If you have an emergency and call 911, it feels like forever until the ambulance arrives, right? That's the mindset of the American people today as we instantly want automakers to put more fuel-efficient cars on the road.

Business Week recently reported on the Ford ECOnetic, a vehicle that gets 65 mpg, runs on diesel and is available in Europe only. Huh?! One of our automakers making a great vehicle like this and not selling it in the United States? It turns out Ford can't figure out how to manufacture the ECOnetic over here without losing money on each car!

As a nation, we went from wanting the biggest Terminator-style gas-guzzling SUVs to wanting total gas sippers almost overnight. But there's been major lag time on the manufacturing side.

Yet all hope is not lost. Clark promises we'll have a lot of choices over the next 24 months. By 2010, we'll have the GM Volt and other fuel-efficient cars. In the next few months, Honda will have an affordable hybrid available with a price tag in the upper teens.

It just takes a while to make a long-term change. We will get there as long as we don't lose focus when gas becomes cheaper.

Many Americans are tired of waiting for automakers to develop mass-market solutions to our oil-dependent cars. They're converting cars to run on electricity on their own, according to a Smart Money article Clark read.

The conversion kits cost a few thousand dollars, but the benefit is that you can use zero imported oil to run your car. Now, if people in their own garages can make any car run on electricity, just think what the collective wisdom of our nation could do toward creating independence from foreign oil. Our national security depends on it.

Or we could just continue to fund oil-rich nations like Russia. Putin is taking zillions of our petrol dollars and creating mischief in Soviet Georgia. Western democracies have been long-time supporters of Soviet Georgia. But Russia isn't going to allow them to go democratic. If you're in doubt, just look at Putin's eyes -- which Clark's wife calls "shark eyes" with their cold, lifeless look. Boy, did Bush have it wrong early in his administration when he thought he found a soulmate in Putin.

Big Oil, meanwhile, thinks we'll need petrol forever. But we're getting so close to energy independence, especially with solar and wind. What we need is a coherent national energy policy to make it happen.

Right now, a focus on the overriding national interest is what's missing in the oil/alternative energy debate. Government is stuck. It's individuals who are instead making it happen. And for that, Clark salutes you.

It used to be that weather was the topic of choice for small talk. But these days it's gas and the high prices at the pump. Callers are telling Clark that some gas stations won't let you fill up your tank completely; they cap you at a certain dollar limit. This helps protect them from drive-offs and bum credit card numbers in the age of inflated gas prices. If you go back 3 years ago, the cost to fill up was 40% what it is today. That's an enormous change in a short time.

Since we can't control what we pay at the pump, we'd better start controlling other factors. In Denver, 400 cars have been equipped with technology to monitor how you're driving and let you know how to maximize fuel economy on the road. So far this experiment has yielded a 20% increase in fuel economy. Clark himself has become obsessive about using cruise control, even on suburban drives.

Years before computers were routinely in cars, Volkswagen helped increase fuel economy by 30% in its stick shift vehicles. They had a light that would flash and beep to alert you when to shift gears. Most drivers tend to shift too early and waste fuel.

Many more automated solutions will be coming in the next few years. But for now, it's all about controlling our behavior as drivers. That means no jackrabbit starts. When Clark got his first hybrid, a Honda Insight, he averaged about 58 miles/gallon. On the highway, he was getting 70-77 miles/gallon. It's all a matter of what you're willing to do -- be it drive a smaller car, drive smarter or drive less.

Getting our country on a better footing with energy has been a longtime personal mission for Clark. Some of you may have heard about his 3-wheel car called the Freeway. This vehicle ran on a 12-horsepower Tecumseh engine and had no reverse gear!

Following the demise of the Freeway, Clark has had a Honda Insight and, more recently, a Honda Civic that runs on compressed natural gas. He "fills" up the Civic for the equivalent of $2.80 gallon. In addition, he also has a scooter that gets 90 mpg.

A legendary oilman named T. Boone Pickens is among the latest personalities advocating switching all automobiles over to natural gas. He's currently on a media tour to promote his energy agenda. While some say he has cynical motivations, Clark says we should cut him some slack.

Other elements of Pickens' agenda include a heavy emphasis on wind power, solar energy, nuclear power and the experimental clean coal technology. Clark believes all of these alternative energies are in their infancy.

We can't afford to be deterred from further exploration of any of them by a "Three Mile Island" mentality.

Several states are doing some things that Clark sees as a sign of the times.

