the eco cruze which is coming out. the collateral impact and positive impact of our work on volt, we are putting in what we call e-assist on trucks. we are putting them on mid sized sedans and small cars. the next generation, if you really want a good car that will get good mileage is the new malibu that is coming out. this car has gotten rave reviews. we put a battery string in the back in a congested city like san francisco or any big city in america. we estimate one in five minutes, you are sitting still or traffic or a stop light. you have the 12-volt battery that runs the radio and everything else. we go to a string of lithium batteries in the trunk and your mileage jumps from 25 to 33%. it is cleaner and you are in the

city in that mode. you are seeing the evolution here and you can see where it's going over time. the more creative we are and the greater energy density that we can get into a cell battery, the better off we're going to be. we are investing. this is the new gm. we put $100 million into gm ventures. it sounds like a private equity firm. we don't have all of the answers. you have the entrepreneurs with their life and soul and their grandmother's inheritance. they invest everything and they live and die with that. i like that intensity. we get the opportunity to kind of walk around the technology and see if it has an auto application. the corporation was picked up in your papers here. that is a promising technology. we don't know if it is

industrialized yet. >> it is a company that claims to have made a break through in energy density in car batteries. >> yes. lithium-ion. it is a lot of weight and gives 16 kilowatts of energy. what does that do? the battery can run a lot further. instead of 40 miles, maybe 140 miles. so, i believe in my lifetime and technology, there is an ever escalating improvement. you have to be optimistic about it that battery technology will improve in the next 20 to 25 years. >> a mix of fuels as opposed to one. >> yes. i think the crowning, the holy grail, if you will, is the fuel cells. we have a fleet. the technology works, it is just very expensive.

the chemistry is very complicated and quite frankly, it takes about two ounces of platinum. now we have it down to argue quarter ounce of platinum. when i was with general instrument, as you mentioned, we invented high definition television. the first copy cost us $450,000. now you are buying them wherever you are buying televisions for $200. it took a while. you will see costs of hydrogen fuel cells. we put 3 million miles on hydrogen fuel cells today. the cars cost $400,000. now we are down to 350. hopefully in the next ten years, we get it down to 35 or 40. >> dan akerson is ceo of general motors.

i'm greg dalton. the chevy volt is the centerpiece a lot of gm strategy right now. it has brought something of a halo effect to the company. recently the company announced it was suspending production. you sold less than you wanted to last year. are you disappointed with the volt or is this natural with new technology in the marketplace? >> i hope the audience understands what i'm about to say. you never have perfect knowledge of what the market is going goito do and how well it will receive your product. the cruze, we closed the plant for two weeks last november. you didn't even know that. there was so much intensity around the volt because although it was designed probably when president obama was in the senate, it is now his car. >> he said he would buy one. >> you know, i'm happy to hear that. i wish he would buy one this

year. he's not. not this year, i don't think. it's become somewhat politicized. the volt is always in the background. we are going to match production to inventory. that is what -- if you were owners of this business and it was your company, that is what you would do. whether it is the cruze or the truck. you know, the average guy on wall street says look at the building inventory. we will shut the plants down for 26 years this year. you have to accept some intelligence behind our decisions. the volt we shutdown and we wanted to get it in demand with the marketplace. >> we want to show a brief ad

about the chevy volt. this is an ad that chevy volt that has been running. we can certainly hear it. >> for our town, for our country, for our future. this isn't just the car we wanted to build, it's the car america had to build. the extended range electric chevy volt from the heart of detroit to the health of the country. chevy runs deep. >> from the heart of detroit to the health of the country. why is this good for america? what are you trying to say? >> the great thing about the volt is that it represents american innovation, american

ingenuity and clean technology. it is a statement about what the company represents. the best that america can produce. it is clean and reduces our dependence on oil, especially foreign oil. >> okay. dan akerson is chairman and ceo of general motors. our guest today at climate one. last year, toyota downscaled its profit expectations for the year because of supply chain disruption in thailand. intel did the same thing. >> we did it, too. >> you had something related to japan. >> we had it in thailand. >> the floods that struck thailand are precisely the extreme weather events that climate scientists said earlier say it happened with increased intensity and frequency.

