Driving . I am david westin. Has been at the heart of american business. For most of the time, it was a dominant force. It was number one in the s p 500. Foreign competition, crippling pension costs, leading to gm going bankrupt in 2009. It emerged a much different, leaner company. We travel to detroit to see where it is going. We want to learn from mary barra and her lieutenants about the changes they are making and if they are the right changes. Mary we are most part of the that ared crossovers the best we have ever produced. , gmc, ourand cadillac brands in china as well. Every segment we compete in, we want to win. I would also say were looking at ways to grow the core business. With gm financial and service parts, those are just two ways we can continue to grow the core business even in developed markets. It is a transformational time in the auto industry. We know that people are going to have to figure out how to get from point a to point b. You see General Motors taking a very proactive measure to lead in that space. Whether it is a less products ise the bolt whether it electric products like the bolt. We want to define the future of transportation. David where will the growth come next . Mary foundational element we have. Of puttinghe infancy on technology and applications and services into the vehicle that will improve customers lives. That is a huge area to grow. China is another huge area, even though china is volatile. We see tremendous growth between now and 2020. We have new models coming between now and then. In a typical emerging market, it is going to be a little more volatile, but we f the potential. David it must frustrate you the stock price has not caught up. Why is that . What does the street not understand about General Motors . Transformation,piratio people try to say it is a cyclical business and as we come out of the cycle, what will be different . We are changing perceptions. We are really disciplined and have been talking to investors to make sure they understand that we are well prepared. Generalvery different motors and the fundamentals are strong. We understand we are a cyclical business, but we are also doing things to get rid of the bottom of the cycle by having businesses like gms and onstar that have a different revenue and profit model. David is is particularly difficult being at the top of this and not having the stock price where you would like it to be . It puts even down, more pressure on stock prices. Mary we are focused on what we can control. If we are running the fundamentals and making it at her we are committed to take out 5. 5 billion of costs, we are on track to do that. Actually getting the strong material performance was making sure we are improving relationships with suppliers. David why do investors like tesla . Mary it is one of the reasons we are working to make sure people understand conductivity and the volt. It is about the future and how youre going to create value. Were working hard to make sure we create a substantial shareholder values. I spend an incredible amount time on how we deployed deploy how we capital. General motors is a tech company leading with a multitude of technologies. The story will change. With how at we need to grow. Is it realistic to increase your multiples as people get used to the idea you are at tech company a tech company . We are undervalued and were going to keep working to make sure people understand what were working toward and how we are investing. Again, i believe. I come to work every day, it is something that will take care of itself. David the new world of electric vehicles and self driving cars. We believe we will see more change in our business in the next five years then we have seen in the last 50 years. It is all electric. It is affordable. That is what distinguishes it. Inside it is a big car. Anhave been able to create interior that has a space people need in their everyday lives. Transportation is changing with electric vehicles like the new volt ev. These innovations pose great risks, but gm executives claim to see great opportunities. One of the Big Questions is how soon the radical changes are coming to a street or highway near you. Looking forward, lets assume it popular. Who will own the lyft cars . Definedat has not been yet. It is going to be very exciting. I think there will be fleets that are owned. And vigils may own their own vehicle individuals may own their own vehicles. There is a lot to be defined. To be a part of the definition is what we are working on. David it is exciting. But in a world were a lot of sharing is going on, a car could be more preservice you rent rather than a product you own. Cart due to purchases . The real answer is we do not know. For General Motors, one of the areas we know sharing will happen first is in urban areas. That is an area where we are not as strong as we are in middle america. When you look at the strength of our business in the u. S. With trucks and suvs, or many people it is a very important part of their work. Participate in the sharing and strengthen our position in the urban areas while maintaining the or strength of our business, trucks and suvs in middle america. David what the theory is in investing explain what the theory is in investing . We can already see customer preferences are changing, particularly in urban environments where customers want the convenience and availability of getting from aid without theo b costs and hassles that come with ownership. We see transportation as a service. Rideshare businesses are growing very quickly. We fundamentally believe the change is not something that will happen, it is already happening. We want to participate in the change and do more than that. We want to be at the forefront of the change. We needusinesses to be in businesses we are not in today. We are looking to build capability we need to lead. David would you make the big push you are making in Autonomous Vehicles if there was not ride sharing . They are each as interesting in their own right but he gets