Thanks for the feedback, everybody. I hope I've been careful not to represent myself as an expert, but maybe I can elucidate the argument the film is making.

Yes, there have definitely been studies to determine the ultimate upstream and downstream costs of electric vs gas cars, including the pollution and greenhouse gases emitted by power plants. Opinions are mixed on this one, but engineers Paine quotes in the film say that electric cars are still more efficient, even when you factor in dirty electricity, like that from coal-fired plants. If you use "clean" power, like from, say, nuclear plants (ahem) the difference only gets bigger. I'm not advocating for nukes, just passing along info as I understand it.

Secondly, as to the question of why the Big 3 automakers would have colluded with the oil companies on killing electrics? Well, for the oil companies it's pretty obvious: Electric cars use no fossil fuel, at least not directly. Furthermore, the oil companies have put all their chips on hydrogen as the technology of the future. You can view that cynically (first, it's really far off; second, it requires an expensive form of fuel they hope to control control) or you can believe in it, whichever. As to the automakers: A tremendous percentage of their profits come from servicing the cars they make and selling replacement parts, from $8 oil filters to computer-driven engines that cost $10,000 or more. The electric car doesn't need any of that! Servicing it basically means rotating the tires, checking a few connections and topping up the wiper fluid. Every few years you put in a new battery pack. That's about it! So a major profit center of auto manufacturing simply evaporates, if the fleet shifts to electrics.

GM has a big ad in newspapers today (Thursday), discussing how much they loved building the EV1 and how it got them started on thinking about all these other wonderful cars of the future. No mention of the fact that they killed it, buried it, drove a stake through its heart and scattered the grave with garlic. It's standard counter-propaganda in the face of the film's claims, but it certainly does nothing to diminish their plausibility.

Thanks for reading.

Um yes, pocket_venus, "An American player could theoretically play for a world-class European club." Like say, Tim Howard, who started in goal for Manchester United for a season and a half before losing his spot. Or John O'Brien, who spent several years at Ajax Amsterdam. Or DaMarcus Beasley at PSV Eindhoven. Or Claudio Reyna, at Rangers and Man City. Or Brian McBride, at Everton and Fulham. It hasn't happened often, but we're not talking about completely uncharted territory here.

As to the coach, the US has had foreign coaches before (Bora Milutinovic, anyone?) and probably will again. On balance, Bruce Arena has done a great job, but it's probably time to move on. If Klinsmann ends up leaving Germany, he'd be an awesome candidate. If Scolari is interested in the challenge, and the USSF can afford him, he'd also be great. Both are longshots. But, excuse me, Sven-Goran Eriksson? Did you see England play in this tournament? I wouldn't hire him to coach a team of 7-year-old girls, unless I was trying to convince them to abandon soccer forever and pursue something that was actually fun, like lawn bowling or air-conditioner repair.

I'm sorry, CarlosT, but at this point you're attacking a straw man. Neither King nor I nor anybody on this forum ever said winning the World Cup would be easy, even if soccer magically became the No. 1 sport in America. (I'm on record as saying I don't think a US WC win will happen in my lifetime.) And hauling out Allen Barra's idiotic comments from four years ago is completely a red herring. You're focusing on my tossed-off comment about rolling back elite high-school athletes six or eight years in age, as if that were some official USSF proposal. (That gets you to age 10 or 12, by the way, not 14 -- a pretty crucial difference). Maybe you believe talented soccer players must be identified by age 5 or age 8, although I doubt that. Whatever, fine. I also never suggested that the "better athletes" thing was a magic bullet, just that it's a key factor. If you don't think that Ghana, a nation vastly smaller and poorer than the US, with many fewer soccer players, but a far more athletic team out there than we did, then we just weren't watching the same game.

Thanks for those stats on NCAA basketball players, Spike24. People who don't follow the major US sports think all the players are huge, and it just isn't so. The names I pulled out of my butt from other sports (Torii Hunter, Deion Branch, Stephon Marbury) were all of average-sized guys, who wouldn't look like Kollers or Crouches on the soccer pitch. Of course I don't know that 8-year-old Jason Kidd or Derek Jeter would have made a great soccer player, but it'd be nice to find out.

If your argument is that there are other parts to the puzzle, and that US player development isn't doing a good job, Carlos, then I agree. The two things, to me, go hand in hand. Ivan Gazidis, the deputy commissioner of MLS, made the following comments after the US team's elimination: "We'll take time to analyze this. I do think we're not producing the type of player with quality, the skill and the imagination of a [Juan] Riquelme or a Ronaldinho. We have the ability to do it. But we need to reach deeper into the Hispanic and African-American communities; look at South American player development." That strikes me as a thoughtful response that, in a sense, embraces both our arguments.