I’m ready to sign up for my all-electric, nonpolluting, gorgeous-looking, super-efficient, 221 miles-per-charge Tesla Roadster. All I need is the $92,000 the sticker price shows. They’re sold out for 2008, and the company’s taking orders for 2009.
Failing that, I figure I’d look sharp in a Chevy Volt, with a battery pack good for 40 miles a day plus backup tank and hydrogen fuel cells. It’s still in the dream-on prototype phase.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying a vicarious ride-along with Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers.
Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the hosts of “Car Talk” on NPR, laugh and snort and cajole and insult on the radio each week until even those of us who know nothing about carburetors are in tears. I can’t get enough. If you find yourself creating errands on weekends just to stay with the show (10-11 a.m. Saturdays, noon-1 p.m. Sundays on KCFR-1340 AM), you know their appeal.
They bring their act to a documentary hour, “Car of the Future,” Tuesday on “Nova,” locally at 7 p.m. on KRMA-Channel 6. A mix of serious science and good-natured Magliozzi madness, the film slips talking heads and global-warming information into the fun without force-feeding.
Amory Lovins, CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado think tank, gives the brothers the scoop on the increased carbon emissions from cars and light trucks and how it affects the environment. We see Lovins driving in the Rockies, gabbing around the table with staff and showing off lightweight but super-strong auto parts, all while explaining how to triple fuel efficiency.
Cameras follow Tom and Ray from one extreme to another in search of our automotive future: The Detroit auto show is about “primal thrills and horsepower.” The AltWheels expo in Boston is about curbing our dependence on oil.
Older brother Tom can’t help emitting an epithet as the Ford Mustang saleswoman pushes a car’s outrageous horsepower. “Who needs that —-?” he asks. To watch is to giggle.
John Lithgow narrates, explaining the science of what carbon molecules do, how gasoline, electric and hybrid engines work, how hydrogen may replace carbon. As the boys joke about various prototypes, they learn that changing an economy based on petroleum won’t be easy.
There they are at rush hour in Reykjavik, Iceland, where gas is $8 a gallon, riding a hydrogen-powered bus. There they are, in hunter hats, learning about geothermal power.
And there, proffering corncobs in a lab that studies E85 ethanol, they find ethanol is good for fewer greenhouse- gas emissions but is not great for the environment.
Unfortunately for nonscience majors, they spend as much time in labs as in showrooms, hearing more about science than about what color those new cars may come in. But we’re better-informed.
Who knew that inefficient engine performance means less than 1 percent of a car’s power is used to actually move the driver? Or that plug-ins cost four times less than conventional cars?
For now, the choice seems simple. What do you want, America, big horsepower or high fuel economy?
2-hour season finales.
ABC plans two-hour sendoffs for its hits “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” in order to squeeze more episodes into this strike-interrupted season.
“Grey’s” will conclude for the season on May 22. “Lost” will be bumped that night and will conclude for the season on May 29.
The CBS drama “Swingtown,” about swinging couples in the 1970s, is now pushed back to June 5.
“Arrested” reunion.
Mitch Hurwitz has recruited former members of his “Arrested Development” cast for a table read for an animated series, “Sit Down, Shut Up,” intended for Fox. If the network approves, the project will go straight to series, skipping the usual pilot process. Expect more innovative (read “cheap”) ways to pitch series as the networks rethink the development system.
“Sit Down, Shut Up” is adapted from an Aussie sitcom about insecure high- school teachers more interested in themselves than their students.
Joanne Ostrow’s column appears Tuesday, Friday and Sunday: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@ .
