Chris Paine, director of Revenge of the Electric Car.

Director Chris Paine chatted with Grist readers about his latest film, Revenge of the Electric Car, which comes out on DVD this week after a nationwide tour.

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Paine’s 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, told the tale of the EV-1, a prototype electric car created, then buried, by General Motors. Revenge of the Electric Car is the sequel, and follows the saga of four men, all racing to create a plug-in vehicle for the mass market, for the luxury set, or just for the pure awesomeness of it. (Read our review of the film here.)

Paine knows his audience: We Americans love our autos. And as much as electric cars are a decent stopgap as we retool our transportation system to provide real, workable alternatives, this film has done its job: helping to convince us that electric power can be just as fun as the fuel-injected kind.

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But are electric cars really the wheels of the future? Will stopgaps be enough? Check out a replay of the chat to find out.