Rant #2: “Who Killed the Electric Car”

The second rant of the evening is that old chestnut of industrial greed where stock profits is more important than the common good.

Live it up: “Who Killed the Electric Car” was a documentary that came out last year about the history of the electric car as it was developed, engineered, marketed and then literally crushed by American auto manufacturers, the oil industry and well-connected Republicans.

Here’s a trailer to check out:

The way I see it: You sow what you reap.

The Daimler/Chrysler merger is breaking up, GM is suffering from record losses, Ford is laying off thousands because they lavished expensive pay packages on their management instead of properly managing employee pensions and healthcare…

There was a long but very good article in this past Sunday NY Time’s Magazine section on how Toyota will very soon become the #1 auto company in the world, beating out GM.

Toyota’s philosophy matches Japanese culture which thinks in the long term, not the short term chase for profits like most American companies; they have a way of asking themselves how will this product benefit society first and us second.

That’s why the big Japanese companies are first with their hybrid vehicles like Toyota’s Prius.

Electric cars will make it big in Europe and Asia first because the power companies are all run by the state and the price of gas is way, way more expensive than here anyway.

So the movie should really be called “Who Killed the AMERICAN Electric Car?”

Isn’t it ironic that the greed of one American industry (oil) has done in another American industry (cars)?

(Yeah I know that part of the problem are trade tariff issues between US and Japan, plus their cheaper labor costs, and our expensive healthcare, but the American companies missed the boat on the electric car and they’re going to pay the price for it. Time will tell if they can grow a brain and catch up.)

Thanks to Monse babe for showing this to me!