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"FacebookPinterest\n\nWith healthy sales and an upcoming IPO, General Motors has risen from the ashes of Chapter 11\u2014and given us hope for a nice return on our tax dollars. But what\u2019s in store going forward? We talked to Mark Reuss, President of GM North America, about the Volt, its gas powered counterpart, the Cruze, the modern car-buyer and the company\u2019s unlikely resuscitation.\n\nWe said in our Volt test drive and our interview with Eddie Alterman that the Volt is more of a PR effort than a profitable product. Would you agree?\n\n For us, it\u2019s really a technology and innovation platform. We\u2019re going to be committed to it for the long-term, too: the battery technology can be charged by a gasoline, diesel, or alternative engine, or a fuel cell, so we have a platform that can last a long time.\n\nWe have a profitable company again, but the image that some people have of GM varies from not being sure what cars we actually make, to just knowing that the company went bankrupt. So we\u2019re treating the Volt as our first investment in a new image. It\u2019s not a savior for the company, it\u2019s getting people to believe by action that we have the best technology and the best engineers, and that we\u2019re going to demonstrate it.\n\nDo Americans really have an appetite for smaller cars?\n\n It\u2019s not so much that Americans want small cars, but that they\u2019re getting more specific about the products they want. Take trucks, for instance: some people earn a living with them, some just want nice vehicles, but you pay for that because they\u2019re not terribly fuel-efficient. That\u2019s why you see crossovers\u2014they\u2019re full-size SUVs made into something smaller, more fuel-efficient and more specific. There\u2019s going to be more and more product fragmentation in the future. When you look at something like the Cruze, which is bigger than most compacts but getting 40mpg on the highway, that\u2019s an opportunity for us.\n\nWhat about classic marques like Oldsmobile and Pontiac, any chance of a resurgence?\n\n It\u2019s a shame, the last vehicles out of those brands were pretty intriguing; you could argue that Saturn\u2019s lineup was one of the best. The last GTO, the G8, the Solstice, those were probably the cars Pontiac should have been for the last twenty years, and we didn\u2019t quite get there. There\u2019s been no discussion yet, they are where they are. But from an emotional standpoint, when we become a public, profitable company over a long period of time, nothing\u2019s forever. But we have to focus now on the four core brands; we\u2019re making more money with four brands now than we were with eight!\n\nTo summarize, what\u2019s the &amp;quot;new&amp;quot; GM all about?\n\n In the end, this is a revenue-based business. The secret to unlocking sales is doing great cars that people understand and pay for. So you can make all sorts of generalizations that we did or didn\u2019t do that in the past, and you\u2019d probably be right. Our mission statement now is to design, build, and sell the world\u2019s best vehicles. That doesn\u2019t just mean going in and finding the lowest structural cost, which is a pretty big change from the past."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/cruze-in-usa-four-questions-for-gm-president-mark-reuss>