GM About Energy Solutions, ‘Building What Customer Wants’
February 07, 2008

By Bill Visnic

CHICAGO – Kicking off media days at the Chicago Auto Show, Troy Clarke, General Motors Corp. group vice president and president, GM North America, said GM, like the presidential candidates in the news, has a new platform in order to win the “vote” of U.S. customers. That platform: “energy solutions.”

Clarke said GM is determined to proceed with future vehicle-development programs that focus on “what people want to buy, not what we may want to sell them.”

He said society will be increasingly focused on fuel efficiency and sustainability, and GM will listen to the voice of the customer and leverage fast-moving technical developments to provide potentially grand new advances. Clarke cited a study that said there will be a 40-fold increase in scientific innovation between now and 2023, adding the “apparent” energy solutions of today may be rendered irrelevant by such quick-moving innovation.

“Our vision of the future is based on technology,” he said.

Clarke also took the opportunity to mention GM is ramping up its current energy-efficiency technologies, noting the company sold about 59,000 “fuel-efficient crossovers” in 2001 and half a million in 2007. He said GM’s new midsize crossovers — GMC Acadia, Saturn Outlook and Buick Enclave, as well as the Chevrolet Traverse unveiled here — are an example of providing the kind of vehicles customers want, noting, “We can’t keep Enclave on showroom floors.”

Moreover, GM will have a total of eight distinct hybrid-electric vehicles on sale by the end of this year, Clarke said.

He concluded with what is becoming a repetitive message from GM: Ethanol is the best near-term solution to reduce the nation’s dependence on crude oil and to cut emissions. And he implored the government to take action to increase the number of ethanol pumps at service stations, the lack of which GM  said hampers the potential impact of ethanol usage.

Clarke said Chevrolet’s 2009 HHR will be the company’s first vehicle with a 4-cylinder engine capable of burning either E85 (85 percent ethanol/15 percent gasoline) or conventional gasoline.

GM currently has about 2.5 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road and Clarke said by 2012 half of all GM vehicles produced will be flex-fuel capable. He also said Coskata Inc., a startup company with which GM recently partnered to produce ethanol from cellulosic waste products, has itself partnered with a company experienced in building ethanol-production facilities. By 2011, GM and Coskata hope to have a plant in operation to annually produce up to 100 million gallons of cellulose-derived ethanol.

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