient.
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Tim 5:38PM (12/20/2006)
I still think this book tells us what really killed the electric car: http://internalcombustionbook.com. http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/autobloggreen/audiointerviews/edwinblack.mp3
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Alric 5:35PM (12/20/2006)
The EV Rav4 from toyota and a Honda EV are both mentioned in the movie. There are still Rav4 EVs on the road and Toyota said they would mantain them until they were inoperable. GM sought out and destroyed most EV1s. A few were given to museums and teaching institutions after gutting the electrical systems.
I doubt Chris Paine falsified the court documents where GM and the Bush administration sued the california air standards agency for asking for a zero emmisions vehicle.
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Peter 8:11PM (12/20/2006)
Customers don't want electric cars?
http://www.teslamotors.com/
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James 9:30PM (12/20/2006)
Yes, it's true, customers (we) killed the electric car. Conspiracy theorist are intent on pushing the blame on auto makers, and find isolated cases with no real significance, then hype them as if they apply. Tesla won't sell enough cars to even register on the big auto maker's radar, and Tesla will likely be out of business within 10 years.
Every electric car ever sold put together wouldn't even register on a big auto maker's radar. And every big auto maker who has created an electric car has lost large sums of money doing it. Because, to the average consumer electric cars are inferior, and they are correct. Right now electric cars suck. And for the big auto makers, investing in electric cars is a loosing proposition.
I think this will start to change soon, electric cars are the future, not fuel cell, not hybrid, not biodiesel (we're talking long-range here, not the next 20 years). Companies like Tesla are doing the work that the big auto makers can't afford to do (that may sound rediculous but if you understand the economics of a large company it's actually very true). The small companies will pioneer the technology to improve electric cars and make them viable. It will only take 2-3 technological breakthroughs to make electric cars viable, and if current progress is any indication those will occur in the next 10 years. Once we can make an electric car that goes over 300 miles, offers good performance, charges in under 30 minutes, and costs less than $5k more than gas car, we will quickly see a real market for electric cars develop.
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Tom 1:17AM (12/21/2006)
We (consumers) killed the electric car?? This fairly observant consumer was barely aware that something was going on in California. It was a revelation to see the movie and the vehicles that could exist right now. Not to mention the vehicles they could become with modest increnmental improvements in technology.
I now own a Prius since I could wait no longer. I am angered I can't plug it in. I waited, in part, because my work sometimes requires I drive on unimproved roads. The impact of owning a Prius so far? None. If my employer want me to go off-road, they will rent me the appropriate vehicle or I won't go. The reality is 99% of my driving doesn't need anything other than an EV/hybrid, no technological breakthroughs needed. Just offer me the option!!
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Jesse 9:11AM (12/21/2006)
It seems many of you are forgetting one MAJOR thing: those of us reading this are all "car guys" to some extent or another. We pay attention to this world, its developments and impacts. Working as a service advisor, I find too many people every single day that wouldnt remember to plug their car in at night, have a clue how to service it, or schedule their life so they wouldn't get stuck out somewhere. If you really are longing that hard for an electric vehicle, go buy a golf cart or pony up the millions it takes to develop something new. There are too many people who want Ferrari potential for Fiat pricing, get real.
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James 10:42AM (12/21/2006)
Jesse, keep in mind I'm thinking long-term and a few tech breakthroughs. For example, if we could use a big capacitor instead of a battery (a company in Texas is working on this), you could have a 2500lb car, with 300hp, and a range of 300 miles. Plus it could charge just like a gas car, so that gas stations become inductive recharge stations. With fewer moving parts and economies of scale, it could could be more cost effective than a gas car. This is still 20-30 years down the road at least. But given that we can cross a few technical hurdles, it makes sense that pure-electric is (potentially) innately simpler and more efficient than internal combustion.
A competitive electric car definitely isn't doable today. The Tesla won't push down-market, it's based on limited tehcnology, and it therefore in some sense a dead-end. But with a few breakthroughs an electric car would be able to trounce the internal combustion engine. Plus, with electricity there are a wide variety of sources, and distribution becomes much easier than gas (not to mention Hydrogen).
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John 12:03PM (12/21/2006)
The movie was a documentary and represented as a documentary and was never to my knowledge represented as a work of journalism. As a documentary it is by definition susceptible to being slanted to a point of view. Paine is not a journalist and I don't believe ever claimed to be one thus as he himself has noted is not bound to put everything in the film to represent a full picture. Hey, he's a guy with a point of view, a passionate belief in electric cars and the skill of a filmmaker. He did what he knew how to get across his point of view. I don't fault him for that or for using his knowhow to get his view of the world out. I think he was pretty smart and creative and I'm sure he believes he did what needed to be done. Anyone who did any research on the subject matter quickly discovered there was another side to the story. It would have been nice -- even transparent -- during the media blitz around the movie if it had been noted there was a fair amount of selective editing as Toyota has now revealed. And how ironic that it was GM that first announced a commitment to build a plug-in hybrid last month at the LA autoshow...I'm not suggesting Paine could have known that before he put the movie out....but it does give new context to GM's claims about the destruction of the EV-1's and at the very least leaves the film with diminished relevance and even less of a point.
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Peter 4:09PM (12/21/2006)
But is it the chicken or the egg? My feeling is that GM's announcement was prompted in part by public reaction to Who Killed the Electric Car, not that GM's announcement nullifies the point of the movie.
James: if electric cars will be huge in 10 years, why would Tesla be out of business in 10 years? Also, Tesla reps have said many times that they want to push the technology down market. Read the posts on this very site:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/12/18/san-jose-mercury-news-interviews-teslas-elon-musk/
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James 7:55PM (12/21/2006)
Peter: I'm thinking 20-30 years, not 10, and that's kindof a critical point. I think Tesla is going to "burn brightly" for a few years, but the given market won't support them, and their expenses will put them out of business before technology can support them.
Economically Tesla needs to make money now, they have a high burn rate and a fixed amount of money to work with. When they don't know a profit quickly investment will dry up. Renewable energy is a hype market right now, people who don't understand the market are investing in it. When results don't happen quickly, those investors will move out. It's a classic market investment curve, it happed in Tech, in .com's, in RFID, now green energy. I will grow into a solid market in the future, but hype expectations are unrealistic.
Tesla is riding the hype right now, but it won't last, and the technology won't arrive in time to save them. I appreciate what they are doing, and what Tesla is doing is important to improve the technology and the interest in the market.
In the simplest terms, a real market won't develop for 20-30 years, and Tesla only has a 5-10 year lifespan.
Tesla claims they want to push down-market, but there is no reason to think they will be able to. They only way Tesla will survive is if the technology arrives earlier than I'm predicting, or if they change their business model.
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