Revenge of the Electric Car | |
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Directed by | Chris Paine |
Written by | Chris Paine P. G. Morgan |
Produced by | Stefano Durdic P. G. Morgan Jessie Deeter Dana Moreau Michelle Kaffko |
Starring | Elon Musk Carlos Ghosn Bob Lutz Greg Abbott Dan Neil |
Narrated by | Tim Robbins |
Cinematography | Thaddeus Wadleigh |
Edited by | Chris A. Peterson |
Music by | David Robbins Raul Campos Chris Paul |
Release date |
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Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Revenge of the Electric Car is a 2011 American feature documentary film by Chris Paine, who also directed Who Killed the Electric Car? . The documentary, executive produced by Stefano Durdic, and produced by PG Morgan and Jessie Deeter, had its world premiere at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival on Earth Day, April 22, 2011. [1] [2] The theatrical release to the public took place on October 21, 2011. [3]
Revenge follows four entrepreneurs from 2007 through the end of 2010 as they fight to bring the electric car back to the world market in the midst of the 2008 global recession. The film has unprecedented access to Tesla, Inc. co-founder Elon Musk during this time period in which Musk and Tesla suffered several grave setbacks to the dream of a car company without gasoline. His foils include the charismatic Bob Lutz, vice chairman of General Motors during its 2008 bankruptcy, due in part to its focus on trucks and SUVs instead of fuel efficient and electric cars. Musk and Lutz also face Carlos Ghosn, the CEO credited with saving Renault-Nissan from near bankruptcy and who now had pledged $1 billion to beat Toyota to the pure electric game. A final character, steel fabrication artist, craftsman, prop builder and television personality Greg Abbott, who is known professionally as Reverend Gadget, makes the case for independent electric car conversions in California. [2] [3] Danny DeVito is also interviewed, as an electric car enthusiast and owner of a Chevrolet Volt and the earlier ill-fated General Motors EV1, as well as Internet entrepreneur and Tesla customer Jason Calacanis.
Whereas the 2006 film Who Killed the Electric Car? ended with the destruction of 5,000 electric cars from California's clean air program, notably the GM EV1, the new film documents the rebirth of a new generation of electric cars that occurred in the early 2010s which included the Chevrolet Volt, the Nissan Leaf, and the Tesla Roadster. [2] [3]
The documentary premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival on Earth Day, April 22, 2011 [2] with David Duchovny, Elon Musk, Carlos Ghosn, and Bob Lutz in person. The theatrical release took place on October 21, 2011, in Los Angeles and New York, followed by openings in major metropolitan areas. [4]
Revenge of the Electric Car received mostly strong reviews. ABC's review praised the film, commenting, "As much as you expect it to be a story about technology, it's really a tale about people. ... [The four entrepreneurs'] stories are skillfully woven together, each presented in their own voice." [5] USA Today wrote, "Revenge is a must-see movie for anyone interested in cars." [6] The Guardian noted that the film "is more than just a snapshot of the gamesmanship behind the creation of mass-market vehicles. Revenge offers a look inside the minds of business leaders struggling through one of the most troubled periods of recent economic history. ... [It] captures rich natural tension as it unfolds." [7]
The film premiered on television in PBS's Independent Lens series in 2012 and was encored again in 2013 to strong ratings given the expanding popularity and interest in Tesla Motors with the release of its subsequent Model S electric car. Scenes from the film were featured on CBS's 60 Minutes profile of Elon Musk with Bob Simon in 2014.[ citation needed ]
AC Propulsion is a San Dimas, California, USA company founded in 1992 by Alan Cocconi, Wally Rippel, and Paul Carosa, that specializes in alternating current-based drivetrain systems for electric vehicles. It offers AC-induction traction motors. The company produces electric vehicle drive systems featuring high performance, high efficiency induction motors and integrated high power battery charging. Previously, they built an electric sports car, the tzero and the eBox, an electric conversion based on the Scion XB. They also develop prototype electric vehicles for OEM customers.
The General Motors EV1 is a battery electric car produced by the American automaker General Motors from 1996 until its demise in 1999.
Crude electric carriages were first invented in the late 1820s and 1830s. Practical, commercially available electric vehicles appeared during the 1890s. An electric vehicle held the vehicular land speed record until around 1900. In the early 20th century, the high cost, low top speed, and short-range of battery electric vehicles, compared to internal combustion engine vehicles, led to a worldwide decline in their use as private motor vehicles. Electric vehicles have continued to be used for loading and freight equipment and for public transport – especially rail vehicles.
Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Chris Paine that explores the creation, limited commercialization and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the mid-1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the federal government of the United States, the California government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology.
Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas, which designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services. The company is also developing artificial intelligence and robotics products.
The Tesla Roadster is a battery electric sports car, based on the Lotus Elise chassis, produced by Tesla Motors from 2008 to 2012. The Roadster was the first highway legal, serial production, all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells, and the first production all-electric car to travel more than 244 miles (393 km) per charge. It is also the first production car to be launched into deep space, carried by a Falcon Heavy rocket in a test flight on February 6, 2018.
