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Now the Hollywood documentary Who Killed the Electric Car is wowing audiences, electric vehicles - or EVs - are on everyone's lips.

EVs are more than the comical Sinclair C5; today they can offer supercar performance, unrivalled urban ability - or a combination of both.

So turn on, tune in and plug in for Stuart Milne's look back at the electric vehicle.

Back in the early days of motoring, where the world was in black and white and people walked quickly, there were more electric cars on America's roads than petrol-powered ones.

In those days, driving a car with an internal combustion engine was hard work. The driver had to turn a heavy handle to start the car, and there was no power steering or assisted braking.

Even changing gear was difficult. The driver would have to expertly match the engine and road speed to avoid an expensive sounding crunch from the gearbox.

Because of this, car makers such as Detroit Electric marketed their cars to women.

Cars like the Detroit Electric Brougham claimed to clock 80 miles between charges and top speed was a heady 20mph.

This was more than enough, due to antiquated steering, braking and badly built roads.

Early EVs were a victim of improvements in the internal combustion engine, and were one of the first victims of the 1929 Wall Street crash, which sent America's economy into freefall.

To a certain extent, EVs fell by the wayside for the next few decades, only being placed back on the agenda by the 1973 and 1979 oil crises.

It was eight years before another electric car hit the headlines.

In 1987, General Motors and a host of other experts developed Sunraycer, a space-age solar car which won the 1,950 mile World Solar Challenge by a staggering 620 miles.

Unsurprisingly, General Motors took the Sunraycer on tour promoting its green credentials and a year later GM announced it would develop a prototype for a practical, mass produced car.

That car became the EV-1 - and the unwitting star of Who Killed the Electric Car.

For insiders, the launch of an electric car wasn't surprising. The California Air Resources Board was planning to adopt its Zero Emissions Mandate, which would force car makers to build more and more non-polluting vehicles.

Launched in 1996, the EV-1 was a swoopy two seat coupe with a sub six second 0-60mph time.

GM leased more than 800 EV-1s on the understanding when the leases ended, the keepers would hand the cars back to the car giant.

Unfortunately, many of those customers had become attached to their cars, and refused to give them back. What followed was a PR disaster for GM, and with the release of Who Killed…, its one that refuses to die.

Across the pond

So while that was happening stateside, what were the Europeans doing?

The biggest European EV until recently was the Think Nordic from Norway. The battery-powered microcar received rave reviews in green-thinking Scandinavia, and it wasn't long before it was bought by Ford.

Sadly Think took more time and resource than Ford had realised, and after a run of 1005 cars, the project closed.

Look carefully, and you'll still see the odd Think around, in fact on a recent visit to Ford's Dagenham plant, we saw several parked in a line, recharging their batteries.

The current darling of the EV world - in the UK at least - is the Reva G-Wiz.

It's a tiny urban kickaround which measures just 2.6 metres from nose to tail, which makes it the perfect size for the urban crawl.

Although it's officially a four seater, the 745kg car is really only suitable for two. But with a range of 50 miles and a top speed of 45mph, the G-Wiz isn't a car for long journeys anyway.

We'll be driving a G-Wiz this week, so check back for our thoughts.

So what's next for EVs?

Most EVs built so far have been environmentally-friendly city cars; slow and small. The logical progression is to make them faster.

The Tesla Roadster is the current darling of the performance EV world. Its makers claim a 0-60mph time of five seconds and the equivalent of 135mpg. With those kinds of figures, and some suave, Lotus-like styling, the Tesla should be a hit with those who can afford its £50,000 price tag.

Despite sexy technology like that inside the sensational Teslan, electric power is likely to be more successful in hybrid technology.

Only time will tell.

Related links

Electric car slideshow
Auto Watch: Who Killed the Electric Car