Reporter: With the situation with layoffs and the lack of profit... why would GM want to continue to pour money into a development project such as the Volt (electric car) or any other advanced car, and will you continue to do that
记者：在很多工人面临下岗、公司面临 低利润的困境下，为什么通用汽车还要 继续投资诸如雪佛兰Volt (电车）或者 是其他高级汽车的发展项目呢？你们将 会继续这样做下去吗？
Wagoner: Taking your second question first. Yes, we certainly will continue it and the reason we’re doing it is because-certainly we have to make some adjustments given current weak market conditions—but we’re focused on the future and convinced that we’re in a period of change in the auto industry. Things like battery development and applying batteries to cars, as we’re planning on doing with the Volt, is important for the next 100 years of the auto industry.
瓦格纳我首先回答第二个问题：是的， 我们当然会继续做下去，这样做的原因是 因为……当然，考虑到现如今疲软的市场 环境，我们会作适当的调整，但是我们这 是着眼未来并且相信，我们现在正处于汽 车工业的一个改革阶段。我们现在正在对 雪佛兰Volt所做的，包括电池的发展以 及将电池应用到汽车上的事情，对于未来 100年的汽车工业的发展是很重要的。
Reporter: You say 100 years. Is it sooner than that Are you looking too far ahead maybe
记者：您说的是100年，不会比那早吗？ 100年距离现在会不会有些太远了？
Wagoner: Well, hopefully we’ll begin to build these in about two years, maybe a little more than two years. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we had about 100 years of an auto industry in which 98 percent of the energy to power the vehicles has come from oil. We’re really going to change that over the next time period. Very different I think from a paradigm we’ve all grown up with.
瓦格纳希望我们可以在两年的时间内开始着手做这些事情，也可能会稍多于 两年。我想说的是，我们的汽车工业已 经有差不多100年的历史了，而其中 98%的汽车能源都来自于石油。在接下 来的这个时间段，我们真的想要改变这 一局面，我想那将与我们所熟悉的模式 有很大的区别。
Reporter: You are of course still making gasoline powered cars. Will they continue into the long-range future or is the era over
记者：你们现在仍然在制造以汽油为动 力的汽车，这一现象会一直持续到将来 还是在这个时代即将结束了呢？
Wagoner: Well, my crystal ball is not that clear, but I suspect for a long time we’ll continue to offer gasoline powered vehicles. If we want to move away from the heavy reliance on oil, we're going to have to begin to introduce these new technologies. You know the rate at which they grow—I mean, I hope they grow fast because I see the demand for oil growing quite strong because of the developments in placing like China and India —so I think it’s in all of our interests to promote the development of these industries. But I guess we’re going to have to see can we get them to market Can we get them to be cost efficient Can we meet the consumer expectations And if we can, I think they will grow pretty rapidly
瓦格纳：这个我不太确定，但是我猜我 们在很长一段时间内仍会制造汽油动力 的汽车，如果我们想摆脱对汽油的严重 依赖的话，那我们就必须要开始引进那 些先进的技术。您知道它们的增长速度 是怎样的，我的意思是，我希望它们很 快地增长因为我们看到了由于中国和印 度等国家的发展，人们对于石油的需求 急剧增长，所以我认为，促进这些产业 的发展是对我们都有利的。但是我们必 须要考虑，我们能够让它们上市吗？我 们能够使它们物有所值吗？我们能够达 到消费者的期望值吗？如果我们能做到 的话，那我想这个产业就会发展得很快。
Reporter： If you’re a betting man—and you probably are - would you bet on hydrogen fuel cells; would you bet on electricity; would you bet on a plug-in hybrid What do you think
记者：如果您是一个喜欢打赌的人，可 能您本身就是，那您是愿意将赌注压在 氢燃料电池、电力或是插件程序上吗？ 您是怎样认为的呢？
Wagoner: Well, at this point we’re betting on all three because we think different technologies might work best in different conditions. Urban conditions, suburban, whatever. And at this point our crystal balls aren’t clear enough to tell us for sure which technologies will work. And frankly, a lot of the things we learn about creating electrically driven vehicles, driven by a battery, you also need to know that to apply to a fuel cell powered vehicle - a lot of the electronics. So a lot of the learning we，re doing really applies to all those kinds of vehicles. So we think today it’s a good use of our money to work hard on all three of those.
