‘Revenge of the Electric Car’ trailer debuts on YouTube

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

It’s been four years since ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ riled up greenies with an incendiary documentary about General Motors’ EV1 and its ultimate demise in the claws of a car crusher. Now director Chris Paine is back, not so much with a follow-up to his acclaimed film but the next chapter in EVs’ convoluted history.

‘Revenge of the Electric Car’ won’t be in theaters until early 2011, but the trailer was released on YouTube Friday and is already pulling in impressive numbers. The ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’ movie trailer highlights the film’s four main characters: Bob Lutz, former General Motors vice chairman; Elon Musk, Tesla Motors CEO; Carlos Ghosn, Nissan CEO; and EV conversion guru, Greg ‘Gadget’ Abbott.

Unlike ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’, which found car makers, the California Air Resources Board, the federal government, the oil industry and consumers mostly to blame for electric vehicles’ untimely death, ‘Revenge’ appears less interested in conspiracy theories and automaker industry bashing than their high-stakes race to make EVs succeed now that they actually exist in the marketplace.

It will be an interesting story to witness as it plays out, not only in Paine’s soon-to-be released doc, but in the real world.

-- Susan Carpenter