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 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. while you're downtown, can you pick up the dry cleaning. yes, no. i'll call you back, or whatever. 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 info-tainment 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 shanghai 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.

and what not. it is a complicated business. in asia and china and specifically, we are doing well. we are the largest marketshare. we're putting the same press on there and 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 as you might imagine, i'm a big advocate for cleaner vehicles. 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? there's two concerns, 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 ems. the electric magnetic. 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-85, but mileage that is optimized for ethanol, not gasoline. what do we have to do to get gm

to offer these vehicles 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 audience question for dan akerson. >> hi. i was intrigued by your statement that fuel cell cars are where you want to be. i'm curious why that is the final goal for technology development.

there is a practical implication. we need the distribution center for not only natural gas but hydrogen. why am i intrigued with it? because literally you can take a 2-month-old baby and put a baby underneath that 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. and i think at the turn of the century there were 6 billion people on this planet. there will be 9 billion people and we're going to really 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? >> do you know how hydrogen is produced today? refineries.

>> there are infrastructure issues. >> they largely don't great it today. they can -- that's the 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 and, you know, the first -- this is the first chapter written on the book called alternative forms of propulsion.

alternative 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, electricity produced in a coal fired plant 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 should 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 days to think about it and i told my granddaughter i wasn't going to be around so much, she started crying. i had already accepted by then and figured a man is as good as his word. i'm glad i did it. there are some personal aspects of it that are not all that attractive.

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

demand curve so we overproduced to cover these fixed costs because we were not efficient and thereby we supplied too much versus demand and we would dump them into rental fleets. what did that do? diminished the resale because we had to sell the cars at a lower price. the residual and the cost of ownership over to five years and enjoyed the description called leasing. people were overproducing to hold share and prices were coming down and it was a whirlpool. we shut down 14 plants. 14 plants. the disruption and dislocation was pretty significant. in europe we shut a plant down when we restructured post parent bankruptcy and we were profitable when we were on a road trip and losing about a billion.

including restructuring costs. i made a statement that we would get back to profitability. we were profitable by about 300 odd million in the first half of '11 and then lost about that much in the third quarter. when we were going through our crisis when we got downgraded as our national debt rating was downgrade and there was a lot of controversy in washington where we were going to lift the debt ceiling and the country going to default, think about we finally got that sorted out, but in europe, they are hearing about potential sovereign debt defaults twice a day. every morning when they get up and before they go to bed. it hurt their confidence and people stopped buying. i see it every day in the sales reports. same thing is happening. everybody is doing what they call short weeks where we send

them home and there are benefit packages. we still have the plants open. it is estimated there may be as many as 7 to 10 plants, excess across the industry. you take it from volkswagen or mercedes or bmw or fiat or all of them. we have to kind of right size our operations in order to gain or achieve profitability again. last year including a write down of good will which is a noncash charge and restructuring for another 200 million. a little over $700 million in europe. it is a very troubling situation. we have already taken action to address that. i think it will be a good year or two before we can achieve profitability in europe again. we are not giving up and we are

in discussions with our various constituencies and dealers and unions and management. to affect a solution that's satisfactory and optimizes the outcome for us. >> we are discussing the auto industry with chairman and ceo of general motors. we have a few minutes left for questions. yes, sir? >> i work at solar city for our nation's largest solar installer. about 20 months ago we launched our electric vehicle charging division and it's growing quickly. we see a lot of customers think about the energy powering their home tied to the energy that powers their vehicle in a way that it didn't exist before. the volt ties you to your customer's homes in a way that you weren't before. how does this affect your company's strategy and what challenges and opportunities does it present to be so much more tied to your customer's

home? >> we actually invested in a company that they build a little lean to. it has solar panels and you are home free. could that happen? in a carport. it's a good technical term. i like it. is that a solution? we do a lot of inductive. like with your cell phone, you put it on a pad. we invested in the company like that. you will see that in our models coming out and you take the cell phone and you don't have to worry about the jack and all convenience. you see that in the cars in upcoming years. someone said why don't we get one the size of your garage and you drive on that. then you think of fido walking across there. you have to worry about all this stuff. you are thinking about

