Race For The Future

A Silver Award winner at the Houston International Film Festival, Race for the Future is about a different kind of car race: the races here, which took place between 1990 and 1991, all featured solar and electric cars. The longest race--from Florida to Michigan--showcases student-designed and built solar cars (which average speeds of 60 m.p.h.) Later on, we see electric cars which can attain upwards of 100 m.p.h. on the freeway. Although electric cars are nothing new (heck, Henry Ford's wife Clara drove one), a combination of technological limitations and the powerful auto and oil industries have ensured that non-oil based transportation remains in the back seat, so to speak. Yet, the prototypical solar and electric cars spotlighted in this informative and entertaining documentary may well be the wave of the future. According to Paul Kennedy in his recently released Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (Random House, 1993), the U.S. currently accounts for 17.6% of the world's pollution and a substantial portion of that figure is directly traceable to the exhaust pipes on our cars. In order for us to successfully evade the threat of global warming, drastic measures will need to be taken in the near future. Race for the Future with its promise of non-polluting, energy-efficient solar and electric cars offers hope. Highly recommended. (See LETTERS FROM OUR LIVES for availability.)