mr. murtaugh. what made you decide to get into the electric car business and is it fair to call this an electric car? >> this is an electric car. pure electric car. no hybrid. we have a range of up to 150 miles per charge. we have the most dependable range in the industry. we have what we believe will prove to be the best propulsion system in the industry. the reason that we decided to get into the pure electric vehicle business is that energy security is a growing concern globally. in the u.s., over 50% of our petroleum is imported. as you have seen over the last few years, the source of our energy is becoming more unstable as time goes by. we think it is crucial that the united states come up with ways to continue our leadership in transportation development but using american-sourced energy. the best way to do that is to switch from petroleum-based transportation to electric-based transportation. we believe that will come. we don't think that the industry is going to change to ev overnight. we b

mr. murtaugh, thank you for your time. >> peter, thank you. >>> more auto executives still ahead here on c-span 3. in a couple of minutes hyundai u.s. executive vice president david zuchowski. then mark reuss, president of gm north america. after that, we go to the state department for a town hall meeting with secretary of state hillary clinton. and later, a discussion on unemployment among veterans from the wars in iraq and afghanistan. >> one of the folks here at the d.c. auto show is the diesel technology forum to talk about the world of diesel and alan schaffer is their executive director. you're in a bunch of cars that run on gasoline. why the discussion with diesel? >> well, diesel is great story today. it's a technology now that's widely available. more than half of all service stations have diesel at the pump. and the new generation of clean diesel cars are incredible. these vehicles get 20% better mile than gasoline. they have incredible range. this volkswagen passat can go over 800 miles on a tank of fuel. you can haul a lot of stuff. you're not worried about plugging in or whe