my question is if you run a global business, how do you plan for the supply chain disruption that hit you from the other side of the world? >> we have operational risk management function within the company. when i came in, i said give me the 25 biggest things that could happen to you. and you want to lay awake at night worrying about all of them. i said what the hell. i can't do that. it is tragic what happened in japan. an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. what it tells you is you have to diversify your supply chain. we are actively doing that and, you know, to be honest with you, depending on how far your supply chain went around the globe, some manufacturers were impacted with what happened in thailand

than what happened in japan. so, we have taken a hard look at that, as i'm sure all of our competitors have. it has been a lesson learned and i will tell you we were very concerned in both instances. we marshaled our resources as best we could. we shut our shreveport down for four or five days to ensure we had supply to a different set of issues we had. we were lucky that is all the impact we had with the two natural disasters. >> so climate-driven weather can be a business risk? >> oh, yeah. in the case of the climate wasn't the issue. >> thailand. >> thailand was probably more likely. i would like to think it was more likely than what happened in japan. >> you mentioned gm ventures. gm ventures invested in car sharing, i believe, with relay

ride. i would like to talk about the future of car sharing and automobiles as a service and mow be mobility as a service. >> you don't know what shape or form that mobility will take place. we are looking at autonomous cars. you know what i mean? we are trying to look at everything now. we can't afford to run around with blinders saying we are going to build just trucks. we are going to build every segment of the market and be efficient as we can in every segment of the market. if it evolves to a zip-car type or a peer-to-peer type that relay cars are involved, we want to be part of it. we have an onstar that enables that. if you want a car and you can rent it to me for $250 a day. you can rent. we wanted to be an enabler.

nothing you do in the world satisfies everybody. i was criticized for being stupid on that one. what if this takes off? what if urban mobility takes that vent? we don't want to be late to the game. we decided to be pro-active rather than reactive. i think, if it works out, we will be -- it is always if you are right, you are a genius and if you are wrong, of course, you are stupid. >> there must be some people inside gm, you sell cars. if people rent a car, that is bad for production. >> there are people like that. [ laughter ] >> i'm sure they are sitting around saying there are guys like dan that got us into this thing. you know -- >> bill ford was here recently. he said it will happen whether we like it or not. we might as well be part of it. companies are always interested

in young consumers. they may pick their iphone over a car. you have to think about that. bringing the cloud into the car. >> yes, we are very interested in that. >> i have seen advertisements that are more about the entertainment and console than the car itself. it is more about the entertainment experience than the car itself. that seems like an interesting approach to sell the entertainment v entertainment value of the car. >> i don't know what you are getting at, but we put it in a brand band of entertainment. we don't want to jeopardize the safety on the road. i will tell you, i have been going down the road and i see people come over. they say it is distracting and provides as much distraction as a drunk driver would. i am much more alert to oncoming traffic than i would have been a

couple of years ago. when i was ceo of nextel, we talked about short message service. not like the keys you have on the iphones. that being said, we want to have a hands-free, eyes-free application in our cars. that is the thrust we are trying to make. if someone texts you, there will be applications. yes, no, i can't talk right now. i'll call you back. your husband or wife calls. you can pick up the dry cleaning. yes, no, or i'll call you back. eventually, we are interested in the work that apple is doing with siri because you get voice recognition technology which will continually improve. let's get in on the ground floor. we have hired more people from that space than would probably surprise you. it will surprise you so we can

be up on that. the new system cadillac is using has millions of lines of code written into the system. the guiding line is hands-free, eyes-free. my wife talks to me when i'm driving and we're still here. >> we will put our audience microphone out here and invite your participation. i invite you to come with one brief question for mr. akerson. the line will form back there with our producer jane. if you are on this side of the room, we ask that you go through that door over there rather than crossing the cameras. please go through that room and the line will form over there. while we get that going, our

guest today is dan akerson, chairman and ceo of general motors. we have not talked about china yet. china is a big part of the industry. shanghai company owns 1% of general motors. let's talk about shanghai. will that 1% share could be increased so there is more cross ownership with china? >> well, they bought -- to be clear, they bought $500 million. i'm in the sure that is 1%. we own -- we are in a joint venture with chanshanghai auto. we are proud of that. we have been gaining market share. >> and record sales in china. >> yup. just like here. everything's not great at general motors. we have our issues. europe is a problem for us.

