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Chris Paine directed “Who Killed the Electric Car?” His new project is “Revenge of the Electric Car,” a documentary film and multimedia blog now in production. The film is slated for theaters in 2010.
When “Who Killed the Electric Car” premiered at Sundance in 2006, it surprised viewers with an exposé of what happened to California’s expansive electric car program of the 1990s. Almost every major automaker built state-of-the-art highway speed EVs. Only a few years later, they destroyed them.
General Motors’ revolutionary EV1 became the poster-child for the story. The film, picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, won awards around the world for its exploration of how car makers, oil companies, government and even consumers stopped the future in its tracks — for a while, anyway.
Besides doing extensive research on EVs, Chris has spent significant time behind the wheel. He drove an EV1 from 1997 to 2003, until his leased car was confiscated. Since then he has been driving a Toyota RAV4 EV, a rare all-electric SUV that he managed to purchase.
The last few seconds of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” included a glimpse of the first Tesla ever built. After filming that scene, Chris put down a deposit on the Roadster in October 2006. Last month he added his own Tesla Roadster, No. 23, to his garage.
Driving the Roadster recalls his EV1 days – but with a twist.
“The car is lightning fast — an instant throwback to the purr of the EV1 electric car — only this time there is almost universal agreement that the car is damn sexy,” he writes. You may read the entire post – including an escapade with LA’s finest and an interview with a Croatian TV crew here.
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Congrat Chris!!… If anybody deserves to get a Tesla its you!
Hi Chris! I’ve been following your delivery of the Roadster and it’s, well, amusing! Glad to see you’re having so much fun.
This also seems like an appropriate place to comment on your WKtEC producer, Dean Delin’s, conspicuous and fantastic Tesla product placement in his TNT series, Leverage. For those that missed it, Timothy Hutton’s character bought an “electric car”. The other cast members ribbed him about it until he hopped into a Radiant Red Roadster and the letters T E S L A disappeared in an amazing show of torque. Fantastic.
Hey Chris,
You gave me a ride in your EV1 back at an EV Rally on the Stanford Campus (at the Quad) long ago.
Then your film helped inspire me to get my own EV.
I hope to join you as a Tesla owner someday.
As a motorsports, and ‘cyberpunk’ fan, I picked up DVD copies of Faster and ‘No Maps’ recently.
Keep up the great work!
Dear Chris,
Thank you so much for your posting and of course thank you for your great work. I received your film as a gift from one of Wally’s relatives and it left a deep impression. As a result of this and also as a result from sharing our thoughts within Tesla Motors blogs and TMC Blogs I’m about to start my own venture as an EV Dealer in Europe.
Thank you, thank you, thank you
Felix
Sweet! That blog looks like a great place to track new developments alongside this one. Score one for the good guys!
I’m also looking forward to the movie. I’m hoping Firefly will perfect their 3D² tech by then: we need a good battery that will compete with lithium without breaking the bank.
Congrats, Chris.
I wanted to write here before, but couldn’t quite figure out what to say. It really isn’t that big surprise that you got a Roadster, nor it is any news that it is a cool car. Your blog with cops stopping you just to see Roadster was, however, fun to read.
Mark, there is picture of Timothy Hutton sitting in Tesla at IMDb page of Leverage
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Timo, and so there is! www.imdb.com/media/rm366646528/tt1103987
To Tesla Motors, what fantastic product placement! To Chris, you should ask for some kind of advertising commission. Kidding, of course, but if you didn’t make WKtEC, Dean probably wouldn’t be featuring a Roadster in Leverage.
The Roadster sure makes Chris’ garage look…er…umml…regular.
not long ago i read on computer an article about Tesla having problem with their battery
true or false ??
and if is false is Tesla will ever go pubblic?
I’m jealous, Chris has seen “Model S”. In his blog there is this:
” Then a slide show came on and we got a sneak peak at a photo of ‘Model S’. OMG. I don’t usually think of sedans as sexy, but this car is gorgeous.”
Please, please, pleeease give us some information about “Model S”. Anything. Please.
Today Sunday 14th Dec 09 at 21 00 GMT a new Top Gear aired and Clarkson got behind the wheel of the Tesla.
He comments it looks “pretty good” which for JC is a bit of a compliment.He then drag racers with an Elise as Tesla
say its “pretty nippy”.Tesla torques away from the Elise with JC exclaiming “God Almighty”,Yes, he is impressed.
But he then complains about tthe weight distribution making track handling tricky and then busts both of the test cars doh.
Later on the track Stig wrings it to a time Porsche should be worried about.
John I, I looked that test-run in Youtube, and it wasn’t exactly positive for Roadster. Those two breakages (engine overheating and brakes broken) and long charging time mentioned aren’t actually good advertising for Tesla. The speed, however, was. Tesla weight was mentioned and it is true that it can’t be as nimble as Elise, but as we saw into that episode Roadster was faster because it accelerates so much faster. Also getting same result as Porsche GT3 car in test-track using low friction tires in mildly wet surface is a very good result.