Hawaii is banning traditional water heaters in all new construction. The Aloha State is now requiring solar water heaters. While solar water heaters cost about 7 times what a traditional heater does, you can make your money back in a couple of years. This move should save homeowners $50/month on average.

But there's so much more we can do. Clark read a very disturbing story in Business Week that detailed how the coal industry is trying to use political influence to virtually outlaw windmills in the Great Plains states.

We as a nation should not allow dirty money to prevent us from having clean sources of energy.

The Business Week story focused on a Kansas rancher who overcame dirty money to get a windmill operation up and running. Clark salutes this determination to make a change.

Meanwhile, California is putting stickers on cars that provide a smog rating and a global warming rating. Whether you believe in global warming or not, no one can deny that smog exists.

Under the current system, a score of 10 represents the lowest levels of pollution and a score of 1 the highest.

Car manufacturers are obviously not happy about this -- unless they make what are called "super ultra low-emission vehicles." For example, the Honda Civic Hybrid has a smog rating of 9 and a global warming rating of 10.

These stickers are voluntary for now until next January when a law mandating them throughout the Golden State goes into effect.

Our senior producer Kim bought her first scooter 8 years ago. Despite her reputation as a bad driver, she's never had a wreck on it. Executive producer Christa, on the other hand, tried to ride Kim's scooter once and crashed it into a bigwig's car at the studio!

Clark's current scooter, a Korean model, ran him $1,499 -- though you can find some for as little as $800. Clark's getting 90 mpg, so even at $4/gallon, the price of gas doesn't matter. Even the most uneconomical of scooters usually gets around 70 mpg.

With speeds of 30-45 mph, scooters are great for running around town. Is it any wonder that sales are up? Just beware of the added safety concerns that go along with riding a scooter.

Meanwhile, ridership on commuter rail and bus lines is also up. Clark recently saw a suburban commuter bus that was standing room only. Typically, those buses are empty in his town. In most metro areas, you can also carpool or vanpool with your fellow commuters to save money.

On the radical side of things, Clark read a Wired report about packs of bicyclists that take to the interstates in California when they hear about a traffic jam. Their aim is to both raise consciousness about commute alternatives and thumb their noses at those stuck in traffic.

What change could you make in your life so that you're not a sitting duck for high gas prices? That's Clark's challenge for you.

It used to be that weather was the safest casual conversation starter. Today it's the price of gas. Clark was stunned when he was filling up his wife's car and the bill came to $57; he knows that many folks can top that easily, but it was shocking to him! Recently while filling up a rental car, the pump didn't shut off properly and spewed out additional gasoline. Every last drop is precious these days. We are in a time when the high prices have us more focused on alternative solutions than ever before.

Clark loves his natural-gas vehicle, but that type of car hasn't been embraced by the masses. It can be difficult to find a filling station. Still, he firmly believes that American ingenuity will come up with answers to end our foreign oil dependence.

Here's an example: A man named Floyd Butterfield started the E-Fuel Corporation and is selling a home-fueling station that's the size of washer/dryer stack unit. It allows you to take sugar and make it into fuel to power your car. The price of the device is $10K, so the payback is nowhere near immediate. The New York Times reports that the sugar it would take to create a gallon of fuel would cost around 30 cents.

Will this catch on? Is it vaporware? We don't know yet. But the point is bright people are working on alternatives to power our vehicles. GM is preparing an electric car called the Volt, and Toyota is working on its plug-in hybrids. Meanwhile, there are experiments to turn tree waste into fuel, and Pres. Bush is a fan of switch grass as a fuel.

Many of these experiments won't prove viable. But we're at a new time when we're willing to listen and learn from people we might have dismissed as kooks in the past. For example, Clark is a fan of electric bikes for city commuting. They cost a third of a cent per mile to run and emit nearly zero pollution. Just be prepared to get wet on rainy days!

The Norwegians have a new electric car coming to the United States in 2009 that's got Clark very excited. It's called the TH!NK City and it gets 110 miles on a single charge and goes up to 65 mph. The cost? About 2 cents a mile! And it doesn't eat up foreign imported oil like a gas-engine vehicle.

In other news, a group of researchers in the lab have developed an easy way to take sugar and turn it into a power plant for a hydrogen-powered vehicle. This development is not ready for the mainstream yet, but it's in the works. There are a lot of promising advances that are going to take a while to materialize in the marketplace.

