Could GM's Salvation Be Stuff of Science Fiction?
2008年01月08日10:18
身陷亏损窘境通用汽车公司(General Motors Corp.)准备斥资数百万美元来研发自动驾驶汽车，而长期以来人们都认为这种汽车只能在科幻小说中驰骋。
Mired in the gloomy reality of a money-losing present, General Motors Corp. is prepared to spend millions of dollars in pursuit of something long viewed as science fiction: a car that drives itself.
通用汽车的董事长兼首席执行长瓦格纳(Rick Wagoner)将在周二举行的拉斯维加斯消费电子展(Consumer Electronics Show)上发表主题演讲，介绍通用汽车的宏伟目标。为了让买家对自己改变看法，通用汽车付出了诸多努力，这只是其中之一。在瓦格纳看来，在不远的将来，集成了照相机、传感器、雷达和导航技术的汽车将能自动刹车和加速，会自己避免交通事故并预判出交通拥堵路段。他下定决心要让通用汽车成为该领域的领军者。
Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will outline GM's ambitions tomorrow in a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as part of a larger effort to change buyers' perceptions of the auto giant. In Mr. Wagoner's vision of the not-too-distant future, vehicles crammed with cameras, sensors, radar and navigation technology will be able to brake and accelerate on their own, avoid accidents and spot congestion. And he's determined to have GM be seen as leading the way.
通用汽车的首席技术专家、瓦格纳的知己拉里?伯恩斯(Larry Burns)在上周接受访问时表示，通用汽车注意到原先基本上可以归入机械范畴的汽车正在越来越向电子化方向转型，他们认为在所有的汽车生产商中，通用汽车在全力推进这一趋势方面处于最有利的地位。
'We see vehicles going from being largely mechanical to becoming more and more electronic,' Larry Burns, chief technologist at GM and a confidant of Mr. Wagoner's, said in an interview last week. 'We can think of no auto maker that is better positioned to fully leverage this trend than us.'
在瓦格纳制定的振兴通用汽车，并与丰田汽车(Toyota Motor Corp.)相竞争的长期战略中，提高技术含量是其中的重要环节。他坚信，如果通用能在那些能改变游戏规则的创新技术上抢占先机，那么这将会解决通用汽车形像不佳这一根本问题。
Pushing the technological envelope is a key element of Mr. Wagoner's strategy for turning GM around and positioning the company to compete with Toyota Motor Corp. in the long term. He is convinced being the first with game-changing innovations is the solution to one of GM's fundamental problems -- its battered image.
与同在底特律的竞争对手福特汽车公司(Ford Motor Co.)和克莱斯勒(Chrysler LLC)一样，为了在北美市场实现盈利、夺回失去的市场份额，通用汽车一直在苦苦挣扎。造成这种状况的原因之一是很多消费者在产品质量问题上都是一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳，虽然这些问题现在基本都得到了解决，但他们仍然认为该公司发展缓慢，进而断然拒绝购买通用生产的汽车。
Like its crosstown rivals Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC, General Motors has struggled to make money and regain market share in North America in part because many consumers who were burned by GM's quality problems -- largely now a thing of the past -- still view the company as plodding and slow, and flatly refuse to drive GM vehicles.
瓦格纳拒绝就本文接收采访，但通用汽车的美国销售和市场总监马克?拉尼夫(Mark LaNeve)上周表示，公司相信必须在领先技术上挑战丰田，以此扭转购买者对通用汽车的负面看法，并重新赢回那些转投外国汽车生产商的顾客。
Mr. Wagoner declined to be interviewed for this article but Mark LaNeve, GM's U.S. sales and marketing chief, said last week that GM believes it must challenge Toyota on technology leadership in order to reverse the negative perception of GM and to win back customers who have defected to foreign makes.
拉尼夫说，很明显，目前丰田的声誉、财务状况和很多其他指标都处于领先地位，通用汽车需要取得这样的地位。
'Toyota right now clearly has a leadership position on reputation, financial results, many other measures,' Mr. LaNeve said. 'That's the position we need to attain.'
