It's extremely rare for one engineer's idea for a better widget to go from the drawing board to production with no input from manufacturing, design or other parts of the product development team.
The skateboard chassis, which General Motors invented and patented 20 years ago, proved that point: It was a team effort, says Larry Burns, who ran GM's R&D and planning from 1998 to 2009.
Automotive News asked Burns, now 71 and a consultant to several tech-oriented companies, to recall how the skateboard chassis, which now underpins nearly all battery-electric vehicles, was created. In his words: