Revenge of the Electric Car

Revisiting the themes explored in his 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, director Chris Paine seems to have lost the animus that drove his scathing diatribe against the American automotive industry. Largely ignoring issues such as industrial intrigue and public indifference, he concentrates instead on the personalities of four key players in the race to produce a viable electric-powered vehicle. General Motors vice-chairman Bob Lutz is a late convert to the cause after the infamous failure of their EV1, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn plugs the all-electric Leaf and dot-com millionaire Elon Musk champions battery-electric sports car the Tesla Roadster. The odd man out is California mechanic Greg "Gadget" Abbott, who performs zero emission makeovers in his garage. Paine also enlists the help of various experts and journalists to stress the difficulty of what is essentially reinventing the wheel. But appearances by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jon Favreau and Danny DeVito make this Tim Robbins-narrated study feel more like a celebrity reality show than a hard-hitting documentary.