-
General Motors President of North America Mark Reuss speaks during the GM reveals at the Detroit Motor Show.
I hear a lot of things as I walk the stands and watch the unveilings at the Detroit Motor Show.
Some of it is inspiring, some is disappointing, some of it is enlightening and a lot is plain hooey and hot air.
It is great to listen to transplanted Holden chief Mark Reuss talk about calling customers to get a feeling of how General Motors is rated in the USA, Ford chief Alan Mulally drops some great hints about the Falcon being twinned with the next Ford Mustang, and sales boss Ian Robertson talks enthusiastically about the future of Mini inside the BMW Group.
But the one line that hits me hardest comes from someone I have never seen before, a man called Mike Robinson. "The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones. They had better ideas," he says.
It gives me a light-bulb moment on the future of the automobile and helps cut through all the various technologies on display in Detroit. Particularly the GM Volt, the company's range-extended hybrid hero car.
It should not be a surprise, because Robinson is the new 'futurist' at GM, taking over from Larry Burns. He is quieter than Burns, and not as edgy as the man with one of the biggest brains in the car business, but he still makes a lot of sense.
Robinson's official title at GM is vice-president, Environment, Energy and Safety but what he really does is try to crystal-ball the future. He has a lot to say and a lot of it makes sense, so it's good to share some of his insights.
Robinson has a clear take on GM's original electric car, the EV-1, which sparked the movie 'Who killed the electric car?'. "It just wasn't the right time," he says.So, what about electric cars for 2010 and beyond.
"There is no silver bullet that we know of," he says, stating the obvious. But his take on batteries gives a lot more insight. "The battery is just a room. It's what you put in that room," he says.
Robinson talks across the map, about nuclear power for electricity, a family of Volt-based models, what GM's rivals are doing on future propulsion, and even the take-up rate of the leading-edge cars coming to showrooms in the next few years.
He finishes with another simple but worrying sentence. It's one that still has me thinking. "Technology sells itself a lot easier when the price of fuel is high," he says.
