TED2005
Larry Burns: The future of cars
Larry Burns畅谈汽车的未来
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通用汽车副总裁Larry Burns展示了颇具个性的下一代汽车设计：流线型，可定制（计算机控制增强型），使用清洁的氢气能源，并且未使用状态下还能为电网供电。
Larry Burns - Automotive researcher
Larry Burns is the vice president of R&D for GM. His job? Find a new way to power cars. Full bio
Larry Burns is the vice president of R&D for GM. His job? Find a new way to power cars. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:18
People love their automobiles.
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人人都爱车
00:19
They allow us to go where we want to when we want to.
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有了车，我们就能随时随地前往我们想去的地方
00:22
They're a form of entertainment,
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车是一种娱乐形式
00:24
they're a form of art,
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是一种艺术形式
00:27
a pride of ownership.
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是一种因为所有权而产生的骄傲。
00:28
Songs are written about cars.
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有许多关于汽车的歌曲
00:30
Prince wrote a great song: "Little Red Corvette."
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王子（Prince ）写了一首很棒的《小小红色雪佛兰》
00:33
He didn't write "Little Red Laptop Computer" or "Little Red Dirt Devil."
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他写的不是《小红笔记本电脑》，也不是《小红吸尘器》
00:36
He wrote about a car.
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而是关于一辆车的歌曲
00:37
And one of my favorites has always been,
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我最喜欢的歌是
00:39
"Make love to your man in a Chevy van,"
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《在雪佛兰里做爱吧》
00:41
because that was my vehicle when I was in college.
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因为雪佛兰是我大学时期的座驾
00:44
The fact is, when we do our market research around the world,
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实际上，我们在做世界范围的市场调研时
00:47
we see that there's nearly a universal aspiration on the part of people
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发现人们都是
00:51
to own an automobile.
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对车充满渴望的
00:53
And 750 million people in the world today own a car.
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现在全球有7亿5千万人拥有汽车
00:57
And you say, boy, that's a lot.
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你可能觉得，哇，这么多
00:59
But you know what?
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但你们知道么
01:00
That's just 12 percent of the population.
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这个数字仅仅占全球人口的12%
01:02
We really have to ask the question:
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我们不得不产生这样的疑问：
01:04
Can the world sustain that number of automobiles?
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地球经受得了这么多车么？
01:07
And if you look at projections over the next 10 to 15 to 20 years,
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如果你注意到对未来10年、15年至20年的预测
01:11
it looks like the world car park could grow to on the order of 1.1 billion vehicles.
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你会发现世界上停车场的数量将会增长到能容纳下11亿车辆
01:17
Now, if you parked those end to end
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如果将这些车首尾相连
01:19
and wrapped them around the Earth,
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绕地球停放
01:21
that would stretch around the Earth 125 times.
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那么其长度将是地球周长的125倍
01:25
Now, we've made great progress with automobile technology over the last 100 years.
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在过去的100年里，汽车技术飞速发展
01:29
Cars are dramatically cleaner, dramatically safer, more efficient
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汽车变得更加清洁、安全、高效
01:33
and radically more affordable than they were 100 years ago.
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比起100年前，现在汽车已成为大众消费品，而不是让我们望而兴叹的东西
01:37
But the fact remains:
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但实际上
01:39
the fundamental DNA of the automobile has stayed pretty much the same.
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汽车的基本构造功能没变
01:43
If we are going to reinvent the automobile today, rather than 100 years ago,
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如果我们今天来重新发明汽车，而不是在100年前，
01:48
knowing what we know about the issues associated with our product
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在已经知道汽车的各种缺陷之后，
01:51
and about the technologies that exist today,
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结合现在的各种先进技术
01:53
what would we do?
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我们会如何制造汽车？
01:55
We wanted something that was really affordable.
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我们需要的是人们能够买得起的汽车
01:57
The fuel cell looked great:
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燃料电池似乎不错
01:59
one-tenth as many moving parts
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只有其他许多移动部件的十分之一大
02:01
and a fuel-cell propulsion system as an internal combustion engine --
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并且燃料电池推进系统作为内燃机
02:04
and it emits just water.