推动自动驾驶汽车的制造并非通用汽车唯一一个正在进行中的“登月”计划。瓦格纳还批准斥资进十亿美元在几年内推出电池动力汽车雪佛兰 Volt (Chevrolet Volt)。同时，该公司还正在研发氢燃料电池车。在拉斯维加斯消费电子展上，瓦格纳将展示一款用燃料电池驱动的凯迪拉克(Cadillac)概念车，该车能将氢转换成动力，而产生的废物只有水和热量。
The push to produce cars that can drive themselves isn't the only moon-shot project GM has in the works. Mr. Wagoner has also greenlighted a nearly billion-dollar effort to launch a battery-powered car, called the Chevrolet Volt, within a few years. At the same time, the company is working on vehicles that use hydrogen fuel cells. In Las Vegas Mr. Wagoner will show a Cadillac concept car powered by fuel cells, which would convert hydrogen into power while leaving behind only water and heat as waste.
这样做风险很大，因为汽车技术发展缓慢，比如今天的内燃机与100年前的就没有多大的改变。
It's a big risk. Technology moves slowly in the auto industry. Today's internal combustion engines are not radically different than those of 100 years ago.
虽然丰田旗下的普锐斯(Prius)混合动力车罕见地大获成功，但该公司在推动技术进步方面的很多努力还是以失败告终。丰田的雷克萨斯(Lexus)推出了一款能自动平行停车的豪华轿车，但这项功能对销售却没起多大的促进作用。其竞争对手大众汽车(Volkswagen AG)旗下的奥迪(Audi)甚至还对这项功能进行了嘲讽：大众有则广告称奥迪A4是为“那些自己会停车的人士而打造的一款豪华轿车”，广告中一辆奥迪A4在漂亮地转了180度后，完美地停在了车位里。
Toyota has one of the rare technology hits in its Prius gas-electric hybrid, but many attempts at moving the state of the art forward don't pan out. Toyota's Lexus division introduced a luxury sedan that can parallel park itself, but the feature hasn't done much for sales. One competitor, Volkswagen AG's Audi, even lampoons the feature: An ad touting the Audi A4 as 'the luxury car for people who can park themselves' shows the sedan screeching into a parking space in a controlled 180-degree spin.
本世纪早些时候，宝马汽车公司(BMW AG)推出了iDrive功能，汽车仪表盘上的一个旋钮可以象计算机鼠标一样控制车上的收音机、空调和其他电子设备。但很多顾客发现这个功能过于复杂，有些人甚至将其戏称为“why drive”（iDrive的谐音，意为为什么要开车）。
Earlier this decade BMW AG introduced iDrive, a knob in the center console that is used like a computer mouse for operating a vehicle's radio, climate control and other electronics. But many customers found it overly complicated; some derisively called it 'why drive.'
瓦格纳提出的由通用汽车引领自动驾驶领域的主张实为一场赌博。如果该技术最后失败了，将可能使通用汽车蒙羞，而不会改变人们的观念。上周瓦格纳还在一次网上聊天中承认，电池动力汽车Volt可能无法按计划于2010年前推出。
Mr. Wagoner is taking a gamble in suggesting GM will lead the way to vehicles that drive themselves. If the technology doesn't work, it could turn into an embarrassment rather than a mind-changer. Just last week Mr. Wagoner acknowledged in an online chat that the battery-powered Volt might not be ready by GM's target of 2010.
虽然通用汽车还有足够的现金维持数年的运营，但它的资源并不是无穷无尽的。去年第三财季该公司亏损了390亿美元，而且公司暗示在短期内不太可能扭亏为盈。
And while GM has enough cash to keep it going for several years, its resources aren't unlimited. It lost $39 billion in the third quarter and has indicated it's unlikely to make money soon.
通用汽车管理人员称，在周二的演讲中，瓦格纳将证明自动驾驶汽车与我们的距离实际上比很多人以为的要近。
In his speech tomorrow, Mr. Wagoner will argue that autonomous vehicles are actually closer than many people would believe, GM officials said.
