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What happened to the car of the future?

Chris Paine’s 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? opens with a mock funeral for General Motors’ sleek, emissionless EV-1. After producing nearly a thousand electric cars in the mid-1990s, GM pulled the plug in 2003, leaving drivers — Paine among them — by the roadside asking why.

Q: Why an electric car?

A: At first, I had the same misgivings as everyone else: It won’t go far enough or fast enough. But then I drove one and thought, “Whoa! This is fast.” And the car goes about 100 miles on one charge. The average person doesn’t drive more than 30 miles a day, so this is pretty much the only car you’d need 90 percent of the time.

Q: So what killed it?

A: Industries don’t like to change the way they make money. Oil companies sell gasoline, not electricity. Automakers sell cars that require lots of parts and maintenance, neither of which the EV-1 needs much of. And consumers are wary. They say, “I'll see what happens to the other guy before I get one.”

Q: Are hybrids the answer, then?

A: Short-term — yes. But only if we're keeping pressure on the carmakers to get more fuel-effcient vehicles on the road.

— Nino Padova