In the meantime, Clark wants to encourage you to look at offbeat transportation alternatives. Washington D.C. has launched a Smartbike program. You pay $40/year for access to bicycles that are strategically placed around town. Users have a code to unlock the bikes and lock them up again at the other end of their commute. It's almost like a Zipcar program for bikes!

Worried about getting too sweaty during your ride? Buy an electric bike for around $600 and it will be no sweat getting around. Clark knows this all sounds kooky, but we need to expand our minds and realize we're not sitting ducks for foreign-oil interests. Christa has long had a fascination with a bicycle that runs on a weed whacker motor. If you Google "weed whacker bicycle," you'll even find videos that detail how to convert your bike.

Are you willing to pay more for a car rental just to get a "green" automobile that's fuel efficient? Enterprise Rent-A-Car -- the nation's largest car rental company -- is experimenting with 4 new offices in the Atlanta area offering fuel-efficient or hybrid vehicles at a premium price. Will people pay more for this at a time when we're experiencing record-high fuel prices?

Clark recalls that Budget mounted a similar experiment several years ago in Los Angeles when the Prius was very popular. That experiment was ultimately a failure. But gas was much cheaper at that point. Today, it could be a different story. Enterprise could potentially make a lot of green by going green. Would you pay more? Share your comments and tell us!

For those of you who have been giving Clark some heat over his support of nuclear power, this note's for you: There are now plants generating solar energy by using rotating mirrors to follow the sun's path. These plants are popular in the Mountain West where there's fantastic sunlight. In fact, the sun gets so intense that Clark's brother -- who lives south of Phoenix -- has to flee to San Diego for about a month every year! The New York Times reports there are 2 of these mirror-equipped facilities already on the grid, while 8 more are in the planning or construction stages. It's good to know that there are new solutions on the supply side. On the demand side, meanwhile, Americans now are using less fuel thanks to fuel-efficient vehicles. Clark recently got a question about whether it was smart to ditch a 4-year-old SUV and buy a new fuel-efficient vehicle. The answer is no, you must instead buy a 4-year-old used fuel-efficient vehicle. Remember, let somebody else take the hit on depreciation.

Have you heard that Congress has reached an accord with automakers and environmentalists to have a 50 percent increase in fuel economy over the next 12 years? It's not yet clear if such a bill will make it to the President's desk. But we've got to get our act together for long-term economic strength. Otherwise, our dependence on foreign oil will make us a 98-pound weakling in the international arena. It's difficult to picture exactly how increased fuel economy will look. With that in mind, Clark wants to tell you about the Suzuki Wagon R (pictured here), which has been the No. 1 selling car in Japan for nine months in a row. Clark first saw this vehicle during a staff trip to Japan. The closest thing Clark can compare the Wagon R to is the old Scion XB, but even that's larger than this toaster on wheels that gets 60 mpg with a traditional engine. Unfortunately, Suzuki has no plans to sell the vehicle over here.

People are also bonkers about buying the SmartCar when it arrives next year on our shores, but that only gets 42 mpg in comparison! Other ways we'll be seeing increased fuel economy at play include clean diesel vehicles, turbo boosters on engines, hybrid designs and more. There are also some things coming that you might not be able to imagine easily, such as SUVs that are not truck based. Manufacturers will simply take a regular car platform and slap on a different top. The result will be an SUV that's easier to drive and offers better fuel economy, among other benefits. Clark gets a kick out of seeing tiny women driving huge SUVs when he drops his daughter off at school. Some moms just won't be caught dead in a minivan, which is considered the height of un-cool!

Several automakers announced new plans for alternative energy cars at the recent Los Angeles Auto Show. Honda unveiled its Clarity, a hydrogen powered fuel-cell vehicle. The Clarity will emit zero pollution. A 3-year lease would run you about $600/month, so it's not exactly cheap. Honda will be marketing its vehicle in Southern California, where there are several dozen hydrogen-filling stations. Chevrolet/GM has plans to put around 100 of its hydrogen vehicles on the road in SoCal under the Equinox nameplate. Meanwhile, Ford is working to launch its plug-in hybrids. Those kinds of cars usually run on electricity for the first 40 miles before they kick over to a gas-powered engine. Clark salutes the entrepreneurial spirit of these automakers who are experimenting with new kinds of cars. Some of you may remember when Clark previously spoke about a car company called Tesla that's building a $100,000 electric sports car. Their goal is to use proceeds from initial sales to fund further research into developing alt-fuel vehicles that will be much more affordable for everybody. This is exactly the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that will help us move away from the environmental and national security dangers that go along with gas engines.