瓦格纳：嗯，现在我们同时倾向于这三 个方向，因为我们认为不同的技术在不 同的条件下可能会发挥到最好，不管是 城市条件、郊区条件还是什么的。我们 并不能明确地知道哪种技术将会发挥作用。坦率的说，关于制造电力动力的交 通工具、电池动力的交通工具，我们已 经有所了解，我们还需要了解那些以应 用到燃料电池为动力的汽车上，所以我 们现在正在学习的很多内容都可以应用 到那些种类的交通工具上。因此，我认 为现在投资这三类汽车都是值得的。
Reporter: How much do you think that new push comes from, for example, the California Air Resources Board pushing you, saying you’ve got to do it, we’re going to make you do it, we’re going to have restrictions, we’re going to have quotas And how much of it is internal and just related to the customer
记者：您认为，从多大程度上来说那些 制造新动力汽车的想法来自于比如加州 空气资源协会这样的外部环境呢？因为 他们说你们必须要那样做，我们要求你 们那样做，我们会有一定的限制和定 量。又有多少动力是来自于公司内部， 是考虑到消费者的需求而产生的呢？
Wagoner: Well, I think in the end for this to work, it has got to be driven by the customer base. And I think different people have different views of the role of regulations pushing. What I’ve seen around the world is if the regulatory desires are combined with things that affect consumer behavior-such as in Europe they tax gasoline very heavily-you do get people to move to very fuel efficient cars; trade off bigger vs. smaller cars. What’s in the end important is ‘what do consumers want to buy’ And my sense is that consumers’ attitudes are quite different today than they were when gas was $2 a gallon.
瓦格纳：我认为，这项计划最终能够实 行就是建立在消费者的基础上的，不同 的人对于规章所带来的动力会有不同的 看法。我所看到的是，如果能够把规章 和能够影响消费者行为的事情结合起 来，比如在欧洲，他们对汽油上的税很 高，那我们就能够驱使人们去买低油耗 的车，以小车代替大车。而在最终，一 个重要的问题是，消费者想要买什么样 的车。我的看法是，人们现在的态度与 以前1加仑汽油2美元的时候的态度相 比，已经不同了。
Reporter: So consumers want to buy electric; they want to buy hybrids at this point
记者：所以消费者想要买电力的、氢燃 料的汽车吗？
Wagoner: I think so. I think it’s changed quite a bit. I’m not saying all consumers, and what’s important to keep in mind is consumers expect value out of this, so they’re not necessarily willing to pay significant premiums for these technologies. So our challenge is to develop them, the technologies，get them to market and make sure that we provide them at a price that the consumer sees the value. And if we do all that, I think they will really embrace the technologies.
瓦格纳：我想是的，人们的看法已经改 变了很多，我指的不是所有的消费者， 我们要记住的重要一点是，消费者期望 从中得到一定的价值，所以他们不一定 愿意在这些技术上额外地多花钱。所以 我们的挑战是开发这些技术，然后投入到市场，最终确保我们提供 的价格能让消费者看到实际 的价值。如果我们都做到了， 我想他们会真正欢迎并接受 这些技术的。
Reporter: What do you say to people who maybe don’t buy that and say the oil companies and the car companies are really invested in keeping us in a gasoline economy, and especially they have been in the past, today
记者：有的人不会买那样的 车，他们会说，正是石油公 司和汽车公司的结合才使我 们生活在汽油经济的时代， 对于过去来说尤其如此，您 会对他们说什么呢？这是真的吗，对于 当今来说它还是真的吗？
Wagoner: It’s certainly not true today and I don’t think it was true in the past. I mean, the auto industry and the oil industry have worked together on things like fuel blends, but other than that, I think frankly we’ve operated pretty much at arms length the entire time I’ve been involved in senior positions. So it’s true, the infrastructure is petroleum based, so that’s the easy thing to do with the next car. But I think for a variety of reasons we’re going to need to move away from that. In the auto industry, we have a responsibility to lead that. We can’t do it alone, but we have a responsibility to lead that. And I hear some of the oil companies, the heads, talking about developing alternative kind of energies in the future, so I suspect they’re seeing some of the things we are—maybe on different time frames than we see.
瓦格纳：现在当然不是真的，而且我也不 认同以前是那样的。我的意思是，汽车公 司和石油公司只是在诸如混合燃料等方面 有合作，但是除此之外，坦白的说在我在 高级职位工作的时间内，我们并没有太多 的交集。我们在基础设施方面，是以汽油 为基础的，所以对制造下一辆汽车来说， 那是件很容易的事情。但是我认为，很多 原因都使得我们必须要改变那种情况。在 汽车产业中，我们有责任带头那样做，我 们不能够单独做，但是我们有责任起到带 头作用。我听到一些石油公司的领导人谈 论有关未来发展其他能源的问题，所以我 想他们也意识到了我们所想到的事情，也 许只是时间不同的问题。
Reporter: There was a discussion recently in this area, especially with the Tesla (electric car manufacturer) and other car manufacturers, smaller ones, trying to get going, saying, “you know, we wonder if Silicon Valley may be the next Detroit ” What do you think
记者：最近在这一领域有个讨论，尤其 是关于特斯拉（电力汽车制造商）和其 他一些小型的汽车制造商，他们试图采 取行动，并且说，我们想知道硅谷是否 会成为下一个底特律？您对此的看法是 什么呢？
Wagoner: Well，certainly, there have been some interesting developments here (in Silicon Valley) and there’s a lot of smart people and obviously some tremendously deep engineering capability—all of which could be helpful to us. We have a lot of different standards we need to meet with automobiles and we and our competitors in the industry have a lot of experience in that and have a lot of experience in high-volume, high-quality manufacturing. I think that’s worth a lot. So we welcome the chance to work with others, but I suspect, you know, 10，20 years from today, companies like GM will be the ones that can really lead the mass adoption of these technologies.