Chris Paine is an American filmmaker and environmental activist. His notable works as director include the documentaries Who Killed the Electric Car?, Revenge of the Electric Car and Do You Trust This Computer? Paine received a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay for Who Killed the Electric Car?
The Chevrolet Volt is a plug-in hybrid car that was manufactured by General Motors, and also marketed in rebadged variants as the Holden Volt in Australia and New Zealand and the Buick Velite 5 in China, and with a different fascia as the Vauxhall Ampera in the United Kingdom and as the Opel Ampera in the remainder of Europe. Volt production ended in February 2019.
The Cadillac ELR is a two-door, four-passenger luxury plug-in hybrid compact coupé manufactured and marketed by Cadillac for model years (MY) 2014 and 2016 – with a hiatus for MY 2015. Using a retuned version of the Chevrolet Volt's Voltec EREV drivetrain, the ELR's lithium-ion battery pack delivered an all-electric range of 37–39 miles (60–63 km) and a top speed of 106 mph (171 km/h).
Range anxiety is the driver's fear that a vehicle has insufficient energy storage to cover the road distance needed to reach its intended destination, and would thus strand the vehicle's occupants mid-way. The term, which is now primarily used in reference to the practical driving range of battery electric vehicles (BEVs), is considered to be one of the major psychological barriers to large-scale public adoption of electric cars.
The Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance, originally known as the Renault–Nissan Alliance, is a French-Japanese strategic alliance between the automobile manufacturers Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, which together sell more than one in nine vehicles worldwide. Renault and Nissan are strategic partners since 1999 and have nearly 450,000 employees and control eight major brands: Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Infiniti, Renault Korea, Dacia, Alpine, and Venucia. The car group sold 10.6 million vehicles worldwide in 2017, making it the leading light vehicle manufacturing group in the world. The Alliance adopted its current name in September 2017, one year after Nissan acquired a controlling interest in Mitsubishi and subsequently made Mitsubishi an equal partner in the Alliance.
Numerous plug-in electric vehicle (EV) fire incidents have taken place since the introduction of mass-production plug-in electric vehicles. As a result of these incidents, the United States Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted a study in 2017 to establish whether lithium-ion batteries in plug-electric vehicles pose an exceptional fire hazard. The research looked at whether the high-voltage batteries can cause fires when they are being charged, and when the vehicles are involved in an accident.
Regarding the risk of electrochemical failure, [this] report concludes that the propensity and severity of fires and explosions from the accidental ignition of flammable electrolytic solvents used in Li-ion battery systems are anticipated to be somewhat comparable to or perhaps slightly less than those for gasoline or diesel vehicular fuels. The overall consequences for Li-ion batteries are expected to be less because of the much smaller amounts of flammable solvent released and burning in a catastrophic failure situation.
"Wet Nellie" is the behind-the-scenes name given to a custom-built submarine, created for the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me in the shape of a Lotus Esprit S1 sports car. The Esprit was chosen to give James Bond a glamorous car to drive. "Wet Nellie" is named in reference to Little Nellie, an autogyro featured in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, which was itself named after actress and comedian Nellie Wallace.
The stock of plug-in electric passenger cars in Canada in use totaled 141,060 units at the end of 2019, consisting of 78,680 all-electric cars and 62,380 plug-in hybrids. Sales totaled 50,960 units in 2019.
The Tesla Model 3 is a battery electric mid-size sedan with a fastback body style built by Tesla, Inc., introduced in 2017. The vehicle is marketed as being more affordable to more people than previous models made by Tesla. The Model 3 was the world's top selling plug-in electric car for three years, from 2018 to 2020, before the Tesla Model Y, a crossover SUV based on the Model 3 chassis, took the top spot. In June 2021, the Model 3 became the first electric car to pass global sales of 1 million.
The Chevrolet Volt is a compact car that was produced by General Motors. The first generation of the Chevrolet Volt, it was manufactured at the Detroit facility until it was succeeded by the second and final generation of the Volt in 2015. It is a five-door liftback with a range-extending generator.
The Tesla Semi is a battery electric Class 8 semi-trailer truck built by Tesla, Inc. since 2022. The truck is powered by three motors, and is claimed by Tesla to have approximately three times the power of a typical diesel semi truck, a range of 500 miles (800 km), and operate at an energy use of less than 2 kWh/mi (1.2 kW⋅h/km).
Tesla, Inc., an electric vehicle manufacturer and clean energy company founded in San Carlos, California in 2003 by American entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The company is named after Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla. Tesla is the world's leading electric vehicle manufacturer, and, as of the end of 2021, Tesla's cumulative global vehicle sales totaled 2.3 million units.
Do You Trust This Computer? is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Chris Paine that outlines the benefits and especially the dangers of artificial intelligence. It features interviews with a range of prominent individuals relevant to AI, such as Ray Kurzweil, Elon Musk, Jerry Kaplan, Michal Kosinski, D. Scott Phoenix, Hiroshi Ishiguro, and Jonathan Nolan. The film was directed by Chris Paine, known for Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) and the subsequent followup, Revenge of the Electric Car (2011).
A compliance car is an alternative fuel vehicle that is explicitly designed to meet tightening government regulations for low-emission vehicle sales, while the automobile manufacturer restricts sales to specific jurisdictions to meet the rules, or limits production, or both.