Just after GM released its quarterly earnings yesterday, I spoke with Larry Burns, GM's vice president of R&D and strategic planning, about GM's role in reinventing the auto industry. Here are a few excerpts from that discussion.
(In the same vein, and also worth a read: this excerpt from an exchange with Tesla's Darryl Siry.)
On leaving internal combustion behind:
"There has been tremendous growth in the auto industry worldwide. GM can't have its business growth capped by energy, safety, or environmental issues. We need a transition from the internal combustion engine — a technology that has been essentially the same for 120 years.
"We have the opportunity for an all-new automotive DNA based on electric motors and fuel cells. We see 2010 to 2015 as the window for low-volume commercialization. Between 2015 and 2020 is where I think you'll see the tipping point realized. At that point, the world will have clear evidence that fuel cell and electric vehicles are viable alternatives to internal combustion. And hopefully we'll start seeing capital swing in that direction."
How does that mesh with GM's internal deadline to deliver a Chevy Volt production vehicle by 2010?
"We're working extremely hard to make that happen. We can't commit to that production date for the Volt. What we can commit to is having the E-Flex platform ready to go by them, so that when the batteries are ready, we're ready. Everything looks encouraging, but the difference between performance in the lab and on the road is huge. It's essential to have an effective control strategy for managing battery safety and performance. We're simply not going to put our customers at risk from a safety standpoint.
"We don't intend to go into the battery business. It's not within our core competency. It is within our core competency to specify, integrate, and establish control strategies for those batteries."
On toughening fuel efficiency standards:
"If we have to use all our resources to meet incremental improvement targets, it impedes our progress toward finding real solutions to climate change, not just things that slow the rate of growth. What if you woke up and all cars became 20 percent more fuel efficient overnight? That only buys you about 10 years. Improvements in fuel efficiency will not keep pace with economic growth — and we've got to find solutions that take it down from today's level."
On the technical hurdles confronting the auto industry:
"For fuel cells, it's hydrogen storage. Starting with compressed hydrogen at 10,000 psi, you can go 300 miles. Why do we need an alternative to that? Because solid state hydrogen technology looks so encouraging. We're exploring materials that store hydrogen in a solid state. It needs to be between 4 and 6 percent hydrogen to be viable in an automotive application.
"Right now, it requires too much heat input to release the hydrogen. The thermodynamics are not there yet. But we've been messing with that, and we've got it up to over 10 percent. We're working with Sandia National Laboratories, with HRL Laboratories in Malibu, and with some Russian scientists. It has a lot of potential.
"For the fuel cell stack, we're pretty much there scientifically. Now it's a question of engineering. I drove the Equinox just last week, and it was thrilling. On the battery side, too, the lithium-ion science is there. The chemistry is there. The question is, can you put it into packs and write control algorithms and make it affordable? Of course, affordability here is largely a function of the price of gasoline. But there are plenty of reasons to be encouraged.
"For fuel cell vehicles, we're making the transition now from the lab to demonstration. In 2007 and 2008, GM will have over 100 Chevy Equinox fuel cell vehicles that we'll be putting in the hands of real customers.
"Of course, hydrogen poses something of a chicken-and-egg problem when it comes to infrastructure. If you're trying to sell fuel cell vehicles and there are no refueling stations out there, it's going to be tough to make money. If you run a hydrogen refueling station and there are no vehicles, that also makes it tough. So we're working closely with government and energy companies to get that fuel distribution and storage infrastructure into place."
We'll have more from Larry Burns and others later today.