south america. we're doubling down in terms of our capital expenditures. it is a complicated business. in asia and china and specifically, we are doing well. we are the largest marketshare. their government is hand in glove with their manufacturers just like here to try to get us to be cleaner and more efficient and we're working diligently to do it in china as well as here. >> let's have the first audience question. >> hi. great conversation. as founder of a gas roots organization called don't be fueled, i get a lot of questions about earlier the hybrid car and now the electric car. from a lot of intelligent people. what i'm getting more questions about and i'm not sure how to answer. what about the safety and environmental hazards of the batteries? ems and disposal of the

batteries. that is my first question. >> we have a big line. just one question. the safety of the batteries and recycling. >> one of the reasons we chose the path we went down with batteries is we give an eight-year guarantee. because we cool it with liquid. it is called dexacool. it is not dissimilar to what you would see in an ordinary car. combustion engine car. we never allow the charging go above 85% or below 15%. we can guarantee this battery for eight years. an air-cooled battery based on our testing to date, will last two or three years. a, we think it will go longer. that is what we are guaranteeing it for. we have an open dialogue with utilities in terms of storing for various applications. coming from the cell phone

industry, i can tell you, you need to have batteries on the cell phone towers. you will lose commercial power at times. this is a work in progress. i don't have a clear cut no questions asked. we are in dialogue with a number of people in how we use these things. >> the other part of the question. is e.m.s. the electricmagnetic. recycling of the batteries after the useful life? >> like i say, we will try to use them in some sort of application for the storage of electrical energy. we have not sorted that out yet. >> let's have the next audience question. >> mr. akerson, many consumers would like to be able to buy e-100 flex fuel vehicles, not e-85, but mileage that is o optimized for ethanol, not do

to offer these vehicles not in the united states? >> we will build cars or trucks -- people say why are you building these big cars? because that's what the market wants. we will meet the market. that is what you would expect to do with a profit-oriented organization. ethanol is not in high demand now. if there was a demand for not 10,000 or 20,000, but 100,000, all of a sudden, we would get more interested in it. we don't see that demand in the marketplace today. so, if the market is there, we will be there. if the market is not there, we will not be there. >> let's have the next >> hi. i was intrigued by your statement that fuel cell cars are sort of ultimately where you want to be. i'm curious why you think that's

the final goal for technology development. >> well, let me say there's a practical application to that. we need the infrastructure. wi we need the distribution system for hydrogen. why am i intrigued by it well you can take a 2-month-old baby and put a baby under the exhaust, just as long as the dripping water doesn't impact on the child's ability to breathe you're in as good a shape sitting where you are as that child is. i think at the turn of the century there were 6 billion people on this planet. by mid century there's going to be 9 billion people. and we're going to have to be good stewards of our environment and i think ultimately you want zero emissions. >> one of the challenges for hydrogen is where does the hydrogen come from, how much energy does it take to create that hydrogen? >> yeah. do you know where most is produced today? refineries.

>> and i'm sure the oil companies would be very happy to get some revenue for that, but there's transportation and infrastructure issues around it. >> they don't -- they largely don't use it today. why don't they just -- >> sell it to you? >> you know, they can -- that's their business. we're not going to get into that business. we're not that smart. that's a tough business. >> but governor schwarzenegger has tried a lot of -- pushed hard on hydrogen. hasn't taken off in california. >> you know, leadership is a tough thing. you have to make tough decisions and sometimes you'll be wrong. of course, everybody will remember when you're wrong and not when you're right. but at some point in time, this is i think the future. and it may not materialize, the market may not be there. if it's not, that's why volt d and, you know, the first -- this

is the first chapter written on the book called alternative forms of propulsion. and it will evolve over time. the chapters are yet to be written. maybe i'm wrong. i have to allow for that possibility as my wife tells me i have been wrong and if it isn't hydrogen, well, then we better figure out a way to produce a lot of electricity. let's face it, it doesn't have pure emissions either and there are strong points of view around that. whether it's nuclear, gas or coal. modern societies, competitive societies, have to figure out how to get the cleanest, most efficient form of energy to the marketplace and i think as the world evolves and energy evolves, you may see this evolve into hydrogen fuel cells.

