Executive Interview: Rick Wagoner

Motor Age: Describe the pace of change in the electrical content in automobiles.

Wagoner: The electronics industry stays young by continually reinventing itself. From vacuum tubes of every shape and size, to transistors and integrated circuits, to semiconductors and supercomputers, to Internet and wireless communications, the breakthroughs keep coming. In just the last five years, the electronics content of the typical automobile has increased by almost 50 percent.

Motor Age: What cutting-edge electronic applications are on the horizon?

Wagoner: At GM, we intend to stay young by reinventing the automobile, with a lot of that based on electronics. OnStar, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, autonomous driving, advanced propulsion and electrically driven vehicles all point to a convergence of the auto and electronics industries that is literally transforming the automobile and the global auto industry.

Motor Age: What do you see as the drivers of the electronics revolution?

Wagoner: As we face the reality of rapidly growing global demand for our products in light of society's legitimate energy and environmental concerns, there can be no doubt that electronics will play an even bigger role in our industry's second century than it did in our first. We believe the future of the automobile is extraordinarily bright and truly electronic.

Motor Age: How would you describe your vision regarding electronics?

Wagoner: When we connect the dots — from mechanically driven to electrically driven, from energized by petroleum to energized by electricity, from powered by internal combustion to powered by electric motors, from mechanically and hydraulically controlled to electronically and digitally controlled, from operated in isolation to being fully connected — GM believes we have the ability to create cars and trucks that are cleaner, safer, "smarter" and more exciting than ever before.