Who Killed the Electric Car?

Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) — watch online on iFILM — is Chris Paine's documentary on the brief life and engineered death of the GM EV1. The car appeared on California roads in 1996: quiet, fast, no tailpipe, no gas. Less than a decade later, nearly every unit had been recalled and crushed.

Paine structures the film as a whodunit with a lineup of suspects: the automakers, the oil industry, Congress, the battery limitations of the era, and the consumer. Narrated by Martin Sheen, with Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, and EV1 advocate Chelsea Sexton among the voices on camera. Released one year before Tesla's Roadster debut, the film reads differently now than it did in 2006. Stream Who Killed the Electric Car? on iFILM.