If you find someone with more provocative and important observations on the subject of transportation than Chelsea Sexton, I hope you’ll introduce me. And as luck would have it, Chelsea was one of the first few people I met when I became first became interested in electric vehicles. I simply couldn’t have found a better point of introduction to an industry that is so quickly transforming the way we move our bodies and our possessions around the planet.
Most of you know that Sexton is the star of Sony Films 2006 film "Who Killed the Electric Car," and one of the founders of the advocacy group Plug In America. She travels and speaks on five continents, every day living out her commitment to her beliefs.
But where this gets really interesting is Chelsea’s long and strained relationship with General Motors. She was one of the key GM employees tasked with the development of GM’s EV-1 in the late 1990s, which project the company famously scratched; within a few months, GM had recalled and crushed all electric cars it had on the road. To put it mildly, this caused something of a rift between the company and Sexton, who had devoted so much of her personal energy into creating and promoting the car.
As did thousands of others, she felt betrayed and lied to by a company that had so clearly and shamefully put its profits ahead of its integrity and its customers.
So here’s the drama: Can that rift ever be repaired? Or even more to the point, can GM be trusted now that it’s launching the first mass-produced plug-in hybrid, the Chevy Volt?
Sexton's answer may surprise you; it certainly did me. And no one can tell this fascinating story better than Chelsea herself – arguably the best writer in the industry. With that, I invite readers to check out her incredible blog post on the subject of GM and the Chevy Volt.
- Craig Shields is the editor of 2GreenEnergy.com, and author of Renewable Energy - Facts and Fantasies (published by Clean Energy Press, 2010)
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had a flop on their hands from the word go. At least 5 times more expensive, and witrh a driving range barely more than half the Leaf's 100 miles, the EV1, should never have been built in the first place. Originally called the Impact, the EV1 laid around GM's development studios for years, testing its systems and waiting forelornly for someone to introduce a practical battery. In spite of the fact that that never happened, GM decided to lease the EV1(no one could possibly afford to buy). Because of the film's rabid anti-GM producer/writer, this silly epic failed to note the presence of electric vehicles from Toyota and Honda, both of which
eventually followed in the footsteps of GM's EV1 on the road to oblivion. Hollywood has NEVER gotten any historical event right (save the Longest Day), but Who Killed... achieved new heights of irresponsibility. Goebbles would have been proud.