In the News Running on Empty

December 4, 2008

“Toyota is eating your lunch.”
Martin Smith, FRONTLINE correspondent, to General Motors V.P.

As the car chiefs plead their case on Capitol Hill this week, the scene is all too familiar: we've been here before. This excerpt from HEAT, FRONTLINE's recent two-hour special on climate change, recounts the unhappy tale of an earlier occasion when Detroit's top guns vowed to mend their gas-guzzling ways and begin building a whole new line of fuel-efficient vehicles. For that pledge, they were hailed as heroes and visionaries, but alas, as correspondent Martin Smith reported, the vision never quite made it off the assembly line.

For the full program, and a lot more, visit the HEAT homepage.