Some facts about Porsche GT3 compared to Tesla Roadster:
Top speed 193 mph, 0-60 4.1 seconds, 415 HP (about 305 kW depending of the HP definition), weight 3075 lbs (1395 kg).
Top speed 125 mph, 0-60 3.9 seconds, 185 kW (about 251 HP depending of the HP definition), weight 2723 lbs (1238 kg).
Based on those facts it looks like Roadster should have lost, but it didn’t. EV flat torque curve shows its power
.
Comment 221 - 225 I though I should stick up for the Tesla following Clarksons ridiculous commentary and false hopes of a hydrogen powered future….and I ended up giving them both barrels…haha
transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2008/12/14/the-last-one-almost/#comment-8120
I was most disappointed about JC’s report. Focused mostly on the negative, said it takes hours and hours to charge and didn’t mention 3.8 seconds or the fact that 220 miles would suffice a HUGE amount of people….He actually reminded me of the negative non-marketing efforts that GM did for the EV1 !!
Thanks to Chris for both the insight into his experiences and an excellent film that I have not stopped recommending since watching.
I am really looking forward to seeing The Revenge !!!
Cheers !
SUTSKI, I did read some of the comments made on that blog you wrote. It seems that there are some smart people writing there. I enjoyed reading about hydrogen efficiency comments.
One thing that bugs me most is that in order to create hydrogen you need energy and efficiency in producing that is way worse than just use that energy to create electricity that then gets transported to charger which in turn charges the battery in the car. There just isn’t anything that _can_ be better than that. It all comes to transporting and conversing energy. Hydrogen, while being clean tech, is inefficient. If you need to use electricity to create hydrogen which in turn is turned back to electricity it doesn’t need to be genius to see that that is going to be worse than just use electricity. There is two low-efficiency conversions more in between and much bigger transport losses compared to transport pure electricity to car battery.
It could work if you could create hydrogen in your garage without using any electricity, but it would need to be better in efficiency than zillion clean ways to create electricity.
I hope Tesla Makes it and kicks GM ass, they have been complacent for too many years, I hope tesla realy comes ,
All the best with the new movie , the congressmen should all wath Who killed the electric car, because it would should would type of company GM really is, a Bunch of crooks.
TESLA IS A SERB!! NOT A CROATIAN.
LOVE THE CAR! CAN’T WAIT FOR YOUR MORE AFFORDABLE SEDAN.
Congrats to Chris. .. and watch those ‘acceleration experiments.’
Also, I invite Tesla owners to add their vehicles to EV World’s Journals. I finally added the Tesla to the list of production EVs (sorry it took so long, but what else is new?). Now i need owners to let readers know what their impressions are.
Here’s the URL: evworld.com/guides/guide.cfm?vehicleid=60.
Click on the CREATE YOUR JOURNAL to see the data entry form.
Thanks!
Bill
aneone aware of investment opportunities? stock?
Mr Stojanovich, Nikola Tesla was indeed born in Croatia, however his lineage is as an ethnic Serb.
i watch your movies “Who Killed the Electric Car?” on HBO Indonesia twice yesterday , and still amazed by it . Good work Chris !, you’ve kick their ass !
Dear Sirs, I reading your paragraph on Chris Paine(Dir: Who Killed the Electric Car) I would think that you Tesla Motors of all the people in this world would be the ones to recognise that what “Killed the Electric Car” as explained in a long letter to the Editor Automotive News by the chief engineer on the GM EV-1 was that the car was designed before the battery was available and GM was depending on battery technology to catch up to them and the car which it did not. As you know well battery technology is just NOW approaching being ready for an electric car that has sufficient perfomance and range to be MARKETABLE! The EV-1 was readily available on a restricted lease at a huge loss to GM on each car and yet they sold perhaps 650 cars in 3-4 years time. And by the way Chris Paines car was not “confiscated” implying some over overbearing government TAKING the car from Paine but rather the CONTRACT Mr. Paine signed required the RETURN of the car to GM as terms of the lease. As a person in the car business owning dealerships for among others Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, Rolls Royce and Bentley and having managed stores for Buick and GMC trucks for 35 years I hope you are successful and able to compete as the business benefits from all new ideas that work. Best of luck to you. Tom Claridge Pres. Claridge’s Ltd. Santa Clara, CA
I’m excited for this movie. I really enjoyed how at the end of the last one he already promised it. The Tesla Roadster is pretty amazing, not that I’m ever going to be able to afford it, but because of the change it promises for the entire industry. It’s inspiring news for the auto industry which has been living if it is housed in a funeral pyre these last few months. I found an interesting discussion on the roadster and electric cars in general at pandalous. It’s here: www.pandalous.com/nodes/the_eventual_rise_of_the