I disagree that the EV1 cold be profitably sold for a "reasonable' price. The price I heard is that at less than $65,000 the EV1 was a money loser for GM. I got this number from an electrical engineer at Daimler-Chrysler. He has worked on an electric car there and said that unless GM has some secret technology that he is unaware of to get the performance the EV1 gave would require a selling price way above $25,000.
Toyota and Honda both used to claim that their hybrids were sold at a loss at their ~$20,000 price. Ford loses at a minimum ~$3000 on each Hybrid Escape they sell. The technology isn't there yet. Without government mandates forcing the companies to create it I doubt they will do so in a timely manner.
Keep in mind that these electrics do not use the next generation Li-Ion batteries but Ni-MH batteries. Those batteries are toxic as hell. The disposal of these batteries from cell phones and other electric gadgets is only just becoming a real problem. Put them in cars and have them replaced at ~50,000 miles and you have a real disposal issue. Not to mention the cost to consumers of replacing $6000-$10,000 worth of batteries by the time their car is 4 years old. Some more expensively produced Ni-MH batteries can give ~100,000 miles but these are much more costly than ones that last only ~50,000. The people who can least afford frequent replacement will be the ones stuck with the frequent replacement bills. This would create a glut of cars not worth the expense to keep running after only 4 years or so creating a large disposal problem. I suspect that the problems of hydrocarbon emissions, while quite serious, are probably not much worse than the problem of disposal of thousand of times more cadmium that we currently dispose of. They are different to be certain but I'd like a reasonable proposal for disposal before committing to large scale Ni-MH car batteries.
I do agree that the film showed the insights into monopoly capitalism to a degree but the film downplayed the other very real reasons for the EV1's demise. I don't remember the issue of Chevron, who owns the patents on large scale NI-MH batteries, now refusing to make their most efficient large-scale rechargeable batteries available was addressed in the film. Currently you couldn't replace the EV1's batteries even if the car still existed. Was this addressed and I missed it?
I was especially irked by listening to people who got sweetheart deals, leasing the EV1 for literally 1/4 of it's actual market value, bitching when that deal ended. Who the hell wouldn't want to lease a $65,000 car you never put gas in for only $300 a month? Since this absolutely could not be implemented on a large scale it came across as a bunch of privileged people whining when they had their wonderful but ultimately unsustainable privilege removed.
Another point I think the film should have spent more time on was the fact that it was government mandates, not market forces, that forced the companies to look seriously at ZEV's. If CARB had implemented slightly different rules it might have lead to substantial changes. They might have allowed fines for noncompliance that were just burdensome enough to stimulate research while allowing greater incentives for hybrids. I believe hybrids are the way to go in the short and medium range however. Focusing on the fact that real change will probably be government mandated rather than the results of market forces should have been a larger part of the film.
John Thornton