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仅仅释放出水而已
02:05
And we wanted to take advantage of Moore's Law
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我们想通过摩尔定律来
02:07
with electronic controls and software,
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解释电子控制系统和软件方面的更新
02:09
and we absolutely wanted our car to be connected.
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同时我们也希望车辆之间能互通联系
02:12
So we embarked upon the reinvention
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所以我们开始着手改造
02:14
around an electrochemical engine,
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电化学发动机里的燃料电池，
02:16
the fuel cell, hydrogen as the energy carrier.
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使氢作为能源载体
02:20
First was Autonomy.
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最初，通用汽车研发出的是一款名为Autonomy的概念车
02:21
Autonomy really set the vision for where we wanted to head.
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它奠定了通用汽车之后的环保车发展方向
02:24
We embodied all of the key components of a fuel cell propulsion system.
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对于燃料电池推进系统的设计，我们整合了所有关键性的元素
02:28
We then had Autonomy drivable with Hy-Wire,
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之后，我们在Autonomy中融入氢燃料电池-线传操控技术
02:31
and we showed Hy-Wire here at this conference last year.
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去年的这个研讨会上曾展出过Hy-Wire概念车
02:34
Hy-Wire is the world's first drivable fuel cell,
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它是世界上第一款可驾驶的燃料电池汽车
02:37
and we have followed up that now with Sequel.
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在Autonomy和Hy-Wire之后，现在我们又带来最新一代的氢燃料电池车Sequel
02:40
And Sequel truly is a real car.
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Sequel是辆真正意义上的汽车，而非概念车
02:42
So if we would run the video --
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让我们看看这个视频短片吧
04:11
But the real key question I'm sure that's on your mind:
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但你们肯定都有这样一个关键的疑问
04:13
where's the hydrogen going to come from?
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氢气从何而来
04:15
And secondly, when are these kinds of cars going to be available?
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还有这种燃料电池汽车什么时候能真正面世
04:19
So let me talk about hydrogen first.
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我先谈谈氢气吧
04:21
The beauty of hydrogen is it can come from so many different sources:
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氢气的奇妙之处在于它来源丰富：
04:24
it can come from fossil fuels,
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石油，
04:26
it can come from any way that you can create electricity,
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任何能产生电能的方式
04:29
including renewables.
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包括可再生能源
04:31
And it can come from biofuels.
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生物燃料也能产生氢气
04:32
And that's quite exciting.
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这很棒吧
04:34
The vision here is
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我们的愿景是
04:35
to have each local community
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每一个社区内
04:37
play to its natural strength
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都能够稀松平常地
04:38
in creating the hydrogen.
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获得氢气
04:40
A lot of hydrogen's produced today in the world.
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当今世界热衷于生产氢气
04:42
It's produced to get sulfur out of gasoline
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因为氢气能减少汽油的消耗
04:44
-- which I find is somewhat ironic.
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这让我觉得有点讽刺意味
04:46
It's produced in the fertilizer industry;
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化肥工业生产氢气
04:49
it's produced in the chemical manufacturing industry.
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化学工业生产氢气
04:52
That hydrogen's being made because
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生产氢气是因为
04:54
there's a good business reason for its use.
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它具有良好的经济效益
04:57
But it tells us that we know how to create it,
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但关键是我们知道如何生产氢气
04:58
we know how to create it cost effectively,
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如何降低生产氢气的成本
05:01
we know how to handle it safely.
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以及如何进行安全生产
05:04
We did an analysis
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我们做了个分析
05:05
where you would have a station in each city
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在全美100个最大的城市里
05:07
with each of the 100 largest cities in the United States,
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设定一个车站
05:10
and located the stations
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将车站设定在
05:12
so you'd be no more than two miles from a station at any time.
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无论何时你都距其不大于2英里的范围内
05:15
We put one every 25 miles on the freeway,
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我们在高速公路上每隔25英里设一个车站
05:17
and it turns out that translates into about 12,000 stations.
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那么大约有1万2千个车站
05:22
And at a million dollars each,
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如果一个车站需要花费100万美元
05:23
that would be about 12 billion dollars.
