♪ >> it took bankruptcy and a u.s. government bailout to save general motors. now g.m. is solidly profitable and gaining market share again. even so, it's not fully recovered. it faces weaknesses especially in the american market. how can the company address these issues? we are about to find out because our guest on today's show is mark reuss president of the north america operation.

make no mistake about it, north america is where g.m. overwhelmingly makes most of its profit. it's thee core part of the company. stay where you are. we are about to dive into what's going on at general motors in just a moment. >> from our studios in the motor city, this is "autoline." here now is john mcelroy. >> here we are in the studio with mark reuss president of general motors north america. great to have you. >> thanks, john. >> joining us peter de lorenzo, the automotive extremist himself and scott burgess detroit news. let's jump right into it. during the bankruptcy, g.m. and other companies had to cutback on product development. looks to me like you have a lot

of momentum in the market, but not a lot of new cars coming out. can you tide yourself over market share until you get more models into the pipeline? >> yeah, when you look at this as a launch basis, and if you look at what we are doing on a month by month basis in north america productwise, i think you will find a compelling story as we move production from germany to awe sh wit aushwa. that's one of the big launches we have in march. we have the camero convertible going into the marketplace into the spring selling season. a lot of excitement about that. we talked about the z01 now. that's coming as well. the rest of the year centers around our fuel efficient carport polio in general motors

for buick and chevrolet. you will see us launching the sonic and verono for buick, sonic for chevrolet third and fourth quarters of this year in lake orient. there is a lot of excitement around those cars, different excitement from the cruise launched in lords town ohio. we'll see a full year of cruise, full year of the cts coupe and a full year of the launches we had last year. there is a lot of excitement around getting a full year of production around those cars and the models in the car lineups. i think we have a good approach this year and important launches for us as well. there are a couple of surprises that will happen along the way too. >> maybe we'll dig that out before the show is over. one other item, there seems to be a lot of momentum in the

market, overall g.m., but the whole car market coming up. some say let's hope it grows incrementally because there are weaknesses in the supply chain. how do you see it? >> there is probably truth in that. the whole industry is restructured. i don't know a supplier or oem that has not undergone reconstruction. when you do that, you change your break even point. you make money and how you increment the break even point is important. you can open new plants and capacity and pay for the capacity, flex the operations within the capacity, an intelligent way to do it, or do both. i think you will see the industry incrementing and supply

base incrementing this on a supply basis first in a responsible way. when we get to a point where the whole industry is driving past the 14 unit mark, then you will see payment and investment in additional capacity on an operational basis and facility basis. i think you will see that go. depending on the company, may have one of those happen first. that's the way i see the industry going. >> mark, i notice you have a cadillac lapel pin. i know you are immersed in day to day cat lac cadillac a lot. where do you see cadillac going? there are rumors at the upper ranges, and the ats coming, the smaller cadillac. are you going to keep pouring it

on in cadillac and how long do we have to wait for the products? >> again, i think you will see a full year of the v series port knoll owe. portfolio. that's important, but you will also see race. there is a lot of excitement about that. it's one of the most beautiful racecars i have seen. it's doing extremely well. our portfolio is seeing our competition performance marks. we are happy with that, but we can't sit on our laurels or be complacent with that. you will see, second half of the year, something happening cadillac productwise every month or two, including the racing piece of it. you will see the next couple of years in cadillac really be

driven to be the new standard of the world. we have the product to do that for the first time in a long, long time. we are excited about it. we spend a lot on the future product. you mentioned a couple of things we are working hard on. i won't confirm any of them, but very exciting because i think you wil se cadillac ern wa moret hasbeen in theone prodd

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yone else is doing, matter what the price point indk wi seo of corvettes to help differe burs with different means buy a corvette. i'll leave it at think it's very exciting. >> don leave it that. >> d'tant to go back toose and

the original g.m. slogan because it's out dated. when you talk about corvettes all have to be special, but there are different tastes in the car market. i don't meanvebody can buy one. the highest level of performance, and i think the highest level design. i think it's going to be spectacular. alternativet at that. power tra? >> i think you could. >> keep asking, peter. >> when will the seventh generation hit the market? >> december next year -- no. des,ut can't.to tell you the >> i know one thing, you can't allow this gioto linger in the market as long as the last one. >> unfortunately, the corvettes of the ren past have been

planned for five year life cl and not one of them have been in the marke fiv years for various reasons. corvette has done a tremendous job because we wereo extend it, but the markets in those days are gone. we have to have shorter life cycles on the corvettes. >> john started off the show talking about coming off of bankruptcy and the product cadence we'll see even now. dot owf people understand the amount of time it takes to develop the new cars and things. on tcorvettes currently out there, which do you think suffered the most or are in most need of aefshing? >> from a g.m. market standpoint? >> yes. >> i think the impala and malibu areroblhe two biggest on a pure volume basis.

