Video C: Who killed the Electric Car

I remember when I was little I used to sit on little electric car and driving around but I had never thought about the existence of a real electric car like EV1 as shown in the video. Petro cars are popular but not to electric cars, we all question why. I have known about the development of new Water Car. It will bring a great benefit to environment but will it like electric car again?

Initially when electric car had just been in the market there were many good feedbacks. Americans loved it because how it offers more advantage than the gasoline car. They are quite and smooth to run and also be home charged. Many people describe electric car as it is cool, fast sexy and sold in good price and especially no smog.

However, there are still many customers who doubt on its quality. They don’t want to switch to electric car because of many reasons like its size, ability and durability. One customer questioned in doubt how long EV1 could survive on the road while we don’t have a lot of electric stations. Thus electric car is only choice for rich people or otherwise it need to do better to be accepted.

The debate between to side has been going on. They both blame and question who did kill the electric car? Many answer other car competitors or government or marketing problems or customer or technology about the development of battery. Personally, I think all of those cause the problems and electric car was killed.

Through this video, I have been thinking a lot about being an Industrial designer. Everyone has a very different mindset from the others, yet may this person think the design is successful but at the same time there are people who hate it. It is very hard to get approve from everyone.  Besides, what a student like me study in school would be far from the reality. It will be harsher in the real world. I can see the deep pain of designer/ director for EV1 when seeing their cars being crashed down and dumped to landfield. It hurts so much. It depends a lot on consumer behaviour and attitude which can save or destroy the design. Finally, I think there is still a gap between users and sustainability designs about the trust of quality and function on product. Industrial designer need to adjust and improve on it so the design should be more friendly to both environment and users.