It's a thought to global-warm the heart of Al Gore and put a knot in the stomach of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (his country is OPEC's No. 2 biggest producer). How's that for an Independence (from oil) Day twofer? And it's no tailpipe dream, as is shown in Who Killed the Electric Car?, a powerful and lively new documentary that charts the all-too-short life and unnecessary death of GM's EV1 (and the burgeoning electric-car technology it represented).

The film is the ultimate movie mashup. Where else would you find interviews with Mel Gibson, Ed Begley, Jr., Phyllis Diller (yep, that Phyllis Diller), former CIA head James Woolsey, and Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney, combined with disturbing doings by GM, Big Oil, the Bush administration, and the smog-fighting California Air Resources board to create a blistering and surprisingly entertaining cinematic j'accuse?

"Mashup" also applies to the film's great gotcha moment: while a GM spokesperson vows that the company plans to reuse every part from the discontinued electric fleet, we see scenes shot from a helicopter showing the doomed electric cars literally being mashed up -- crushed and demolished at a GM facility in the Arizona desert.

Who Killed the Electric Car? starts out as an informative history of the energy-efficient vehicles. We learn that their development was jumpstarted by the state of California, which, in 1990, choking on blankets of smog, passed regulations designed to force car companies to start producing emission-free vehicles (indeed, two percent of new cars needed to be exhaustless by 1998). Since a number of companies, including GM, were already working on electric-car prototypes, business and environmental concerns seemed in sync.

In 1996, GM introduced the EV1, which you could juice up by plugging it into a wall socket. The cars quickly developed a small but passionate following (small because GM produced less than a thousand of them; passionate because they were terrific -- and terrifically efficient -- cars).

But behind the scenes, numerous forces were hard at work fighting to undermine the California zero-emission mandate -- and the success of the EV1.

At this point, the film shifts gears from electric-car primer to a compelling murder mystery, as the filmmakers roll out the prime suspects (and, yes, many of them are of the "usual" variety) in an effort to determine who, indeed, killed the electric car. It's like a cinematic game of Clue. But instead of "Professor Plum, in the library, with a candlestick," we get: "GM, in the boardroom, with a blunt profit motive," "Big Oil Companies (aided and abetted by the Bush administration), in the courtroom, with lawsuits forcing the rollback of California's rules," and "American Consumers, in the showroom, with a poisonous mix of an ad-fueled desire for gas-guzzling SUVs, tax incentives, and zero financing."

The event - where Tesla was offering its first 100 "signature edition" cars for $100,000 apiece - felt like automotive history, and I have the feeling that one day I'm going to be very glad I bothered to attend. The yare and sleek carbon-bodied sports car is, by my reckoning, the first plausible electric automobile of the 21st century. And, without electrics, the 22nd century is going to be very rocky indeed.

To appreciate the Tesla, it helps to compare it to the much-lamented EV1, GM's purpose-built electric car that was, in the mid-1990s, the most advanced vehicle of its kind. The Tesla Roadster has a range of 250 miles, says the company. The EV1, with the best nickel metal hydride batteries, could go about 150 miles under ideal conditions. A full charge of the EV1 could take eight hours. The Tesla's lithium-ion batteries can be raised from the dead to a full charge in 3 1/2 hours and, unlike the EV1, the Tesla will come with its own portable charging pack so it won't be range-tethered to its home charging station.

The Tesla is a toothsome sports car. The EV1, um, wasn't.

Perhaps most important and most unlike the EV1, the Tesla offers something beyond mere virtue as a reward to its buyers. Fun, in large, hair-raising voltages. The company claims 0 to 60 mph acceleration in four seconds and a top speed of 130 mph.

Big brakes, racy suspension, optional leather and navigation system, air conditioning, heated seats. There's even room for golf clubs. With the Tesla, the electric car seems poised to move past its groovy-granola beginnings. Big brakes, racy suspension, optional leather and navigation system, air conditioning, heated seats. There's even room for golf clubs. With the Tesla, the electric car seems poised to move past its groovy-granola beginnings.

"Most electric cars were designed for people who didn't even like cars," Tesla's founder and chief executive Martin Eberhard says. This approach — this appeal to civic virtue instead of driving pleasure — limited electric cars' appeal to a small albeit enthusiastic group of environmentalists. "I wanted to build a car that I wanted to drive," Eberhard says. "And I like fast cars."

Tesla isn't the only bolt of battery-powered lightning out there. A Monaco-based company called Venturi has a production-ready electric sports car, the Fetish, which is nearly identical to the Tesla in size, weight, power, range and performance. The big difference is price: Compared with the $600,000-plus Venturi, the production Tesla ( about $85,000, due on sale in late 2007) might as well be sold at Best Buy.

The Wrightspeed X1 prototype, the work of another Silicon Valley startup, is based on the lattice-frame, open-wheel Ariel Atom built in England. It's even quicker: 0 to 60 mph in three seconds, with a quarter-mile time of 11.5 seconds. There's also the Tango commuter car, an oddly shaped four-wheel electric car-cum-motorcycle (sold as a kit car) whose most famous owner certainly is actor George Clooney. With its two motors serving up more than 1,000 pound-feet of combined torque, the Tango's acceleration is "like getting shot out of a cannon," says Tango president Rick Woodbury.