they happen to be the same brand, but also the dts a cadillac has run a long time and has been successful for us, but we need somethingik the ex. >> i think that's helpful for us. >> what about the silverado? is inwes evidenced by the last month and the whole 2010, it still does very well. the question i t heavy duty piece of it is, well, we just redid. that's a successful product for usoo 'lhave a full year of that and we have another piece in flint for the full year of it. lwsant more, better product earlier. m always an advocate for that because that drives the market. the fasr wan do those things, the better off we'll be. i would love to have a solar auto earlier, a new one

thtruck is a great truck and drives a tremendous amount of loyalty and repeat buyers and it a durable, reliable truck and people use it. there is pent up demand. we see it being read. eyreuying the truck like crazy. it's good. >> let's talk about the volt, getting all kinds of attention foth company. volume is low. there is talk of trying to double production of that thing. what can youo wh t volt? >> i think the volt, as we go into the rollout across the united states of the volt, you ar seeg relatively low production and sales numbers, but that's to plan. the reason is because we have pulled our roll out up about six months. that was phase one. to do that -- we want our dealerto be abl to talk about the volt and have people see the volt, touch the volt and

identify with it. f our early production into the demo fleets of our dealers so they can use that to sell more chevrolets and to have volts in the showroom, which is great. we are seeing everyone that we put on the dealer's lot at mark up, which i am not crazy about, but i can't control it. you are seeing us fill the pipeline of demos too. when we move up the roll out, funnel into the demo and get into the production and sales of it, which we are doing now, you see the first ones in michigan here. then you see us ramp up sell production. the sell production gets localized in michigan -- >> you are talking battery cells. >> yes, battery cells, good catch. not the battery itself, but the battery cells.

they are manufactured in holland. you see the browns town assembly of the battery and our deham production on volt ii. when will it happen? what's it going to be? we are studying that. we are being careful and responsible. you can't have it both ways. people sago out with great guns and blow it out. i'm not sure that's the right strategy for volt. we have to have people understand the car, have good value for the technology and have people understand that value. we want to use it to create the excitement it was designed to create. we are doing that. i don't think anything discussionwise would be responsible, so we have that study done, and have a plan around what we did and understood. right now, we don't have the

data. >> is the volt helping sell other brands? you walk in to see the volt and buy something else? >> sure, you see a cruise sitting there next to the volt. we have not had a great small car for many years, if ever in my career. that car and recognition of it and awareness of it is low. that's why this is not a casual thought about how we timed this so we brought people in with things like the volt and it surely helps sell cruise. we have a car segment with a fuel economy for a very good price. no question. we'll be able to tell you that shortly. in the next two months, we'll have the availability of the cruise in place and the volt in

place, and we'll tell you data around the cross pollination of the buyers. >> have you been able to gather how much misinformation is out there about the volt? it seems a lot of people don't know how it works. how do you correct that once the wrong information is out there? >> that's a great question. when we were launching the car, and we still are, but when we were beginning to launch the car, we talked about, do people really understand how this works? the answer was, no. if you look at the advertising and training we have done, we have done more dealer training on this car in preparation for delivery than anything in general motor's history. the reason is because it's not something you can whip off in a sentence. it's an electric car. it has a gasoline engine.

how come? electric cars are supposed to use a battery? >> this is a generator that charges the car when it needs it. >> that's a difficult conversation just with my wife and family. no one's ever seen that before. until you touch the car and see the car and see the graphic of how it work on the dashboard -- that's why we know the demos are important for the education of the people that are curious about the car and come in to see how it works. the biggest challenge of launching something this different. >> general motors also announced that they'll have a diesel version of the cruise. >> no, we haven't. >> talk about it from g.m.'s standpoint? >> yes. we have a terrific truck diesel business, you know that.

from a compassionate car standpoint, i think they do. the cost of petro, regular gasoline, will help bring this into focus as it increases. on an energy density basis with diesel fuel and the way it's used, it has the advantage. that thermodynamic cycle is an efficient cycle. we know when we go outside of the country and drive cars in diesel happy europe and australia, they are great cars, fun to drive, and not a thing wrong with them, but we have to have an economic equation happen here, that i think is beginning to happen, so i think, yes. the answer is, yes. >> what about the rumor on the hatch back cruise? is that happening here? >> before the bankruptcy, there

were a lot of things we could or couldn't do. thit came out fantastic. the australian crews started production monday of this work. they have the hatch and regular car. i think we would have loved to have had the car here, but this late in the life cycle of the global cruise rollout, i think financially, it's a tough sell. if we tool it up, brought it in and it sold like crazy for a year, and we get to the next version of delta, globally, you know, that's probably the right place where we look at the market again and say, we need to make the right decision. >> how far away is that? >> about the same time as the corvette. >> yeah, next december.

>> i'm talking about jen ralties. i apologize for that. we went through bankruptcy. that's the way it is. >> there seems to be a resurgence in hatch backs. ford is finding 60% of the fiestas are hatch backs. that's good news for people that like hatch backs. >> it is. we talked about this before the store began, but between sonic and cruise, they are different positioning between the cars and size and how we look at those as we market them. don't forget sonic. sonic has versions that are very compelling. it's not a bad thing to have cruise and four doors here. sonic has a different version of this to go after that portion of

the market. cannibalizing, because we have another cruise out there, i'm not sure that's a good thing either. i think you will see different buyers buy different cars with different body styles. that's a good thing. >> minivans, that's the hole i see in north america. what are your thoughts? >> i would love to see a minivan in north america for general motors right now. i used to work on minivans. i know how useful they are. i have three kids. people want utility. utility is second to none. how you do that, you can go through the market in a reconfiguring basing. my seat folds to the floor, my roof comes off -- whatever that is, you can do all of that, or do it in a way that hasn't been

done before in a size not done before in the united states. >> that's a compelling idea. >> i would like to watch to see what you do with that, but we are out of time right now. >> great to have you. >> scott burgess, peter de lorenzo, great having you guys. i'll be back in a minute with closing thoughts. >> general motors has momentum in the marketplace these days, as long as the american car market continues to improve, g.m. should do well. join us next week as we look at mo power. it's an italian who is in charge of the operation. i think you will be interested to see what he's doing with it and what he's all