The video records a post‑screening Q&A in Seattle with director Chris Paine after the debut of Revenge of the Electric Car. The discussion weaves together several themes: the pivotal role of grassroots activist pressure—hundreds of letters that even reached GM executive Bob Lutz—and how that pressure helped revive electric‑vehicle development. Paine explains how a seemingly spontaneous encounter between Elon Musk and Bob Lutz at an auto show was actually orchestrated by the film crew, resulting in a memorable “leaf brochure” scene set to a Goldfinger‑style theme. The conversation shifts to the film’s storytelling choices, emphasizing a character‑driven narrative (four main protagonists) over a pure policy focus, and noting why gas‑price arguments were only briefly touched upon. Funding and distribution details are disclosed: the film was financed by a private donor (Stefano Durdick) with no corporate money, slated for a theatrical release in September followed by DVD sales, and the Seattle EV community is asked to help with outreach. Technical questions about the electric‑grid’s capacity and renewable mix are answered, highlighting that the U.S. grid can currently support many more EVs than are being produced, and that regional differences (Washington’s hydro, California’s geothermal) affect emissions. Paine mentions the Counterspill project, which quantifies the true cost of fossil‑fuel disasters. Audience members inquire about the future viability of the Tesla Model S and the status of “Gadget,” a local DIY conversion shop; Paine reports Gadget’s recovery and new plans, using the story to illustrate the challenges faced by independent converters. Overall, the session blends gratitude toward the Seattle EV community, insights into filmmaking logistics, and optimistic perspectives on the electric‑vehicle movement.
Chapters
Hi!
This one was really great because I left with so much more hope than the first one where I was like, "Oh man, I don't know what's wrong with humanity." So thank you for that, that's really great.
Yeah, well, these people here who built all these electric cars out in the parking lot huge amount to do with that. I mean, we're— we really, I think, thanks to the pressure that was put on the car companies after they destroyed not just the GM EV1, but the RAV4s, the Hondas. I mean, we all got together and we said, this is bullshit. And there were hundreds of letters. And the way you know that was effective was Bob Lutz telling that story to us in the first week of filming about— he got all these emails about, I hope your grandchildren— that impacted Bob Lutz. And our pressure as activists for this technology really made a difference. So I'm just very thankful to everyone in this room and all the electric car activists that really pushed this forward. So A bigger round of applause for yourself.
Anyone have questions?
Yeah.
Me?
You call me? Go, you do it.
I got a question about the meeting with Lutz and Musk. Was that staged? Was that organic? Did they just meet at the car show? I gotta know more about that.
Well, we knew that Elon and Bob were both going to be at the auto show, so we asked them both to like head that general direction. So we knew that it could be a possibility. The big surprise for us— the deal was the Tesla people said absolutely not, that we're going to go buy the General Motors, the Volt display. And the GM people told us absolutely not, we're not going to go buy the Tesla display. And but the miracle, and this is what you got, it's documented a filmmaker is that they happened, the only direction they could go was to the leaf. So we ended up with that amazing scene, which I don't think they'd even, either one of them had ever thought about the leaf before. So there they are looking at the brochure for the first time. So our editor goes, we've got to bring in the Carlos Ghosn theme music. And which we based on Goldfinger. So they're standing there looking at the brochure, I said, okay, bring on the Goldfinger theme. So anyway, it was a really, it was a, it worked out very well.
You right here. In the film, it didn't really touch on this, and I don't know if you had some footage about it that you didn't include, but the whole concept of increased gas prices or fluctuating gas prices, you never know what way they're going to swing. So I know a lot of people are concerned about the environment, but a lot of people are also concerned about their own economic well-being. How did that play into some of the decisions that were made?
Okay, so in case others can't hear, how did the gas prices more so than the environment play into— what was it?
The decision to move forward.
And I thought that was really funny when Bob said $1.50 a gallon. I go, when was that?
I'll tell you when $1.50 a gallon was, is when the EV1 was introduced. The EV1 came out and gasoline was $1.50. So, you know, we decided on this film that to make a really issue film and really go into coal power and every reason that we all know that electric cars are awesome because you have no tune-ups and there's so many reasons that the electric car is a plus is a different film. And we kind of made that with Who Killed the Electric Car? So this film we decided, let's make a character movie. And we'll follow 4 characters. And we actually covered 6 to begin with. We had Shai Agassi. We tracked Mitsubishi. And the 4 stories that worked best for the movie were those 4 stories. And whatever issues happen to come up in the course of the interviews will include in the movie. And if the film has enough momentum, the general audience will want to go and research these issues. And obviously gas prices is a huge one, but we didn't feel like we needed to make that an issue except Bob happened to bring it up in that, in that car interview. And he also brought up his own age, which is a great character moment. So emotionally, the character moment is more important for the average audience than the gas argument. It's an interesting dynamic. So that's what we did.
Steve.
Well, on behalf of the Seattle EV Association and all of our friends here, I want to thank you for coming, Chris.
Thank you.
