January 5, 2009 – 5:36 pm
Over the holidays, the “Revenge” team spent time filming with Greg “Gadget” Abbott as he moved into a cavernous new warehouse space in downtown LA.
Gadget runs an electric car conversion company called Left Coast Electric. He’s also the star of the TV shows “Smash Lab” and “Monster House”- where he’s shown millions of viewers [...]
December 24, 2008 – 4:33 pm
“Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. said today that it will show a small electric concept vehicle at the Detroit auto show next month.” – Toyota Division Communications
Considering the implication of those two short lines, they were barely whispered to the press.
Toyota is going to show a Battery EV at the North American International Auto [...]
December 23, 2008 – 7:28 pm
I wrote a few months ago about the Japanese and European carmakers teaming up with Asian and Euro battery manufacturers with $200-$400 million deals to build large production facilities that will soon be cranking out high volumes of LiIon batteries for plug-in cars. Since achieving cost parity with internal combustion requires batteries to cost less [...]
December 12, 2008 – 2:28 pm
Our co-producer continues her account of shooting behind the scenes at Tesla.
As we captured key meetings with department heads, Elon stressed his commitment to ramping Tesla up – and the fact that his role was hands-on. He reminded person after person that no problem or detail was too small. The buck stopped with Elon.
We [...]
December 10, 2008 – 4:20 pm
Let me just give it away now….the first day we filmed this fall at Tesla, we got to see not one, not two, not three, but, and I counted—over 40 production Roadsters in the Menlo Park buildings. There is something about the sight of more than four million dollars of incredibly sleek, fast (they do [...]
December 8, 2008 – 1:28 am
From December 3, 2008 broadcast of “Issues With Jane Velez-Mitchell” on Headline News
Topic: Are Bailouts the Answer to Economic Woes?
Chris Paine (director of “Who Killed the Electric Car?”) – …what the government should be doing is writing purchase orders and saying, “Hey, we want something for our money. So we’ll write you a purchase order [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:58 pm
My wife, Zan, and I were recently on the Big Island, Hawaii, and while there we toured the state’s only geothermal plant. It’s located close to the town of Hilo on the island’s east side and on the flank of Kilauea, the world’s most active volcano.
This is the entire control room of the 30 megawatt facility. [...]
November 27, 2008 – 8:57 pm
Even I was surprised. In my rear view mirror I watched a Los Angeles Sheriff’s car pull out of the Chevron and turn on both its blue and red flashing lights to pursue me down Ventura Boulevard. It had only been hours since I eased out of the Tesla dealership in West Los Angeles and already [...]
November 21, 2008 – 9:42 am
Dr. Electric Car’s Sing-a-long Musical Blog
We received this link and our first singalong musical blog posting from Bo Brown and the gang at Hogmolly
Hi folks,
Heard you were gearing up for another documentary on the electric car. I saw the first one, it had enough impact on me that I wrote a song on the subject.
The [...]
November 20, 2008 – 8:53 pm
This summer Swiss visionary Louis Palmer and his friendly team made several stops in Southern California on their global whirlwind tour with their spectacular Solartaxi Electric Vehicle. One of the stops was at AeroVironment in Simi Valley.
The Solartaxi is a realization of one of Louis’ childhood dreams : to drive a zero emissions solar powered electric car [...]
November 18, 2008 – 11:53 am
Friday November 14th, 2008 – GM Training Center – Burbank, CA
The Honorable Nate Holden, former California State Senator and L.A. City Council Member, held a press conference demanding General Motors apologize to the American people for destroying the automaker’s EV1 plug-in electric vehicle. Mr. Holden demanded the EV1’s immediate re-introduction before, or in exchange [...]
November 12, 2008 – 1:52 am
It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!
My brand new silver all-electric Tesla Roadster sportscar (#23) arrived by truck in Los Angeles yesterday. Shrouded in plastic and tucked into the back of a semi with three other Tesla’s, it waited to be rolled onto the streets of Los Angeles.
My nervousness turned to pure joy as it [...]
November 8, 2008 – 6:05 pm
Saturday September 27th, 2008 : Immediately after the Santa Monica 2008 AltCarExpo, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Director Chris Paine graciously hosted Plug In America’s very first fundraiser at his PV+EV residence in Culver City, CA .
The party was totally sold out: 250 guests and two superb electric vehicle rockstars – GM’s newly released preproduction [...]
By Stefano Paris
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Posted in Events
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Also tagged AC Propulsion, Alexandra Paul, Chelsea Sexton, chris paine, Dan Neil, eBox, EV Events, GM Chevy Volt, James Woolsey, Linda Nicholes, PIA Fundraiser, Tesla Roadster, Vectrix, Zero Motorcycles
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November 7, 2008 – 7:26 pm
“It’s gonna be Earth Day on STEROIDS !” That’s how EV fan Paul Thomas lured us to the sun-scorched Barona Drag Strip to film this year’s Kick Gas Festival. Barona has seen many grudge matches over the years, but this was one we couldn’t miss; the first head to head between electric [...]
November 7, 2008 – 4:00 pm
Suffice to say, all of GM’s development programs including the Volt are threatened.
For all of GM’s industrial successes and environmental failures, many elements of the American economy including the advertising-dependent entertainment industry — rise and fall with its fortunes.
G.M. Says U.S. Cash Is Its Best Hope
By Bill Vlasic and Nick Bunkley for the NY Times.
The [...]
November 6, 2008 – 11:55 am
Three weeks ago we spent the day shooting at the Kick Gas Festival in San Diego. One of our favorite diversions was testing the electric bikes. I’ve always been skeptical about e-bikes. Why waste electricity when you can just pedal? Well, that day changed our minds. Electric bikes could well be the secret weapon of [...]
November 4, 2008 – 12:06 am
It’s really hard to beat a week in Iceland. With the conference over, we went on a tour tracking down electric cars and the clean electricity to power them.
Highlights the second half included an unlikely interview in the spectacular black lava “Blue Lagoon” hot springs. This is the place where tourists sometimes ask “…why did [...]
October 10, 2008 – 3:31 pm
The rumors are true. Iceland is beautiful. Sitting on the continental plates between Europe and North America, this volcanic island is home to a mere 300,000 people.
I came as a guest for Driving Sustainability, Iceland’s conference for the future of cars. They lined up an international and terrific schedule. Yet-Ming Chiang from A123 [...]
October 5, 2008 – 1:30 am
Early wakeup calls in Detroit continued as our grand tour picked up speed.
We shoot at the Tech Center campus where engineers ran tests on Volt battery packs. To our surprise, some of the industrial battery testing equipment came from Aerovironment, the company who had built the SunRaycer and Impact EV prototypes back in the early [...]
October 4, 2008 – 1:35 am
General Motors invited me to Detroit to speak on a panel at its 100th anniversary along with a small group of other “outside voices”. Since GM’s Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz planned to unveil the Chevy Volt production prototype, we decided to take our film crew. We knew we were being pulled into GM’s PR [...]