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那么就需要花费120亿美元
05:24
Now that's a lot of money.
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这可是一大笔钱
05:26
But if you built the Alaskan pipeline today,
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但如果现在开建阿拉斯加输油管
05:28
that's half of what the Alaskan pipeline would cost.
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120亿美元仅是铺设输油管的所花费的一半而已
05:31
But the real exciting vision that we see truly is home refueling,
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我们认为最激动人心的前景是在家加油
05:36
much like recharging your laptop or recharging your cellphone.
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就像在家里给笔记本或手机充电一样
05:39
So we're pretty excited about the future of hydrogen.
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我们都看好氢气在未来的应用前景
05:42
We think it's a question of not whether, but a question of when.
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这不是是否应该应用氢气的问题，而是何时能够应用的问题
05:46
What we've targeted for ourselves
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对于我们目标的实现
05:48
-- and we're making great progress for this goal --
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正在进展中并且不断得到改进
05:50
is to have a propulsion system
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这个目标就是制造一个以氢燃料电池为基础的
05:52
based on hydrogen and fuel cells,
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推进系统
05:54
designed and validated,
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经过设计及验证后
05:56
that can go head-to-head with the internal combustion engine --
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这个推进系统将能与内燃机媲美
05:58
we're talking about obsoleting the internal combustion engine --
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我们打算淘汰内燃机
06:01
and do it in terms of its affordability,
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在提高可购性
06:04
add skill volumes, its performance and its durability.
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增加技能卷，提高性能和耐用性方面努力
06:07
So that's what we're driving to for 2010.
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这就是2010年我们要做的工作
06:10
We haven't seen anything yet in our development work
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目前还没发现在研发过程中
06:12
that says that isn't possible.
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有任何迹象表明我们的想法不可行
06:14
We actually think the future's going to be event-driven.
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我们相信未来将为事件所驱动
06:17
So since we can't predict the future,
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虽然我们无法预测未来
06:19
we want to spend a lot of our time
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但是我们会努力
06:20
trying to create that future.
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创造未来
06:22
I'm very, very intrigued by the fact that our cars and trucks
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我们的汽车以及卡车有90%的时间是停着的，
06:26
sit idle 90 percent of the time:
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我对如何挖掘这段时间内车子的潜能很感兴趣
06:28
they're parked, they're parked all around us.
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这些车就停在我们周围
06:30
They're usually parked within 100 feet of the people that own them.
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停在距离他们的所有者不到100英尺的范围内
06:34
Now, if you take the power-generating capability of an automobile
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比较汽车和美国电网
06:37
and you compare that to the electric grid in the United States,
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的发电能力
06:41
it turns out that four percent of the automobiles, the power in four percent of the automobiles,
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汽车电力的四分之一
06:45
equals that of the electric grid of the US.
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相当于美国电网的供电能力
06:48
that's a huge power-generating capability,
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由此可看出汽车发电能力的强大
06:51
a mobile power-generating capability.
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而且还是可移动的发电
06:53
And hydrogen and fuel cells give us that opportunity
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氢燃料电池让我们能够充分利用资源，
06:56
to actually use our cars and trucks when they're parked
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即使汽车和卡车停着的时候也能发电，
06:59
to generate electricity for the grid.
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为电网所用
07:01
And we talked about swarm networks earlier.
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之前我们有谈到群网络
07:03
And talking about the ultimate swarm, about having all of the processors
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最强大的群，是将所有的处理器
07:06
and all of the cars when they're sitting idle
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所有未处于使用状态的汽车
07:08
being part of a global grid for computing capability.
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集合起来，作为具有计算能力的全球电网的一部分
07:12
We find that premise quite exciting.
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这个假想让我们振奋不已
07:14
The automobile becomes, then, an appliance,
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汽车能够成为一种电器
07:17
not in a commodity sense,
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但不是商品意义上的电器
07:18
but an appliance, mobile power, mobile platform
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而是作为一种能够提供信息、计算、通讯的
07:21
for information and computing and communication,
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电器，移动电源，移动平台
07:24
as well as a form of transportation.
