Chris Paine
Chris Paine is an American filmmaker. His
most notable work to date is Who Killed the
Electric Car?, which he wrote and directed.
Before writing and directing Who Killed the
Electric Car?, Paine served as Executive
Producer on Faster (2003) and William
Gibson: No Maps for these Territories
(2000). Prior directing and producing
projects include MTV/Initial Film's Buzz
(1990) and shorts including Mailman
(Sundance, 1995), Trillion Cubic Feet
(1992).
Chelsea Sexton
Chelsea Sexton is a marketing expert and
advocate of alternative fuel vehicles.
Sexton entered the automotive industry at
the age of 17 after buying her first Saturn.
She wanted to put herself through college by
working at Saturn, but she ended up finding
that she loved the cars more than what she
was studying, so when General Motors
announced the EV1 electric vehicle program
three years later, she jumped on it.
Focusing on building a market for
alternate-fuel vehicles through partnerships
with corporate and non-profit stakeholders,
shaping public policy and incentives,
developing marketing strategies, and working
directly with the drivers themselves, Sexton
became well-known as an advocate for clean,
efficient, transportation.
Sexton was laid off at the end of 2001 when
General Motors closed their EV1 assembly
line. She became a consultant to auto
manufacturers and clean energy providers
helping bring alternate fuel vehicles to
market, as well as increasingly clean ways
to power them. In 2005, Sexton joined the X
PRIZE Foundation and led the creation of a
prize effort, which to deal with both energy
and automobiles. In 2006, she managed an
alternative fuel division for the Santa
Monica, California based start-up Zag.com
and also serves as the Executive Director of
Plug In America, a coalition of individuals
and organizations that advocates for the
preservation and manufacture of plug-in
hybrids (PHEVs) and electric vehicles. Since
then, she has gone on to become the founder
of the Lightning Rod Foundation.
Bill Nye the Science Guy
William Sanford "Bill" Nye, popularly known
as "Bill Nye the Science Guy", is an
American comedian, television host, science
educator and mechanical engineer. He is best
known as the host of the children's science
show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1997)
and for his many subsequent appearances in
popular media as a science educator.
Nye was born and raised in Washington, D.C.
as a fourth-generation Washingtonian on his
father's side. After attending Alice Deal
Junior High in the city, he was accepted to
the private Sidwell Friends School on a
partial scholarship, graduating in 1973. He
studied mechanical engineering at Cornell
University's Sibley School of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering, where one of his
professors was Carl Sagan, and graduated
with a bachelor's degree in 1977.
Nye began his career in Seattle at Boeing
where, among other things, he starred in
training films and developed a hydraulic
pressure resonance suppressor still used in
the 747. Later, he worked as a consultant
and in the aeronautics industry. Nye told
the St. Petersburg Times in 1999 that he
applied to be a NASA astronaut every few
years but was always rejected.
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Who Killed the Electric Car - Movie
Review
It begins with a solemn funeral…for a car.
By the end of Chris Paine's lively and
informative documentary, the idea doesn't
seem quite so strange. As narrator Martin
Sheen notes, "They were quiet and fast,
produced no exhaust and ran without
gasoline." Paine proceeds to show how this
unique vehicle came into being and why
General Motors ended up reclaiming its
once-prized creation less than a decade
later. He begins 100 years ago with the
original electric car. By the 1920s, the
internal-combustion engine had rendered it
obsolete. By the 1980s, however, car
companies started exploring alternative
energy sources, like solar power. This, in
turn, led to the late, great battery-powered
EV1. Throughout, Paine deftly translates
hard science and complex politics, such as
California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate,
into lay person's terms (director Alex
Gibney, Oscar-nominated for Enron: The
Smartest Guys in the Room, served as
consulting producer). And everyone gets the
chance to have their say: engineers,
politicians, protesters, and petroleum
spokespeople--even celebrity drivers, like
Peter Horton, Alexandra Paul, and a wild man
beard-sporting Mel Gibson. But the most
persuasive participant is former Saturn
employee Chelsea Sexton. Promoting the
benefits of the EV1 was more than a job to
her, and she continues to lobby for more
environmentally friendly options. Sexton
provides the small ray of hope Paine's film
so desperately needs. Who Killed the
Electric Car? is, otherwise, a
tremendously sobering experience.
