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'Who Killed the Electric Car?': An exercise in consumer outrage

Remember the urban myth of the automobile that ran on water, which the car companies bought in order to destroy it? That turns out to be not far from the truth, as documentary filmmaker Chris Paine's Who Killed the Electric Car? explains with muckraking passion.

Sony Pictures Classics 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' B+ The verdict: An eye-opening history lesson on why the electric car got knocked out of the American marketplace. Director: Chris Paine Cast: Martin Sheen, Dave Barthmuss, Jim Boyd, Alec N. Brooks, Alan Cocconi Run time: 90 minutes Release date: June 28, 2006 Rating: PG for brief mild language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Flash back to the mid-'90s, when California passed a mandate that 10 percent of all new vehicles sold in the state had to be emission-free. That led General Motors engineers to devise a battery-powered car, building a limited number of prototypes and leasing them to some adventurous, ecology-minded folks. But according to Paine, GM was too invested in the gas-powered combustion engine to want the electric car to succeed. Abruptly, the company recalled the vehicles, stored them out of sight and eventually shredded them into oblivion.

The film is an exercise in consumer outrage about corporate indifference to the public good. Cinematically, it has much in common with the more zealous segments on 60 Minutes, but it would make an effective double feature with Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth or perhaps Michael Moore's early anti-GM screed, Roger & Me.

Its timing is ideal, coming out as the national price of gasoline streaks past the $3 mark.