>> let's have the next question. >> dan, my name is john thomas. i'm from the mad hedge fund trader. i have a personal question for you. when you were offered the post of running gm, what initially came to your mind? are you crazy, are you out of your mind? what was it in this job that lured you to accept that offer and who specifically made that offer? >> well, i think gm is the most -- one of the most complex, most interesting and most challenging business opportunities of my generation of management. and where i was in private equity and thought i would just finish my career there, it was genuinely intriguing. i thought i could make a difference. i had been overseas for two

weeks, came to the board meeting -- >> we share clarify you were on the gm board first. >> yeah, i was part of the new board that was brought on post bankruptcy, and then ceo said, well, he was leaving. he was 68, going to be 69. and he had -- he was an interim because we had lost our ceo from the old gm, the prior management. and candidly i had this vacation, and my daughter was pregnant. so she couldn't go anywhere. so we took her and my other granddaughter and i almost turned the job down because when my wife and i kind of wanted a couple of days to think about. when i told my granddaughter i wouldn't be around so much, she started crying. but i had already accepted by then. i thought a man is as good as he word. i'm glad i did it. it's -- i mean, there are some personal aspects of it that are not at all attractive. but, you know, i'll be back in

the home range with my granddaughter at some period here in the future. that will settle that concern. >> good. >> hi, dan. you touched very briefly on business conditions in europe you're seeing right now. >> yes. >> i think there's way too much capacity over there. >> yes. >> i wonder what we're doing to address that. are you closing some plants there and why are -- could you quantify how much money we're actually losing in europe at the moment? >> well, what's going on in europe is not dissimilar to what happened in the united states prior to the great recession. and to give you an idea, we shut 14 plants in this country. because the average plant utilization in the united states prior to the recession was at about 70%. so we overproduced to cover our fixed cost. and then we tried -- and this is the unnatural act that was being

pers perpetrat perpetrated. we tried to bend the supply curve. we weren't efficient and thereby these -- we supplied too much versus demand. we would dump those cars into rental fleets either corporate or rental. and what did that do? it diminished the resale price because we had to sell those cars at a lower price, so the residual and the cost of ownership over three to five years and we destroyed a channel of distribution called leasing. and it was people were overproducing to hold share and so prices were coming down generally. it was just kind of a -- like a whirlpool. that's -- so we shut down 14 plants. 14 plants. the disruption and dislocation was pretty significant. in europe today, we shut a plant down when we restructured post parent bankruptcy, and we were profitable.

and we were on the road trip we were losing about $1 billion including restructuring costs. we were profitable by about 300 odd million in the first half of '11. then we lost about this much in the third quarter because when we were going through our crisis last year when we got downgraded as our national debt rating was down graded and there was a lot of controversy in washington where we were going to lift the debt ceiling or it was the -- or was the country going the default, well, think about we finally got that sorted out. but in europe, they're hearing about potential sovereign debt defaults twice a day. every morning when they get up and before they go to bed and it hurt their consumer confidence. people stopped buying. i see it every day in the sales reports. so same thing's happening. everybody -- they're doing what

we call short weeks where they send them home and there are certain benefit packages. and so it's estimated there may be as many as seven to ten plants, excess across the entire industry. take it from volkswagen, mercedes, bmw, peugeot, fiat, opal. we have to right size our operations in order to gain -- achieve profitability again. last year, last year including a write down of goodwill which is an on-cash charge and restructuring, we lost a little over $700 million in europe. it is a very troubling situation. we have already taken action to address that. but i think it will be a good maybe year or two before we can achieve profitability in europe again.

we're not giving up on it. and we're in dialogue, discussions with our various constituencies, our dealers, our unions, our management, to affect a solution that's satisfactory and optimizes the outcome for us. >> we're discussing the auto industry with dan ackerson, chairman and ceo of general motors. we have a few minutes left for a few questions. so, yes, sir? >> i work at solar city, the largest solar installer. about 20 months ago we launched the vehicle charging division and we see a lot of customers think about their -- the energy powering their home is tied to the energy that powers their vehicle in a way that didn't exist before. the volt ties you to your customers' homes in a way that you weren't before. how does this affect your