励志演讲 :汽车的未来(1)
People love their automobiles. They allow us to go where we want to when we want to. They're a form of entertainment, they're a form of art, a pride of ownership. Songs are written about cars. Prince wrote a great song: "Little Red Corvette." He didn't write "Little Red Laptop Computer" or "Little Red Dirt Devil." He wrote about a car. And one of my favorites has always been, "Make love to your man in a Chevy van," because that was my vehicle when I was in college.
人人都爱车。有了车，我们就能随时随地前往我们想去的地方。车是一种娱乐形式，是一种艺术形式，是一种拥有的骄傲。有许多关于汽车的歌曲。王子（Prince）写了一首很棒的《小小红色雪佛兰》。他写的不是《小小红色笔记本电脑》，也不是《小小红色吸尘器》，而是关于一辆车的歌曲。我最喜欢的一首是《在雪佛兰里做爱吧》，因为雪佛兰是我大学时期的座驾。
The fact is, when we do our market research around the world, we see that there's nearly a universal aspiration on the part of people to own an automobile. And 750 million people in the world today own a car. And you say, boy, that's a lot. But you know what? That's just 12 percent of the population. We really have to ask the question: Can the world sustain that number of automobiles? And if you look at projections over the next 10 to 15 to 20 years, it looks like the world car park could grow to on the order of 1.1 billion vehicles. Now, if you parked those end to end and wrapped them around the Earth, that would stretch around the Earth 125 times.
实际上，当我们在做世界范围的市场调研时，发现人们对拥有一辆车都是充满渴望的。现在全球有7.5亿人拥有汽车。你可能说，哇，这么多。但你们知道么？这个数字仅仅是全球人口的12%。我们真的不得不产生这样的疑问：地球经受得了这么多车么？如果你注意到对未来10年、15年至20年的预测，你会发现世界上停车场的数量将会增长到能容纳下几乎11亿辆车。如果将这些车首尾相连绕地球停放，那么其长度将是地球周长的125倍。
Now, we've made great progress with automobile technology over the last 100 years. Cars are dramatically cleaner, dramatically safer, more efficient and radically more affordable than they were 100 years ago. But the fact remains: the fundamental DNA of the automobile has stayed pretty much the same. If we are going to reinvent the automobile today, rather than 100 years ago, knowing what we know about the issues associated with our product and about the technologies that exist today, what would we do?
在过去的100年里，汽车技术取得了很大进步。汽车变得更加清洁、安全、髙效。比起100年前，现在汽车已成为大众消费品，而不是让我们望而兴叹的东西。但实际上，汽车的基本构造功能并没有多大改变。如果我们不是在100年前，而是在今天来重新发明汽车，已经知道汽车的各种缺陷之后，结合现在的各种先进技术，我们会如何制造汽车？
重点讲解：
1. a form of
类型；类别；种类；
eg. I regard reading as a form of recreation.
我把看书当作一种消遣的形式。
eg. Walking, done in the right way, is a form of aerobic exercise.
走路，如果方法正确的话，也是一种有氧健身运动。
2. rather than
而非；胜于；而不是；
eg. This process is an art rather than a science.
这一过程更像是艺术而不是科学。
eg. Circumstances dictated that they played a defensive rather than attacking game.
比赛形势决定了他们要打防守战而不是进攻战。
3. be associated with
（与…）相关的；相联系的；
eg. In children's minds, summers are associated with picnics.
在孩子们看来，夏天总是和郊游连在一起的。
eg. There are many serious health hazards associated with smoking.
许多危害健康的情况都与吸烟有关。
4. know about
了解，掌握（某一学科）；
eg. Here are a few facets you might not know about.
但有些事情你可能未必知道。
eg. Now I want to know about this thing from beginning to end.
我现在想源源本本地了解此事。
背景资料：
拉里·伯恩斯（Larry Burns）是美国通用汽车研发部副总裁。2005年，他在TED大会上作了本篇演讲，描述了汽车的未来。拉里·伯恩斯的工作就是寻找一种提供汽车动力来源的新方法。其中一项任务是：使用零污染的氢燃料电池重新改造汽车。身为通用汽车公司研发部副总裁，他是美国冀望带领汽车工业进入下一轮发展的典型人选之一。他坚持提倡使用氢气能源和其他先进汽车动力及材料技术。他的想法是：使目前的汽车持续达成小幅的能源改进，或者可以向前跨出一大步，建立一种全新的车款。“通用汽车不能使其业务成长受限于能源、安全和环境问题。我们需要使内燃机有所变革，因为这个技术基本上120年未曾改变。”
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