Tesla cars featured in Revenge of the Electric Car.
October 19, 2011 3:30 PM Text Size: A . A . A
What caused you to revisit the topic of electric vehicles, and so soon? Who Killed the Electric Car? came out in 2006, and you couldn?t have expected to turn around and make another movie right away.
I did not expect to do that at all. It certainly shocked me how fast the car companies turned around on this issue and started developing these programs. We started talking about it right after the first film came out because Bob Lutz announced that GM might start working on the Volt. Rumors started going around, but I started actually filming at the end of 2007. The principle photography was during 2008, 2009, and 2010. What did you hope to achieve with this film?
The first film was about how the system can really stop innovation sometimes, but the second film gave us the opportunity to talk about how innovation can start from the inside, and how people working in the system can improve things. And I thought, well, how often will I as a filmmaker have the opportunity to tell two sides of the same story? That was the issue movie; this is a movie about momentum. We shot over three years, and we were under pretty strict?well, extremely strict?agreement not to release the footage until 2011 because we had one company going bankrupt, two having IPOs, and then Nissan, which is traditionally extremely secretive in a way that was not easy to get access. So Bob Lutz had made the announcement about the Chevy Volt, but what made you choose Carlos Ghosn, Elon Musk, and Greg "Gadget" Abbott as the other main characters?
We decided that the four characters that we chose represented different pieces of the American puzzle of entrepreneurship. One, of course, was the do-it-yourselfer. Bob Lutz represented Detroit?like old-guard Detroit?who had a change of heart. Elon was Silicon Valley and the well-financed start-up company that came in from the outside. And Carlos Ghosn represented the super-multinational corporation as the head of Renault out of France and Nissan in Japan. And you also already knew about the production of the Nissan Leaf ahead of time?
Well, no. We?d heard rumors, but that was the most secret car, and Carlos Ghosn was the last to enter the story in a big way. In fact, we had already filmed for at least a year, maybe not quite that long, when Nissan gave us clearance to come to Japan. And boy, they certainly?like everybody?were quite concerned. Because, you know, our first film was not exactly a love letter to the car industry. Who Killed The Electric Car? definitely was not a love letter. So what did it take for you to convince these people to give you such unprecedented access?
I knew Gadget as a neighbor, so that wasn?t so much an issue, but I think Carlos, Bob, and Eli made personal decisions and had enough power within their companies that they would trust us to do this. The agreement was that we could publish nothing before 2011, but they had zero editorial control. What did you find to be the most surprising after spending so much time behind the scenes?
It made me realize how difficult it is to create change from within. These guys are fighting and arguing with their own companies to innovate and create change from the inside. And then there?s also a lot of external pressure. So I think we all tend to think of big multinational corporations as being monolithic, and what the process of doing this film made me see was that there are different business units and ideas that are struggling within companies to take hold, for whatever reason. You mention in the movie that you couldn?t tell if Bob Lutz was merely playing a role. How genuine do you feel he was being, especially with his belief in the Volt?
Bob Lutz believes in the electric car, if not for any environmental reason, for the idea that GM needed to reinvent itself out of a really lackluster product line in the ?80s and ?90s; the Volt would help reinvent GM from the inside and allow the electrification of the vehicle over the next 20 years because oil prices are going nowhere but up in the long run, and they didn?t want to be last place on that. You also follow Elon Musk through the pangs of trying to turn a profit with Tesla Motors and the Roadster. There?s a funny scene in the movie regarding your own Roadster that I won?t give away, but are you happy with its performance?
I?ve had that car for almost three years now. And I waited for it for almost two years. And boy, I was having my doubts that they were going to pull this off at various points.But I?ve had the car for thee years now, and it?s been a terrific car. It?s great to drive; it?s held up.
Well, we?ll see if Tesla actually turns a profit soon by discontinuing the Roadster and introducing the more affordable Model S. The Musk story line also highlights just how hard it is to produce cars if you?re not a huge corporation. It seems that if there?s a niche to attempt, it?s definitely with electric vehicles.
Yeah, why start a car company that isn?t electric? But we wanted to make the point in the movie with the allusions to Preston Tucker that it?s really been difficult to start car companies. And it?s amazing that Tesla has gotten as far as they?ve gotten. And I think they just might make it. Do you own any other electric vehicles?
Yes, I traded in my Prius and bought a Volt, and my girlfriend drives the Nissan Leaf. And we had to pay full price for every one of those cars. And it?s great that there is a federal tax credit for these cars to encourage people to try them. I think that?s sort of the moral of the story for me in all of this: No matter how many arguments people make for electric cars, no one is convinced until they drive one. You interviewed Popular Mechanics automotive editor Larry Webster in the movie, and he speaks a bit about the range anxiety that GM often cites. This taps into a larger issue, that the freedom of the road is a very American notion. Do you think Americans will be able to get past range anxiety?
Range anxiety, I think, in some ways is one of those problems that we didn?t know existed, but GM decided to really go after that as being important. So their car, the Volt, does away with that problem all together because the thing switches to gasoline after 40, 50 miles, and so you can never run out of power in that car unless you don?t have gasoline. And for people who have had experience driving electrics, I think they understand like I have that it?s certainly not your long-haul car yet, but it?s perfect for people as their primary car to use around town. The freedom argument is the most metaphysically interesting thing, and I would argue it like this: I think that the idea of being an American and having a certain kind of mobile freedom is almost inherent in the American ideal?the open road and getting away?but that?s been taken ever since energy started coming mainly from foreign countries. The EV still might not have the range people want in the version 2.0 that we?re moving into right now, but it does offer a sort of deeper freedom in that you can make your own energy and power your own transportation just like we could when we had horses and you could feed them in your backyard. It?s a powerful paradigm.
GM just announced the Chevy Spark as its first all-electric vehicle since the EV1. The demise of the EV1 is the focal point of your first film, and GM ends up looking like a bit of a villain. Do you think GM wishes they had kept the EV program together so they would be at the forefront of the technology today?
From an engineering point of view, they lost a competitive edge. Now the Volt, because they?re first to market with a plug-in hybrid, gives them a new edge, and that might add up to something. I know they haven?t hit their sales target in the first six months here, but if oil prices start to trend up again and they figure out how to market the Spark, they?re going to do very well. There are a lot of hybrids on the roads, several EVs, and lots more concepts of both. At the end of Who Killed the Electric Car? you pass judgment on various parties (big oil, big auto, consumers, etc.) as to whether they played a part in killing the electric car. If electric vehicles don?t take off this time around, who would you say is the guilty party?
I don?t think the oil industry is going to get directly involved, but indirectly, there is going to be a lot of misinformation about things. I don?t like blaming people, and part of the reason I made this new film is to talk about what it takes to move ahead, and we can all be a part of moving ahead by being early adopters and getting this thing going. kat dennings listeriosis bonobos recent earthquakes club paradise earthquakes today twilight breaking dawn trailer
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