Only in Europe was it mostly government driven: Their industry was happily running roughshod over their governments' byzantine totalitarian regulators by simply cheating on their beloved Diesel and squeezing their people into ever tinier cars instead of anyone looking to actually find solutions to the problems with petroleum dependency.
It was GM, Hughes, and AeroVironment who showed EVs were possible (see
The Car That Could by Michael Schnayerson).
Then, in the US, it was a grassroots conspiracy (
www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com,
www.teslamotorsclub.com,
www.pluginamerica.com,
www.plugincars.com, www,evchargernews.com,
www.plugshare.com, etc), or series of them that sprung up, pressuring the automakers (European included) and the US government to actually get with the EV program. Government support in the US wasn't always even positive. Tesla dealt the final blow to the opposition by actually providing a viable EV car that people would and could actually spend their own money on. GM (Volt) and Nissan (Leaf) joined in too, but to a lesser extent. There are, of course, a few pathetic, surviving squirters still pushing back against EVs but their antics are becoming laughable - like clowns who continue to repeat nonsense like:
and