The Future is Now, but Why Weren't We Here Earlier?

This weekend I watched a fascinating documentary for the second time called Who Killed the Electric Car?  It traces the history of an all-electric car produced by General Motors in 1996 and literally destroyed by its makers  by 2005.  The film researches the causes of the death of the electric car at this time by interviewing many people involved in its sale, distribution, and production, as well as politicians and people who influenced the decisions of CARB, the air resources board in California.  It turns out that a mixture of forces, including Big Oil companies, Big car companies, and government organizations failing to keep the car manufacturers to a high standard killed the electric car.  One interesting thing is to see how other car companies killed their electric vehicle programs from the same era.  I found a lot of information about that here.

However, each of these groups has a very strong reason to kill the electric car: profits.  But there is one factor that was completely unexpected to me.  Hydrogen power.  For years, car companies have been researching hydrogen power as a source of clean energy to power their vehicles.  For over 15 years, researchers have said that the technology to produce such a car is about 15-20 years away.  The issues with this technology are that it is not very durable, uses more energy than battery powered cars, and lacks infrastructure to support it.  However, the technology for battery powered electric vehicles exists now.

The problem is, we should already have battery powered cars on the road!  It is only because the car companies and oil companies killed the program that we don't already have access to the technology that we should.  As Chelsea Sexton said in the movie, "This is the technology of the future, but it shouldn't have to be. It should be the technology of now."