伯恩斯说，先进电子器件成本的大幅下降应会在未来10年中为自动驾驶汽车领域带来一些重大进步，问题是什么时候这种趋势才能形成气候。
Mr. Burns said that the rapidly declining cost of advanced electronics should lead to 'several significant advancements in this arena over the next decade.' The question, he added, 'is when will a tipping point take place.'
他还说，自动驾驶应包含的一些功能现在已经能够实现。很多汽车都装配有能够控制引擎和制动以防止打滑的电子设备。一些豪华轿车还有“自适应巡航控制系统”(adaptive cruise control)，可以自动制动或加速来保持与前车的设定距离。现在数百万辆在路上行驶的车都装有通用汽车开发的OnStar通讯系统。未来这项技术可能会成为交通事故预防技术的核心，当两辆配备了通讯系统的汽车有相撞的危险时，事故预防技术就会及时发挥作用。
He also said some of the building blocks needed for an autonomous vehicle already exist. Many cars have electronics that take control of the engine and brakes to avoid skids. Some luxury cars have 'adaptive cruise control;' they can brake or accelerate automatically to maintain a set distance to a vehicle in front. Millions of vehicles on the road now have GM's OnStar communications system. In the future it could provide the backbone for accident avoidance technology that kicks in if two vehicles equipped with communications systems are in danger of colliding.
在拉斯维加斯消费电子展上，瓦格纳将展示一款能自动驾驶和导航的试验性运动型多用途车(SUV)。这款名为Tahoe Boss的汽车是由通用汽车和卡内基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon University)的一个小组共同研发而成的，曾在2007年11月份美国国防部(Defense Department)举办的竞赛上获得了200万美元的最高奖。在该次竞赛上，参赛的无人驾驶车辆必须在一个模拟的市区环境中穿行60英里。
In Las Vegas, Mr. Wagoner will show an experimental sport-utility vehicle already capable of driving and navigating on its own. Developed by GM and a team from Carnegie Mellon University, the Tahoe Boss in November competed in a Defense Department competition in which unmanned vehicles had to travel 60 miles through a mock urban environment. It won the $2 million first prize.
尽管如此，自动驾驶技术仍然需要很长时间才能进入商用领域，而且也不能保证通用汽车就是第一个推出该技术的公司。其他几家汽车生产商也在开发自动驾驶汽车。丰田和大众都研发出与通用汽车相似的试验性汽车。奔驰汽车制造商戴姆勒公司(Daimler AG)目前生产采用了“主动制动辅助”(active brake assist)技术的卡车，它能扫描前方路面上的障碍物或是行驶速度有所放缓的车辆，并在司机反应不及时进行制动。
Still, the technology is a long way from commercial use, and there's no guarantee GM will be first to offer it. Several other auto makers are also working toward autonomous vehicles. Both Toyota and Volkswagen have experimental vehicles like GM's. Daimler AG, maker of Mercedes-Benz vehicles, now builds trucks with 'active brake assist' technology that scans the road ahead for obstacles or slowing vehicles and brakes if the driver is slow to respond.
《汉森机动车电子报告》(Hansen Report on Automotive Electronics)的出版商保罗?汉森(Paul Hansen)说，他认为自动驾驶汽车要真正上路还需要很长一段时间。不过他赞赏通用汽车做出的努力。
Paul Hansen, publisher of the Hansen Report on Automotive Electronics, said he thinks the likelihood of autonomous vehicles hitting the road in the foreseeable future is remote. Nevertheless, he applauds GM efforts.
汉森说，他认为通用汽车这样做是为了让人们意识到它的科技水平比人们有时认为的要高；大家会这样想，如果他们能造一辆自动驾驶汽车，那么他们也绝对能造一辆很棒的凯迪拉克。
'I think GM does things like this to help people realize GM is higher tech than sometimes they get credit for,' Mr. Hansen said. 'People will say to themselves, 'If they could build a car that drives itself, then they can surely build a great Cadillac.''
John D. Stoll
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