Government and industry leaders discuss breakthrough innovations in fuel-efficient automotive technology and weigh in on the future of the challenges of this industry.
Bio
John Heywood
John Heywood is the Sun Jae Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Sloan Automobile Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also codirects MIT's Center for 21st Century Energy.
His research is focused on the design and operating characteristics of internal combustion engines and their fuels requirements, as well as future transportation technologies and their fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. He has also worked on design and manufacturing issues in MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing Program, where he was engineering codirector. He is currently studying the energy and environmental impacts of future technology and fuels.
Elizabeth Lowery
Elizabeth A. Lowery is vice president for environment, energy and safety policy at General Motors. As chief environmental officer, she is responsible for GM's environmental, energy and safety policies worldwide. She is also a member of the North America Strategy Board.
Previously, she was GM North America vice president and general counsel responsible for managing the delivery of legal services. She also managed the environmental and energy practice area of the GM legal staff and was responsible for facility environmental matters, mobile emissions, and energy initiatives on a global basis.
She was involved in the development and adoption of the GM Environmental Principles and also the endorsement of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies Principles.
Jack Riggs
Jack Riggs is a Senior Fellow with the Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Program and was its Executive Director from 1995 to 2006. Riggs previously served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs at the US Department of Energy (1993-95).
Before his years at the Energy Department, Riggs spent 20 years working for the US House of Representatives, including 13 years as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power. Riggs earlier worked in Vietnam and Brazil with the US Agency for International Development and has taught energy policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Riggs has a B.A. from Swarthmore College, where he is a member of the Board of Managers, and a Masters in Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
David Vieau
David Vieau is the president and CEO of A123Systems, where he has led its expansion from initial creation to more than 1,400 employees and more than $250 million in private financing. Previously, he held corporate officer positions at American Power Conversion, serving as vice president of marketing and vice president of worldwide business development and helping the 6,000-employee company become a world leader in power protection for PC and IS markets.
He has more than 30 years of experience and leadership in developing rapid-growth technology and component businesses, and he serves as a board member for Avocent, a leading global provider of IT infrastructure management solutions for enterprise data centers.
Robert James Woolsey
R. James Woolsey is chairman of Woolsey Partners LLC and former United States Director of Central Intelligence, heading the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Specializing in a range of alternative energy and security issues, Woolsey serves in various capacities at VantagePoint Venture Partners, Paladin Capital Group and the law firm Goodwin Procter. Previously, he was a vice president and officer of Booz Allen Hamilton, and a partner at the law firm Shea & Gardner (now Goodwin Procter) in Washington, D.C., where he practiced for 22 years in the fields of civil litigation, arbitration and mediation.
Including his Central Intelligence tenure, Woolsey served in the U.S. government on five different occasions, holding presidential appointments in two Republican and two Democratic administrations. He was ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, under secretary of the Navy, general counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services and part-time delegate at large to the U.S.–Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and Nuclear and Space Arms Talks (NST). As an officer in the U.S. Army, he was an adviser on the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I).
Woolsey serves on a range of government, corporate, and nonprofit advisory boards, chairing several, and has served in the past as a member of boards of directors of a number of publicly and privately held companies, generally in fields related to technology and security. He is a frequent contributor of articles to major publications, and gives public speeches and media interviews on the subjects of foreign affairs, defense, energy, and intelligence. Having received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University, Woolsey earned a master's degree at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and a law degree from Yale Law School.
Sounding Like an 'educated' Sales Presentation ~ But only Coming to End of Section 11. This may be a premature comment. ~~~~ My Apologies; Good questions in Section 12/13, decent answers.
Plug in might be cheaper; however what is the point of going that direction if it is still using coal? What are the Numbers for equivalent MPG in Coal, CO2, Supply Timeline etc...? $0.015 Is purely economical & electric political, not the ecological footprint --
member. 
