Revenge of the Electric Car

In 2006, filmmaker Chris Paine examined the short and troubled history of General Motors' EV1, an electric powered automobile that was fast, efficient and taken off the market under mysterious circumstances, in his documentary Who Killed The Electric Car?. A few years later, with the price of gas skyrocketing and the environment an even greater issue for many Americans, alternative vehicles are finally making their way into the mass marketplace, and Paine takes a look at four firms who are trying to put electric autos onto America's highways in his follow-up The Revenge Of The Electric Car. Bob Lutz of GM, after dropping the ball on the EV1, spearheads an effort to launch the Chevy Volt, one of the first plug-in hybrids from a major American automaker. Carlos Ghosn of Nissan puts his firm's resources behind an innovative fully electric auto, the Nissan Leaf. Elon Musk, who made a killing in the dot-com boom, is gambling his fortune on the Tesla, a sleek and high powered electric sports car aimed at the luxury market with a price tag of $100,000. And Greg "Gadget" Abbott is an ambitious mechanic who has launched a business transforming conventional autos into gas-free electric vehicles, though not without problems. The Revenge Of The Electric Car was an official selection at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.