I've Googled in vain to find people who bash the EV1 for being maintenance intensive and have yet to find a single instance. In the movie and on the Internet, I only find praise about how little maintenance is required--basically rotate the tires and fill up the washer fluid every 5,000 miles. There's no complicated internal combustion engine, no transmission or drivetrain, there isn't a whole lot to break, except maybe the lame lead acid batteries in the first batch to be produced, but that's not really a mechanical problem.

I've seen real-world quotes from different drivers using the NiMH batteries in the 100-140 mile range on a number of different websites, so it doesn't seem freakishly abnormal. Current electric vehicles, like from Tesla Motors claim double that range already. Besides, one of the side effects of the zero emission mandate in California was the proliferation of state-subsidized charging stations at parking garages, shopping centers, etc. (at least in Northern Cal) so you could actually top off your batteries as you went about your daily business. Some people criticize the car for how long it takes for a full recharge (one website said 15 hours), but hardly anyone would drain the battery almost empty every day anyway, so it's unlikely that you would ever need to wait for a full recharge. In the movie, they quote an average daily commute of 23(?) miles, which means recharging each night would be quite quick even if you didn't have a recharging station at work.

In my Googling today, I ran across the interesting fact that the Smithsonian Museum had one of the few EV1's that escaped the shredder, but they removed it from display last month, just before this movie came out. The museum's transportation exhibition hall is named after General Motors, which donated $10 million in 2001 towards its construction. Coincidence? <shrug>

I probably shouldn't have mentioned that other "witholding battery technology conspiracy" webpage--that's just something I stumbled on. The movie is not necessarily saying that there was a conspiracy or secret outside forces involved with the EV1--just that there was a deliberate decision to kill off a car whose customers loved it, and then exploring reasons why GM would do that. However, facts like Chevron-Texaco buying the supplier of NiMH batteries for the EV1, Ovonics, from GM does make me scratch my head.

And yes, EV1's were expensive and the movie raises that point, too, but so were VCR's, DVD players, flat-screen TV's etc. when they first came out and revolutionized their particular industries. Unlike other EV's like the RAV4 or Ford Ranger EV, the EV1 was designed from scratch and GM apparently was practically handmaking all their EV1's, so there were no economies of scale or recycling of car parts involved. And Ovonics apparently wasn't churning out many of its batteries either. If both GM and Ovonics had actually gone into mass production, I can only assume that the cost would have come down significantly.

And maybe all-electrics aren't dead yet. Who knows, maybe this this cute (but 4-seater) all-electric Subaru will hit American shores someday in the near future. Maybe when the average price of gas hits $4 a gallon?