ABSTRACT
On September 29, 1993, the unthinkable happened. After decades of adversarial posturing, and months of intensive negotiations with Vice President Al Gore, the heads of the Big Three automakers accepted President Bill Clinton’s challenge to collaborate. They committed their best efforts, with the help of government technologies and funding, to developing a tripled-efficiency “clean car” within a decade, and a year later they reported encouraging progress. Like President John F. Kennedy’s goal of putting people on the moon, the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) aims to create a leapfrog mentality – this time in Detroit. However, the PNGV’s goal is both easier to attain and more important than that of the Apollo program. It could even become the core of a green industrial renaissance – instigating a profound change not only in what and how much we drive but in how our whole economy works.
