General Motors Vice President of Research & Development and Strategic Planning Larry Burns discusses the evolution of the automobile. Cars of the future will have to deliver the same freedoms, he says, but at a lower price to make access more equitable, and without the energy, environment, safety, and congestion problems of today. Of the more than 900 million vehicles on the road globally, 96 percent still operate on the old petroleum DNA of the internal combustion engine, and they are owned by only 13 percent of the population. Burns envisions electric vehicles that can communicate with each other and their surroundings to enhance safety and make travel times more predictable.