There's one call that Clark has taken on the air about 60 times over the years, and he's never been able to answer it convincingly: Is it worth it to pay the extra bucks to buy a hybrid just to pay less in gas every week? Now Edmunds.com has done a cost analysis of some of the top hybrid models. Their research indicates how much longer it takes to get a return on investment if you buy the hybrid versions of any cars in the study. It's the Ford Escape that gives you the quickest payback -- owners will break even at around 3 years. The Honda Civic and the Mercury Mariner tie at No. 2. The Saturn Vue checks in at No. 3, allowing owners to break even in 4.8 years. Keep in mind that any hybrid offering return on investment in under five years is a smart buy. On the other end of the spectrum, the Toyota Highlander takes 11 years before you break even and the Camry will take you 12 years. And what about the Prius? Because there's no exact gas-engine equivalent, Edmunds looked at the Prius vs. Corolla. Turns out it will take you a whopping 13.6 years to get payback if you only drive your Prius 15,000 miles/year! So Toyota -- the greenest of all the automakers -- actually does not give you good payback on your hybrid-purchasing dollar. Clark advises people to only buy a Toyota hybrid if they're doing it because of deeply held environmental beliefs.

Last winter, Clark first started talking about natural-gas vehicles (NGV). He loves them because they don't pollute the air and they use domestically produced fuel. His wife encouraged him to get one, so he searched on the Internet and a found used 2007 Honda Civic GX. Clark admits that this could either be a really dumb purchase or a really smart one. Honda is making about 400,000 of these cars per year, but they're only for sale in California and New York. The cost is about $25,000 for an NGV versus about $17,500 for a standard Civic. One of Clark's challenges in having an NGV is finding a place to fill it up with specially compressed natural gas. There are a lot of filling stations on the West Coast and on the Eastern seaboard down through Richmond, Virginia. But in the Atlanta area there's only one single station in a more than 200 mile radius! Luckily that station is about seven miles from Clark's home. Clark believes that as a nation we need to start thinking outside of the box about our energy needs. Relying on foreign energy suppliers who want to harm us can only weaken our nation. Clark's Honda GX is his answer to this dilemma. What's yours?

Clark is always investigating the push to go green in the auto industry. Not long ago he spoke about the Air Car, a vehicle that runs on compressed air instead of gasoline. Now he recently heard that McDonald's franchises in England are planning to run all their delivery trucks on recycled fryer grease. Previously McDonald's had to pay to dispose of the grease, but now with some processing equipment they'll be able to save that money and leave the world of diesel fuel behind forever.

Closer to home, Clark is still weighing the idea of purchasing a Honda Civic that runs entirely on compressed natural gas. The benefits include that he won't have to give one more penny to foreign oil-producing nations who want to destroy us, and the vehicle won't cause any pollution. Honda could roll out 40,000 of these natural-gas cars a year right now. But the demand for them isn't really there yet. Partly that's because owners would have to install what are called "Phill" refueling stations at home. While such a move might seem a little cumbersome for the average homeowner, the price of the investment is certainly sweet. How does paying $1.20/gallon sound in an age when people regularly pay upwards of $3/gallon?

While the big oil companies are the ones ripping us off, it's your local gas station that gets the heat from consumers. But did you know that gas stations actually like it when the price of gas is lower? When prices get too high, people tend to buy less of the expensive convenience store goods like beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets that are profit boosters for gas stations.

No matter how you look at it, fuel is just one cost associated with a car. If you were paying to ride in your car the same way you pay to ride in a taxi, you'd be spending some 50 cents a mile. But what if you could drive for as little as two cents a mile? There are a number of smaller companies such as Kurrent making electric cars offering that kind of fuel economy. Kurrent -- which was bankrolled by ad-agency people using their retirement funds -- makes an electric vehicle that will go up to 35 miles an hour with a 100-mile range on flat ground. You can charge the vehicle in an ordinary household outlet. And though it is very small, it's built strong enough to be substantial in a crash. They're making up to 10 of these cars a day. The primary market is in large retirement communities in Florida, California and the mountain states. But if you think you're too cool for a grandpa-mobile, just ponder these economics: In addition to running for just two pennies a mile, a Kurrent costs as little as $10,000 to buy. Now that's a Clark Car if ever there was one! Clark has been fixated on great fuel economy since the oil shortages of the '70s. As he says, we are the strongest nation on Earth, but we won't always be if continue to give our money to oil-producing nations that want to destroy us. We must be innovative as Americans, and going electric with your car is one way to do it.