really interesting when you put those two things together. We believe it will fundamentally transform what we already call the traditional rideshare business. Move is that move a defensive move or offensive move . A significantke majority of our profits outside of urban centers. We make a lot of money selling pickup trucks and suvs. Business that the generate most of our profit will be some of the last places we see this kind of disruption. Where description begins and opportunity is best where disruption begins and disruption where begins and opportunity is is in urban environments. Reduce thednt it demand for cars . We think it will increase the total number of miles covered. If you think about the business and scale of the business in terms of vehicle miles traveled, we think the business grows. If you think about it narrowly in units sold, it might go down. It is important to focus on a number of miles on number of miles traveled. Fascinating. S how does gm make sure it participates in the outside of the more miles traveled . It may not be selling as many cars. Is it is of subscription is it a Subscription Service . Travel kind of business. It is important for us to make an investment to understand that is this, it is a different model from our traditional model. David how can General Motors make sure it is profitable right now . We are going to manage supply and demand to make sure we did not create the same issues we saw leading to the restructuring. David the year before the financial crisis, General Motors sold more than 9 million cars of dollars. Lions lester they sold more than 9 million cars, but it made nine 7 billion in profit. This is gm driving the future. General motors is making and selling more cars and spending less. It is down from its high in 2013. One of the Big Questions on wall street is how executives can manage the business forward. David to what extent have you anticipated a downturn . Mary one of the things we have done is to make sure we are maintaining a break even. If you look where the market is. Ow and what happened youre prepared to break even at 10 million vehicles. What is that plan . 2010, we go back to made a commitment that would maintain our breaking point. We said we would be disciplined from up kissing standpoint and we have been very focused on that over the last number of years. Weare focused on ensuring maintain. Ensuring we continue to launch in greatt grea products. We want a Business Model globally where we can ensure we can perform well in a downturn, can invest through the cycles lead on to ups and downs in investment through the cycle, and so that we have an Investment Grade fortress balance sheet. We run the business accordingly to ensure that. Downturnng proactive planning, reducing dealer inventories as we have seen over the last year or so, or focusing on retail sales. It is having a game plan on what costs you can take out in the event of a downturn. We have a very well formulated plan and have reviewed it with the board of directors. David how quickly could you cut production . That would be closing plants . , the first thing you want to do is align supply and demand and would slow down plants and takes caps off shifts off. We have not added brickandmortar, we added shifts. Isay, 25 of our workforce truly variable. It is shortterm workers. It will increase over the next number of years where in the event of a downturn, we could reduce the workforce relatively quickly. David lets dig into the gm story with jamie butters. Does wall street believe the story that gm is telling us . Is a fair amount of skepticism. Investors are not convinced they can bring down the costs as clear as Chuck Stevens says they can. There is a sense that this is as good as it gets and it is going to get tougher from here. Innovation tois the current valuation of General Motors . Jamie it hits them coming and going. They have to invest in technology that does not yet paid for itself and lowers their profits. At the same time, they are competing with Tech Startups for capital. It is really tough, but it is what they have to do for the long run. svid up next, mary barra secret formula to deliver what she has promised. Mary calmly out. Call me out. David since the beginning of dollar industry, there have been and normas changes to the cars we drive, from electric starters to self driving cars. Gm says one of the changes is brandnew and you cannot see it. It is platform engineering. Took a ride with mark royca. He calls it one of the most profound differences. That has of the things changed is platform engineering. How many vehicles will be built on a platform similar to this . Mark that is a good question. Real secret is when we flex delta and did like crossovers and suvs. We have never been able to do that before. We do it in every market in the world. We brought our global scale to bear. This is one of the biggest global architectures. Is it a big driver of cost savings . Mark we want our suppliers to be wildly successful in terms of what they make. From a money and quality standpoint. Maintain the you efficiencies and still have the variation market to market, consumer to consumer . Wek what we have done is have gone through an interesting time in the 2000 where people talked about Global Engineering and we did not. The problem is you have different rooms for the architecture and variation is almost guaranteed because you do not have Central Control over it. It is we have now consolidated that over the last couple of years. Generally speaking, global architectures are tremendous. David almost from the day you stepped in as ceo, you want to change the culture. I talk culture, i talk about it as behaviors. I cant come in today and say i this part ofs typ the culture. We have leaders from around the said, what are the important things . It was about transparency, owning each others problems, creating a relentless desire to win. I told everyone if you see some me doing something that is inconsistent with what i just talked about, called me out. It