Why didn't car companies want the public to know about the Electric Car?

Question

like in the documentary: "Who Killed The Electric Car?"

i watched it but i can't remember why they didn't want people to know about it.

Answer 1

go to electrifying times and scroll down the page to Ralph Nader and GE's HEV

Answer 2

when the automobile was first introduced to the general public, there were three types of propulsion systems, internal combustion, steam, and electric. remember that this was in the early 1900's. electric cars had limited range, and long recharge times, steam had issues with long warm up times. at the time gasoline was the easiest one for the average consumer to use, the fuel was cheap to make, and the infrastructure was easy to set up and run.

while battery technology has improved over the decades, and steam power has also made great strides, you still dont have the infrastructure to support these types of power plants on a large scale. if you could build a battery pack that could be quickly and fully recharged, say with in 30 minutes, or if you could design a steam engine that could be started up on a cold morning, and be rolling down the road in say 10 minutes, then you could get these power plants on the road on a fairly large scale, and the infrastructure would follow fairly quickly.

just remember that you have a catch 22 situation with alternative power plants. the infrastructure isnt there because there are no cars on the market, and there are no cars ont he market because the infrastructure isnt there.

Answer 3

I think there is a conspiracy .

Answer 4

Car companies have noproblem with people knowing about electric cars.  The more you know about them, the more you realize that they are expensive toys.  GM was forced to make the EV-1 due to a California Government mandate.  Like all government mandates and other attempts to manipulate the market, it was doomed to failure.  The car in question could not compete on a level field with even the poorest of gasoline powered cars, so once the mandate expired, the EV-1 expired as well.

Answer 5

Well, according to Ralph Nader - and I think he even said this in the documentary - "They're making too much money with technological stagnation and the internal combustion engine."

Car parts break, and they need to be repaired or replaced.  Electric cars have almost no moving parts, so that isn't a problem.  It is a problem, however, for companies that sell replacement parts for cars (which might even be a subsidiary of the car company you bought the car from).

Cars also need oil.  You have to fill your car up at the gas station.  Electric cars don't need any oil - no gasoline, no oil changes.  So if the car companies were in collusion with the oil companies (which sounds pretty far-fetched), that would be another reason.

Answer 6

The car companies are in bed with the oil companies.  Proof - with under $160.00 CD invested, My car gets 128 MPG, brand new it got maybe 36 MPG.  If the car companies were to put into their new vehicles what I put in mine it would be a much better world.  The tech in my car is patented, so don't ask. The info was found and payed for in Niagara Falls ON.  If interested, go look for the sign.

Answer 7

It wasn't the car companies but the oil companies. If they can't make money of course they don't want us to know about something!!!

Answer 8

Neither the car companies nor the oil companies want the American public to know that better technology exists right now than the gas burners they want us to continue using.  They want us to believe anything usable is in the far future.  The commercials they made for the EV-1 would have scared you away from electric cars even if you came in the door wanting one.  How much media coverage do you see on the very successful electric cars that are being used in Europe?  The EV-1 outperformed almost everything on the road when it was given the chance.  These things weren't the equal of gas burners, they were BETTER than gas burners!

Chevron and GM worked together to kill it.  Car Companies that wanted to sell in California had to have a zero emissions car available, so they all made one.  GM forgot to tell the engineers they didn't want it to work.   As they lobbied successfully to get the Zero Emissions law changed in California, the Bush Administration launched their alternate energy vehicles program.  It killed government funding for all the technology that was ready to go, designated hydrogen as the only technology to be funded.  I have no beef with hydrogen, but there are five major flaws with it that have to be overcome before it can compete with EV's or gas burners.  The people working on them readily acknowledge that solutions to those problems are at least 50 years in the future, assuming that solutions exist.