Rising gas prices and climate pressure should be pushing car makers toward efficiency, but Vijay Vaitheeswaran, a journalist at The Economist and author of Zoom, argues the big manufacturers spend heavily on new models while starving research into new fuels and propulsion, and lobby hard against fuel-efficiency regulation instead. The film sets that critique against the small companies trying to force change from outside: entrants in the X Prize competing to build the most fuel-efficient car, and Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley startup founded by internet-fortune entrepreneurs now building the all-electric Tesla Roadster. Elon Musk appears as Tesla's CEO and product architect, alongside voices including Ray Lane, engineer Uwe Grebe, and Jos Dings, a lobbyist for Transport & Environment in Brussels, who offer competing views on whether legacy automakers can innovate their way out of the problem or whether disruption has to come from outside the industry. Originally broadcast by VPRO in 2008, the film treats the electric car as a genuine gamble rather than a settled outcome.