Car Companies and Big Oil; Is There a Hidden Agenda?

Since the Bush administration came into power, there seems to be a lot of speculation looming around the trustworthiness of big oil companies in the United States. Are they receiving unfair subsidies? Why are gas prices so high? Is it a coincidence that multiple members of the president's cabinet have former ties with big oil? These are a few questions that have been posed.

The recently released documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? focuses on yet another one of these questions. Is there an exclusive relationship between big oil and car companies? The movie focuses on the "death" of Paul B. MacCready's car design named the EV1. This vehicle was designed to run solely on battery power. MacCready's innovation was even sold by Saturn in California and Arizona until it's manufacturing came to a disgraceful halt. Since the production of this vehicle has been ceased, several people have been left wondering why.

The EV1 was practical - it was an acceptable alternative to gasoline powered automobiles. The machine was created to be efficient and environmentally friendly.

GM, the manufacturer of the EV1 has publically stated that their reasoning for stopping the production of this vehicle was that there was not enough consumer demand. The car company states that when they contacted the individuals on their 5,000 name waiting list for this automobile, only very buyers few still expressed interest in buying an EV1. However, in reality, even though they told the director of marketing to market the EV1 they did not give him the necessary resources to do so. Also, sales were limited to only Arizona and California.

In addition, GM would not renew the leases for any people who already owned an EV1. Basically, they took back all of the cars with the exception of a few that were given to universities and museums. These cars were spared, however, they were disabled so they could no longer even start. Sadly, the less fortunate EV1 were all destroyed.

Why was such a sudden action taken to rid America of these automobiles? There are a number of reasons that the documentary suggests. A few of these reasons are, pressure from the government and oil companies. When he took office, President Bush rescinded the Zero Emissions Mandate. The repealing of this mandate put the president in cahoots with big oil to take these cars off the roads. The mandate stated that for every gasoline burning car on the road there had to be a certain percentage of cars with zero emissions. With this mandate eliminated, big oil could put pressure on the the car manufacturers to ditch the electric cars and continue making the gasoline burning vehicles that they could gain profit from.

Whether or not this is the actual reason that battery fueled cars were taken off the roads, it is definitely a shame that progress toward ending dependence on oil has been stopped for now.