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| CAR INDUSTRY: DIVERSITY OF ENERGY SOURCES THE KEY |
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“I don't think we have to invent anything to do it. We just have to have the will to do it.”
Commenting on the eratic cost of oil, Burns says it will always spike up and down. “But basically we are planning our business on the assumption it's going to be staying in the $80 range – that's a long-term number,” he says.
“Could it drop a little lower? Possibly, but that's up from planning the business around $40 a varrel a few years ago, so what we're seeing is fundamentally a demand-driven oil shock.”
But what will it take for the industry to diversify?
“We've got to get the big numbers. So many people will jump at the conclusion that a hybrid is going to solve everybody's problems. . . . but the numbers are just too big to solve just with hybrids. I think that's the case with most green technologies.
“When we're talking about a world with the population that we have, and the inertia in the way we do things today, if we don't penetrate that 70 to 80 million vehicle-a-year production with something dramatically different than the internal combustion engine, it's not going to matter.”
Burns agrees we are now at a critical point for change in the auto industry.
“What's going to play out in the next five years in the industry could set up the next 50 – whether you're talking propulsion technology, telematics technology or the globalisation of the industry. And the winners and losers are going to be sorted out as we deal with future regulations. It's really an exciting times,” he says.
It's probably more apt to describe it as “trying times”, demonstrated by GM's closure of plants and culling of staff at all levels of the organisation.