has permeated the organization very quickly. All of those things are starting to change the dialogue about General Motors. Yes, we understand we are a cyclical business and are well prepared and are taking steps and being disciplined, but we are also investing in the future. This is a company that is going to be around not for five years, but 50 years and 100 years. David the General Motors be found in detroit is determined. , it is determined to drive change in the future of transportation. It is a tall order with many her hurdles. I am david westin. Get ready for the rio Olympic Games by switching to xfinity x1. Show me gymnastics. X1 lets you search by sport, watch nbcs highlights and catch every live event on your tv with nbc sports live extra. Im getting ready. Are you . X1 will change the way you experience nbcuniversals coverage of the rio Olympic Games. Call or go online today to switch to x1. Narrator the challenges facing our world are growing all the time. How do we build stronger economies with equal opportunities for all . How do we build a Sustainable World for generations to come . How do we protect our cities and harness the power of technology for our Common Benefit . In this series, using the latest Bloomberg Research and analysis, we will make sense of the problems of tomorrow. Inequality, sustainability, artificial intelligence, the gender gap, and the demographic time bomb. And in this film, how we manage our megacities. Millions of people every year swell the planets cities. Can we harness economic potential of these hubs, or are we creating centers of poverty, inequality, and violence . Narrator this is the age of the city. For the first time in human history, more people live in urban than rural settlements. The worlds urban population is growing by 70 Million People each year. 301 cities account for 50 of global gdp. This will rise to 66 by 2025. So if we dont get things right in our cities than the consequences for humanity are profound. Cities are critically important to the Global Economy and to progress in the Global Economy. Cities can be sources of chaos, as well as development. Narrator this makes them so alluring and so vital. They can be dangerous places. But cities are where fortunes can be made. One of the primary factors driving urbanization is opportunity. You live on a farm, and you are growing crops you dont have a lot of opportunity. You see a growing, bustling city, your friends are moving there, they are getting jobs in offices, maybe jobs in a manufacturing center, there are restaurants, culture, life. This is attractive, something you want to be a part of. Everything is relative. They will have greater access to schools, greater access to employment, greater access to and a less vulnerable economic life. Narrator in 1900, 12 of the worlds biggest cities were in north america or europe. 100 years later, this number had fallen to just 2. Most of the biggest cities in the future will be in the developing economies of asia and africa. Most of the growth in cities will be in china, india, and nigeria. Those three countries alone will account for 37 of the worlds population. Staggering numbers. Here is an example lagos, the biggest city in nigeria. Its population every year it is adding the equivalent of boston. The urbanization rate in the u. S. , japan is over 70 . In china, it is 50 . So china may have a lot megacities, they may have larger cities, but they are going to get bigger or there is going to be more of them. That is going to be a trend. A lot of emerging markets are going to experience trends like that in the next 50 years, especially with a large population. Narrator this incredible rate of growth makes the challenges of managing a large city more difficult. James hertling the biggest risks facing cities are the same risks that challenge all of us, politically governing, climate change, economic inequality, productivity, economic growth, employment education, transportation. Those issues that face cities are the same that face everyone , except in a much more concentrated way. Narrator one city battling with these problems is Rio De Janeiro in brazil. Alessandra orofino is on the front lines, trying to solve them. She believes the worlds biggest cities are in danger of sinking under a tide of poverty, decrepit infrastructure, and citizen apathy. And unless we do something about it, billions will suffer the consequences. Alessandra orofino the kind of urbanization we have today can only go so far. If we do not change the way we design our cities and make cities change with us, we will have serious limits to urbanization. They will become impossible to manage, impossible to live in, miserable places to be. If we change that process, those limits could change and possibly be nonexistent. Have to think about the environment and how we can better build them together. Narrator managing megacities is one of the great challenges facing the world. This is Rio De Janeiro, brazil. Nearly 12 Million People crowd into its metro area. It is beautiful and vibrant. But it also has its problems. Crime, inequality, and poverty. Alessandra orofino is an urban activist and thinker who has lived and worked in megacities on three different continents. She has worked with United Nations on sustainable founded angoals and ngo that uses data gathered from citizens to raise campaigns and solve issues posed by the rapid growth of the cities. 170,000 activists. Alessandra hopes it can be a model for other rapidly growing cities around the globe. We build on a rich tradition of activists and try to bring it to the world that make sense to people. I was born in this city. In Rio De Janeiro. My family has a mixed background. My father comes from a neighborhood in rio that was quite dangerous in the 1990s, quite poor, or lower middle class. And my mom comes from a wealthy background, one of the best neighborhoods in rio. The city can be amazing, but it can be very rough and unequal. That is not just a characteristic of this city. It is somethi