Charles Pelly

Ultimately, auto designers need to overcome market challenges with innovative design solutions. The automotive industry is at a turning point with environmental and economic conditions on one side and breakthrough technology on the other, so it will be fascinating to see how these design leaders envision the future.

I think there could be more experimentation if car companies didn't have to make such huge volumes. If you're making 300,000 vehicles, you have to play it safe. Ultimately, the companies want to make customized cars, and they are all working on ways to do that. Experiments with structural systems are usually about that.

The U.S. has not been big in new coaches - the U.S. is really behind Europe. It's the great passenger car and airplane that dominate American travel, and trains and buses have been much more secondary.

What a piece of garbage this smart car is. There's a commercial - the smart car has zero percent interest for six years. Well, good, I got zero percent in six years in buying this smart car. I'll tell you that much. I mean, it's ridiculous. My buddy has a smart car, totaled it. He hit a deer tick.

Supplying fuel for a Mars expedition from the lunar surface is often suggested, but it's hard to make it pay off - Moon bases are expensive, and just buying more rockets to launch fuel from Earth is relatively cheap.