And Now for the Portion of the Show Where We Put a Star in a Reasonably EPA-Rated Car

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Jay Leno’s Top Gear-aping “Green Car Challenge” will pit guests on the new Jay Leno Show against each other in battery-powered Ford Focus EVs, according to The Ford Story. Not that Ford has a 2,305,476 MPG-rated battery-electric car ready for production or anything. The Focus EV “especially made for the show, foreshadows elements of the electric Focus that Ford will begin selling in North America in 2011.” But does putting whiny celebrities in a whining EV add up to great television? Too bad Tesla couldn’t come up with the product-placement cash.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Rolosrevenge Rolosrevenge on Sep 09, 2009

    I love EVs and am pretty fond of They Might be Giants, but that was the one of the most annoying songs accompanied by the one of the stupidest music videos ever. It belongs as the theme song/video for the Volt.

  • Panzerfaust Panzerfaust on Sep 09, 2009

    The word for this is banal-but none the less an apt video for the Volt. This rip of of a 'star in a resonably priced car' doesn't work because its so serious. After all, the whole point of what Top Gear does with that segment is take a car that no one really wants and force the least likely person to own/drive one around a track as quickly as they can. In Leno's iteration celebrities know they're 'supposed' to like the electric car no matter how crappy it might be. Where's the fun in that? After all who cares how fast Leonardo DiCaprio can drive an electric Ford Focus when he probably owns a Prius anyway? Unless he's going to mock how seriously his guests take driving the EV? If anyone can pull that of it's Jay. Now if Jay wants to have fun; every time a new electric car comes out he should drop a crate motor in it and then put the celebrity behind the wheel. Now that would be entertaining.

  • Davejay Davejay on Sep 09, 2009

    I know that the papers say NBC built a track on one of their lots for these challenges, but I work next to Burbank Airport, which has a lot of unused land around it, and I'm sure hoping they actually built a track there. If so, I'll finally have something interesting to do for lunch, when they're taping.

  • RedStapler RedStapler on Sep 10, 2009

    I'm with Panzerfaust on this one. Putting a Celeb in a Miata equiped with a fire breathing small block would make for far better TV than an EV.

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