瓦格纳：当然，现在硅谷已经有了一些 很有趣的发展，那里有很多聪明的人，那里也有很强大的工程能力，那对于我 们都是有所帮助的。制造汽车，我们要 满足很多不同的标准，对此，我们以及 我们在这个领域的竞争者都很有经验， 并且在大容量、高质量的汽车制造方面 我们也是很有经验的。我认为那是很值 得的，所以我们期盼有机会能够与他人 进行合作，但是我想，在10年或20年 之后，像通用汽车这样的公司将会成为 大量采用新技术制造汽车的带头人。
Reporter: And when you say it’s scale, you mean you’ve got to make enough of these things. You can’t just make a few.
记者：当你说那是规模问题时，你的意 思就是你们必须要做足够多，而不仅仅
Wagoner: Yeah. Look, it’s fine if you’re making 1,000 or 2,000 of an electric car and I think there is value in that in a lot of ways, but it’s not going to have a big dent in oil consumption in the country, or C02 emissions. What’s going to have a big dent is if you can do 100,000, 200,000, 500,000, a million units. And that’s really what you have to do if you’re going to make term trend in the growth of petroleum C02 emissions. We’ve got to get a lot of volume out of this out here over time if we，re really going to make a difference in those areas.
瓦格纳是的。我想，如果你现在能够 制造1000或2000辆电力汽车，那很 好，而且从很多方面来说 都很有价值，但是那不会 对国家现今的耗油量或者 二氧化碳排放量有很大的 影响，如果能够制造出10 万、20万、50万或100 万辆的话，那将会给我们 带来很大的改变。而那才 是我们真正需要做的事 情，以减少二氧化碳的高排放量。如果 我们要在这些领域有很大影响的话，我 们就必须要努力减少其排放量。
Reporter: But I wonder if Tesla, for example, or some of the others are in effect pushing you to get to that point. You see what they’re doing and we’ve got to catch up or we’ve got to surpass it.
记者：但是我想知道，诸如特斯拉或者 其他的公司所做的事情是否能够真正有 助于你们实现那些目标。你知道他们现 在都在做些什么，我们必须要赶上他们 或者是超过他们。
Wagoner: We’ve watched with admiration what Tesla a difference in what is a long is doing and have had a chance to talk to some of their people and view their progress. But I think to be honest, to do really large-scale manufacturing of those，we would have to use quite a different process. So, we are fascinated to see a lot of people interested in what they’re doing and we’re cheerleading for their success. And if we can learn from that, we will. I’m not sure that the processes that work for production units of 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 are what gets us to the breakthrough, but if we can learn from that, we’ll be glad to do that.
瓦格纳：我们很钦佩特斯拉正在做的事 情，也很感激能有机会能够与他们的一些工作人员进行交流，并看到他们的进 步。但是坦白说，我认为想要大规模的 进行那类汽车生产，我们必须要采用不 同的流程。所以我们很高兴看到工作人 员对此都很有兴趣，我们为他们的成功 而欢呼。如果我们能够从中学习到什 么，我们会去学习的。但是我不确定， 用于生产100、1000或10000辆单位的 汽车流程能否帮助我们取得突破，但是 如果我们能从中学习到东西的话，我们 会乐意学的。
Reporter: And when do you see the big changes coming which you seem to imply are going to happen
记者：您认为即将发生的最大的变化会 是什么呢？
Wagoner: I guess I can’t give you that completely. I mean a couple of things to keep in mind: We are pushing to try to get this Volt out at the end of 2010. So, I think hopefully we’ll begin to see an acceleration of the battery-driven at that time. We’ll have eight hybrid models by the end of ’08 in the US So hopefully that will begin to get some momentum over the following years.
瓦格纳：我想我无法给你一个完整的 答案，我们应该将以下几件事情谨记 于心：我们要努力在2010年底时推出 Volt类的汽车，在那个时候我们希望能 够看到电池动力汽车加速发展。在2008 年底，我们将在美国制造8辆氢燃料动 力汽车的模型，希望那会成为接下来的 几年中汽车制造业的一个里程碑。