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当然也是一种交通工具
07:26
And the key to all of this is to make it affordable,
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但最重要的是我们要让汽车价廉物美
07:29
to make it exciting,
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和令人兴奋，
07:30
to get it on a pathway where there's a way to make money doing it.
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并且有足够的资金进行研发
07:33
And again, this is a pretty big march to take here.
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要实现我们的设想还有很长的路要走
07:36
And a lot of people say,
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许多人担心
07:37
how do you sleep at night when you're rustling with a problem of that magnitude?
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如果考虑这样一个巨大的工程，晚上怎么睡得着
07:40
And I tell them I sleep like a baby:
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我告诉他们我的睡眠就像小婴儿一样
07:41
I wake up crying every two hours.
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每两个小时就醒来哭一次
07:45
Actually the theme of this conference, I think, has hit on really one of the major keys to pull that off --
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我认为这次研讨会的主题，实际上就是策划出关键要素，并予以实现
07:50
and that's relationships and working together.
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那就是关系网的建立与相互合作
07:52
Thank you very much.
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谢谢
07:53
(Applause).
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（掌声）
07:57
Chris Anderson: Larry, Larry, wait, wait, wait, wait, Larry, wait, wait one sec.
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Chris Anderson：Larry,等等，先别走，先等会儿
08:02
Just -- I've got so many questions I could ask you.
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我有很多问题想问你
08:05
I just want to ask one.
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现在就问一个
08:07
You know, I could be wrong about this,
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也许我的想法有误
08:08
but my sense is that in the public mind, today,
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不过在我看来，大众认为
08:12
that GM is not viewed as serious about some of these environmental ideas
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与日本的竞争对手，甚至是福特汽车比起来，
08:19
as some of your Japanese competitors, maybe even as Ford.
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通用汽车对那些环保汽车方面的想法和计划并不严肃认真。
08:22
Are you serious about it,
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你怎么看待这个问题呢
08:25
and not just, you know, when the consumers want it,
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是不是因为消费者的需求
08:29
when the regulators force us to do it we will go there?
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执政者的敦促才开始认真对待这些想法
08:32
Are you guys going to really try and show leadership on this?
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你们通用汽车是不是真的打算在这方面大展拳脚，做领头人
08:34
Larry Burns: Yeah, we're absolutely serious.
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Larry Burns: 那是当然，我们是认真的
08:36
We're into this over a billion dollars already,
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我们已经在这方面投资了十多亿美元
08:39
so I would hope people would think we're serious
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所以当通用汽车花大力气投资时
08:41
when we're spending that kind of money.
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.我希望人们看到我们对环保汽车的诚意，能改变对我们的看法
08:43
And secondly, it's a fundamental business proposition.
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另外，关注环保也应该是企业最基本的任务
08:47
I'll be honest with you:
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老实告诉你：
08:48
we're into it because of business growth opportunities.
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因为环保汽车的发展机会，我们开始予以关注
08:49
We can't grow our business unless we solve these problems.
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如果不解决这些问题，我们的业务就无法继续扩展
08:53
The growth of the auto industry will be capped by sustainability issues
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如果我们不解决这些问题
08:55
if we don't solve the problems.
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汽车行业的发展将会因为可持续发展的问题而受阻
08:57
And there's a simple principle of strategy that says:
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有这么一个简单的战略原则：
09:00
Do unto yourself before others do unto you.
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在他人超越你之前先自己超越自己
09:02
If we can see this possible future, others can too.
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如果我们能看到环保汽车的发展潜能，别人也能
09:05
And we want to be the first one to create it, Chris.
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但我们要做的是成为先驱者
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Larry Burns - Automotive researcherLarry Burns is the vice president of R&D for GM. His job? Find a new way to power cars.
Why you should listen
Larry Burns is on a mission: to reinvent the automobile using nonpolluting hydrogen fuel cells. As the vice president of R&D and strategic planning at GM, he's one of the people who will be called on to lead the US auto industry into its next incarnation.
Burns has been a persistent advocate of hydrogen power and other advanced propulsion and materials technologies for cars. His thinking is, the industry can keep making small energy improvements in the current cars it makes -- or it can take a big leap forward to build a whole new kind of car.
Larry Burns | Speaker | TED.com