Lawrence D. Burns is the former corporate vice president of

Research and Development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

for

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

. 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 before his retirement in 2009

He is the author of ''Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car—And How It Will Reshape Our World'' and 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 The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

for leadership and technical contributions to automotive technologies. Burns advises organizations on the future of mobility, logistics, manufacturing, energy and innovation. His clients include

Waymo Waymo LLC, formerly known as the Google self-driving car project, is an American autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google. Waymo opera ...

(previously Google Self-Driving Cars), Peloton Technology and Kitson & Partners.

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General Motors
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TED Talks: Larry Burns on the future of cars
(TED2005) Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American businesspeople University of Michigan faculty University of Michigan alumni {{automobile-bio-stub