My question is, how soon can we get a couple of copies to spread the word to libraries, schools, business groups, and, and, and so on, which we've done in the past with your last movie. So how soon will those other copies be available?
Okay, well, thank you to Seattle and the electric vehicle community again for all you've done and for bringing the electric cars here tonight. Just, it's for the last 5 years after Who Killed the Electric Car, the EV community has has been the bedrock of support for us. I have a— Stefano Durdick in Chicago paid for this entire film. And you can bet that Nissan and GM and Ford and everybody wanted to help pay for the film, and we just said, you know, we're not going to take any money. But we want to make sure that they get some of their money back. And so the film is getting released theatrically, we hope, in the fall, in September. We don't have an official date yet because it's very complicated movie business, crazy stuff. We don't know, but really it's in September. And once the film is released theatrically, we get a little revenue from that, then the DVDs will go on sale. So you know all about it and all of you will. And anything you can do to help support it would be much appreciated.
Go ahead.
You. Sorry.
One of the more common critiques of electric cars is it's sometimes considered just to be shifting the burden of emissions controls back to power generators, which in much of the world is coal. And in the wake of the Japanese nuclear crisis, a lot of countries are shutting down their nuclear reactors. Alternative sources like solar and wind don't have the baseload generating capacity. How do you see that being addressed?
Okay, so how do you see the controversy of—
well, as many of us know, I mean, the existing grid in the United States can— in the United States alone can support, they say, 150 million cars charged at night. Between Nissan and GM and Tesla, there's probably only about 20,000 cars being manufactured this year. It's ramping up to 100,000 next year with Ford coming on and BMW and Mercedes. So it's going to take a long time, unfortunately, for us to even get close to a capacity issue on the grid. The second issue is how clean is the grid? Well, we're 50% coal in the US, so That's not as good as it could be, but of course Washington State is much higher on the renewable side because you have all your dams here. California is pretty good because geothermal, especially in hydro in Northern California. The issue is making sure that cars can accept green energy as opposed to petroleum energy. And I think Thomas Friedman makes a really good point that there's a lot of incentives in the marketplace for the Grid to Keep Going Green. And we started a program called Counterspill, which you can check out counterspill.org, which is calculating the true cost of fossil fuel energy disasters, BP, anything nonrenewable, TEPCO in Japan. We as a community have to keep making sure the media covers the true cost of what nonrenewable energy is. So that we show the solar energy and all the non-renewable— all the renewable energies, they price out as just as effective as the true cost of non-renewables. But this is the struggle of our generation. And we talk to kids and everybody, getting down on fossil fuels and promoting renewables is, as we know, the most important thing we can do with our time. And making sure that our vehicles are running on it is a— part of the equation. That's my answer.
Go ahead.
Two quick questions.
One is, what do you think about the viable future of the Model S? And two, is that guy Gadget? Does he have enough to eat?
Is he okay? Yes!
What's the viable future of the Model S? And, you know, we all fell for Gadget, so is he getting enough to eat? He looked like he was on the upswing there at the end, though.
That was really great.
How is he doing now?
Well, Gadget's doing very well, you know. We wanted to pick someone that represented a converter, and Gadget happened to be my next-door neighbor. So I was covering a bunch of converters, and then Gadget's conversion plant burned down. I thought, well, there you go. He's the character that's going to represent the difficulty of being a do-it-yourselfer, because whether it's a fire or your own money supplies or your skeptical neighbors or I mean, there's a million obstacles for us taking on car industry, billion-dollar investments. So that's why Gadgi became a thing. He's doing very well right now. He's got a great new plant, and we had his New Year's Eve party there. And Gadgi's got new plans for, like, having a scalable thing. I don't think he's using the Godzilla converters anymore. I think, you know, thanks to lithium batteries coming in, there's new controllers that are on the market. You guys probably know more about them than I do. But he's on a roll. And the other question was about—
The viability of the Model S.
Oh, the Model S. OK. One quirk I have with the movie now is that we didn't pump up the Model S enough at the end, because we showed how difficult it was with that prototype when Arnold Schwarzenegger came in. The Model S looks like it's going to be sensational. And that's next year. Elon just raised another $200 million about 2 weeks ago. Is that right? Yeah. And for the Model S production, he put in $20 million of his own money to make sure the IPO was successful. So once again, he's all in on his investment because he's a true believer like, like us. And I think that Model S is going to be sensational. He's been kind of selling it kind of across the board, like 200-mile range, 300-mile range. There'll be all these wonderful capacities. In fact, in the movie, we have this line like, you can flip it over with a spatula, you can put like 18 people in the car. Ultimately, it's not I'm going to do all that, but I think it's going to be a really remarkable car, and people that can afford to invest in it, I do nothing. I put that $100,000 in on the Tesla Roadster on a bet from my producer of Who Killed the Electric Car. He goes, oh, just give Elon $100,000. I'm like, I've never spent more than $15,000 in a car. I've never bought a house. I mean, that's like all my money, my You had your bike college trust fund. He goes, no, no, no, just trust Elon. And then Elon delivered that car. And so I think Tesla is a good bet.
