★普立茲獎得主《石油世紀》《能源大探索》作者丹尼爾尤金（Daniel Yergin）盛情推薦

《大競賽》（The Great Race）敘述國際汽車工業為了市場佔有率、利潤、技術主導權長達百年的激烈競爭，這是一場為了創造出未來汽車的大競逐。

三萬億美元的汽車產業是全世界最大製造業，正面臨一場劇烈革命，未來的汽車是連亨利．福特、卡爾．賓士都難以想像的，自動駕駛、不耗汽油、外型與大小的變化可能會教人大吃一驚，這場戰爭發生在工業巨頭之間，取決於大膽的暴發戶、空想家、巨型公司、工程師、政治家和運氣——好壞皆有。

今天，爭奪主導地位的有傳統車業巨人美國、日本，以及新加入戰局的：中國，但是美國有強大的秘密武器：加州的一小群科技愛好及監管者。本書述說這些人何以能影響未來人們移動、工作、生活的方式，這個關於策略、市場與創新出人意料的故事充滿令人難忘的人物：被輕蔑的化學教授、孤注一擲的南非先驅者、野心勃勃的旅外中國人、異想天開的日本核能工程師，當然還有來自政府與企業挹注的巨資豪賭。

《大競賽》說明新世代汽車的殘酷競爭，政府、車廠、創投家、環境保護者、個人發明家在其中扮演的角色。作者的記述高潮迭起，解釋了美國在全球競爭中如何捲土重來，要主導未來工業又需要怎樣的條件。

Levi Tillemann，New America Foundation資深研究員，曾任美國能源部政策與國際事務處特別顧問，在此之前擔任IRIS Engines執行長，他與他的發明家父親一起創立這家公司，致力於開發更小、效率更高、功率更大的內燃引擎。他也是IHS Energy顧問公司副主任。擁有約翰霍普金斯大學進階國際研究博士學位，會說華語、日語、西班牙語和葡萄牙語。

"The Great Race captures the drama of a global competition for markets and new technology that is changing the auto industry and indeed the world in which we all live. It is a gripping read that takes us inside critical decisions in China and Japan and the United States. Tillemann’s experience as a tech entrepreneur focused on cars, his skill as a linguist (he is fluent in Chinese and Japanese), and his expertise on energy policy enable him to bring unique insights. The result is an epochal saga of leadership, money, power, global competition and innovation; and Tillemann tells it all superbly. Whether your "thing” is the clash of nations or the battle for global markets -- or how fast you can get from zero to 60 -- you’ll like The Great Race a lot. Indeed, you will race through it!" (Daniel Yergin, author of The Quest and The Prize)

"Mr Tillemann, an energy expert, writes about the car guys with the grasp of an insider. This seems to have been gained from founding a company which tried to bring a low-emission car engine to market and by the rigour of having led negotiations with Detroit. Fluent in Chinese and Japanese, he is able to take the adventure to the heart of the world’s other automotive powers.” (Economist)

“To explain the scramble for the next-generation auto—and the roles played in that race by governments, auto makers, venture capitalists, environmentalists and private inventors—comes Levi Tillemann’s “The Great Race”… Mr. Tillemann seems ideally cast to guide us through the big ideas percolating in the world’s far-flung workshops and labs. He is an inventor himself: With his father and brothers, he conceived a gasoline engine, the IRIS, that is smaller and theoretically more efficient than standard designs of the same output, and over the past decade the design has won attaboys from NASA and ConocoPhillips.” (Wall Street Journal)

“Free-market and small-government purists will find much to quibble with here, but the author is skilled, and sometimes relentless, at highlighting the ability of official industrial policy to work in the public interest. “Since the time of Henry Ford,” he writes, “no automobile industry in the world had ever become internationally competitive without . . . government intervention.” (Washington Post)