What's Stopping Auto Companies From Making a 100-mpg Car?
    NOW
    t r u t h o u t | Programming Note

    Airdate: Friday, May 18, 2007 at 8:30 p.m. EDT on PBS.
    (Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html.)

What's stopping auto companies from making a 100-mpg car? This time on NOW.

    Many cars now on America's roads get no better gas mileage than the ones we were driving twenty years ago. Meanwhile, other countries' cars leave ours in the dust in terms of fuel efficiency. How did this happen, and what are American auto manufacturers doing about it? On Friday, May 18, at 8:30 p.m., former GM engineer and NOW correspondent Jonathan Silvers goes under the hood of the US car industry to look at what's being called a colossal failure of American engineering. Does Detroit have a secret weapon waiting in the wings?

    Also, we profile an organization that hopes to move kids out of poverty with - of all things - bicycles. Part of NOW's "Ideas That Work" series.

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    Note: The NOW website at www.pbs.org/now will provide additional coverage starting Friday, May 18, including an extended interview with Car and Driver magazine's editor-in-chief. The site recently launched a NOW on the News audio interview with an influential military blogger about the Army's decision to restrict soldier blogs: http://www.pbs.org/now/news/319.html.