everything. if natural gas is the solution and i have natural gas in my home, why not fuel your car at home? that wouldn't go down well with exxon and the boys because all of a sudden they have another form of distribution. we are thinking like that because what's one company's solution is another's bad news. there may be alternate plans for distribution in the coming decades. i don't know. you have to get the pressurized natural gas for residential into a car and pick the pressure up to get it in there. there a lot of practical problems that need to be solved or addressed. we are looking at everything and everything is on the table. whether it's relay cars or why

would gm do that? i think they are right. it's going to happen and we can't control the universe. we have to react to reality and we want to predict the future so we can be proactive. i don't know if it will be electric and infused into the architecture of the home and it's going to be natural gas. i don't think they will put nuclear reactors on cars, but if they did, we would think about it. >> do you have a charging station in your garage? >> yes and i love it. i have had one of the first volts of the captured test fleet. i drove for 2,500 miles and put 0.8 of a gallon of gas into it. we talked to 40 plus owners today and there was one fellow who had driven it 12 months ago in the 13,000 miles and still has the initial gas that he got when he bought the car.

on your volt it tells you how much you have got. with the volt i bought about a month ago, i have now used 0.1 of a gallon of gas. you are averaging 100 miles equivalent on these cars. that's good news and if you can get the density up instead of going 40 miles, you will go 240 miles. what's great about the electric range vehicle is this huge step forward. innovation and ingenuity but, also, you can drive that car from here to florida and back. it is not an urban car. it's a car with all the wonderful adjectives and a high degree of utility. you don't have to restrict your thinking and have range anxiety. drop a purple pill in that thing and it works really well. >> i am a vietnam veteran and i

understand you served off the coast of vietnam. i was wondering if can you say a few words for the sailors serving off the coast of iran, and what would happen if they engage in military conflict there and gasoline prices rise. how can gm rally to adjust to the much higher gasoline prices? >> thank you for your service. i was in the navy for five years and did not serve in vietnam. i was in the sixth fleet which was in europe. we faced off against the then soviet union. i think that's beyond my pay grade. i have unlike a lot of people in this country today, i believe in our political leadership that they'll come to the right decision. i think it's a benefit to have served in the military because

those are the last who want to go i would think seriously and to the war. deeply and hard with committing our young men and women to combat whether it's iran or vietnam or iraq. that's a citizen in me. i don't want to speak as a -- i want to restrict my commentary as a role of ceo of general motors. i hold these young men and women in the highest regard. it breaks your heart when you hear they give so much to us and we are a big sponsor of everything to do with veterans. we have 3,000 veterans and we made a choice if someone goes. back in the day as they say, as i say to my children, when one of our employees goes away, we still pay them the same.

they get paid $3,000 and we will make up the 2,000. the benefits continue. we want them to feel like their families are protected. we in conjunction with the uaw give the wounded warriors and i am very involved with veterans affairs. we have an affinity group that is active. they do food baskets and send stuff, send cell phones for s d soldiers everywhere in the country. we support the wounded. we saw the army/navy game that i go to all the time. it's very important that we mead with the wounded veterans. i share your concern and pray for peace. >> we will have to end it there. thanks to dan akerson, chairman and ceo of general motors.

i'm greg dalton. thank you all for coming. coming up on c-span 3 secretary of state hillary clinton on her department's budget request for next year. then, three mayors, michael bloomberg of new york, antonio villaraigo villaraigosa, and emanuel talk education reform. the u.s. house of representatives to households nationwide and today our content of politics and public affairs, nonfiction books is available on tv, radio and online. >> we have even had advice that we do not do as i did today and come in with a plain old white shirt and a summer tie. heaven forbid. now i don't know whether my colleagues feel this would be a

better decorum for the senate and i see the distinguished senator staffer nodding no, but perhaps the people of ohio would be glad to make a judgment on what they want to see me attired in here in the united states senate. so, mr. president, these are just a few of our concerns here in the senate and i'm sure none of us will do a thing differently in the senate of the united states now that we are on television. thank you. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies as a public service. tuesday morning on c-span 3 a house armed certificaservicese hearing on u.s. military operations in afghanistan. marine corps general john allen,