Director Chris Paine of 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' follows up with this documentary about 4 electric car programs starting from 2007. Bob Lutz from GM was anti-EV until he had a complete 180 switch and started pushing for the Volt. Entrapeneur Elon Musk is driving California upstart Tesla Motors. Carlos Ghosn is the hard-driving CEO of Nissan Renault developing the Leaf for the mass market. Gadget Abbott is doing small scale electric conversions of gasoline cars. The film follows the four separate approaches as they face ups-and-downs.
I don't like the title. It's too strident. It would be better as 'Return of the Electric Car'. It's kind of violent and it automatically lays claim that EVs are going to win over gasoline. Return would be less forceful and more correct. I also wonder why the movie limits to just those four cases. It could make passing references to other cars like the Prius especially since it mentions Toyota. It feels selective. Gadget Abbott's addition seems meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Did he even sell one car? It's a rather unimpressive documentary until the financial crisis hits. Then there are some drama with Elon Musk and GM. That part is interesting and gives something good to this selective doc. It doesn't have the same intensity as the first one which was a great diatribe against a good villain. This is more like an in-depth TV report on PBS.