"Lawrence D. "Larry" Burns" is the former corporate vice president of Research and development/Research and Development for General Motors. Burns oversaw GM's advanced technology, innovation programs, and corporate strategy. He was a member of GM’s Automotive Strategy Board and Automotive Product Board. Within GM, he personally championed vehicle electrification, “connected” vehicles, fuel cells, bio-fuels, advanced batteries, autonomous driving, and a series of innovative concept vehicles. He has been a leading advocate for design and technology innovation focused on the total customer experience and the application of operations research. [http://www.earth.columbia.edu/videos/watch/116]. He is a co-author of Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century.

Burns was invited to speak at the 2005 TED (conference)/TED Conference.

In 2011, Burns was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

More Larry Burns on Wikipedia.

I polled members of this council separately and it's generally thought we have to work together. But it was a lack of careful consideration that got us into the situation we're in today.

My arm is real tired because my hand has been extended for six months. Two weeks ago I said that Wilkinson was trying to drive a wedge in our relationship, now this has driven a stake into my heart.

In every study we've done, fuel cells surface as the most promising long-term pathway for the industry -- even if you use fossil fuels, like natural gas, as the source of hydrogen.

It points to a growing interest among businesses in using fuel cells to power factories and buildings. The most compelling reason for GM to collaborate with Dow is ultimately to reduce the cost of fuel cells and improve their durability so that we may put them in cars by the end of the decade.

We don't see this as a question of whether. We see it as a question of when.

The postal service operates everywhere in the U.S., giving us maximum flexibility to expand the relationship in areas or regions where a hydrogen infrastructure gets kicked off.

They were there first. That's an advantage to have had real experience with real customers.

This is gonna work out. We've worked too hard on this to see it not work out.

Our technology strategy is, in the near term, to improve our gasoline and diesel engines, and for the medium term, we're heavily focused on hybrids.