Q: Who Killed the Electric Car?

A:  All those finicky consumers who don't want to pay for a worthless vehicle.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=550957&p=2
Aside from the fact that electric cars are not nearly as 'green' as they are purported to be (post coming on that later this week), the real problem with them is they will not provide consumers with what they want at a price they are willing to pay.  I have not seen the movie but I gather from passionate friends that the idea is circulating that some entity 'killed' the electric car in order to preserve the gasoline burning engine's position in the marketplace. 
First off, that's ridiculous on its face because there's STILL no electric that will compete for virtually any niche in the auto market!  The price/performance tradeoffs are huge - and that's even if you ignore the painful reality that at some point - 3 to 5 years of driving later - you'll be stuck with an old electric car with a dead battery which will require many thousands of dollars to replace.  Old gasoline cars may be ugly and less reliable, but they don't generally become worthless overnight due to aging parts. 
Secondly, capitalism needn't head off competition by "killing".  GM and others are showing now how much they believe a good electric car will make.  They bet big (on the equivalent of an inside strait) that the battery technology would mature fast enough that they could bring the Volt to market and profit thereby (if they took this kind of risk with capital for any other reason, they are even more retarded at GM than we generally believe them to be).  Capitalists make money by their expertise.  The electric car is not a threat to a well run, well funded gasoline auto manufacturer - nor to an oil company - it is another opportunity by which to apply their expertise in transforming stuff that's worth relatively little - steel, copper, rubber, aluminum, vynil, leather, chrome, etc) into something that's worth A LOT MORE.  A LOT MORE is a technical term that in this case means "enough money to pay employees, manufacturing overhead, taxes, legal expenses, etc, and still make a hefty profit" but which customers are willing to pay.  There's rub for the electric car.  It was true when "Who Killed the Electric Car" was made, as it is now.

Excerpts from above linked article:
"Government Motors' all-electric car isn't all-electric and doesn't get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like "shovel-ready" jobs, maybe there's no such thing as "plug-ready" cars either.
"The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its debut in showrooms next month, but it's already being rolled out for test drives by journalists. It appears we're all being taken for a ride.
"Advertised as an all-electric car that could drive 50 miles on its lithium battery, GM addressed concerns about where you plug the thing in en route to grandma's house by adding a small gasoline engine to help maintain the charge on the battery as it starts to run down. It was still an electric car, we were told, and not a hybrid on steroids.
"That's not quite true. The gasoline engine has been found to be more than a range-extender for the battery. Volt engineers are now admitting that when the vehicle's lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph, the Volt's gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors.
"So it's not an all-electric car, but rather a pricey $41,000 hybrid that requires a taxpayer-funded $7,500 subsidy to get car shoppers to look at it.
"Popular Mechanics found the Volt to get about 37.5 mpg in city driving, and Motor Trend reports: "Without any plugging in, (a weeklong trip to Grandma's house) should return fuel economy in the high 30s to low 40s."
"Car and Driver reported that "getting on the nearest highway and commuting with the 80-mph flow of traffic — basically the worst-case scenario — yielded 26 miles; a fairly spirited backroad loop netted 31; and a carefully modulated cruise below 60 mph pushed the figure into the upper 30s."
"This is what happens when government picks winners and losers in the marketplace and tries to run a business. We are not told that we will be dependent on foreign sources like Bolivia for the lithium to be used in these batteries. Nor are we told about the possible dangers to rescuers and occupants in an accident scenario.
"In 2008, candidate Obama pledged to put 1 million plug-in vehicles on the road by 2015. Not likely. It was a tough sell when we thought it was all-electric and could get 230 mpg. It will be a tougher sell now that we find it's a glorified Prius with the price tag of a BMW that seats only four because of a battery that runs down the center of the car."

No one had to "kill" the electric car - as the author points out, like the Edsel it was and is a bad idea and perhaps being badly executed as well. 

I remain hopeful the technoogy matures, and the electrical power sources to support electric cars evolve, and the sooner the better.