Question: Tell us a bit about General Motors in the UK. Do you build any vehicles in this country anymore?

Alex Bruce: General Motors are a significant player in the UK automotive market, both in terms of sales and manufacturing.

As regards sales, our three mainstream brands, Vauxhall, Saab and Chevrolet make up roughly 16 per cent of the new car market in the UK.

And with regards to manufacturing, we currently manufacture around 15 per cent of total automotive production in the UK.

We have two manufacturing plants. The one based in Luton is the UK's largest commercial vehicle manufacturing plant where we build the Vivaro midsize van.

We manufacture roughly 100,000 units at that plant per year. We have a second manufacturing plant based in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire where we build the five-door Astra and the Astravan, which has the capacity to produce approximately 180,000 units per year.

Recently in fact there was an announcement made that the next generation global compact car for General Motors will be built at Ellesmere Port, commencing in 2009, which is great news for the UK automotive industry in the wake of a series of announcements of plant closures in this country.

Question: Do you think the UK car industry is in decline? What can the government do to help maintain the industry's competitiveness?

Alex Bruce: We have had some really positive news for the automotive industry in terms of the announcement of a new product going into our Ellesmere Port plant.

More generally, I think establishing the right regulatory framework for the industry is incredibly important particularly as regards taxation.

The vast majority of regulation that affects the automotive industry these days comes from the European Union and obviously, having representatives of the UK arguing strongly for a regulatory framework that allows the UK industry to maintain its competitiveness is extremely important in that context.

Question: What are General Motors doing to reduce the environmental impact of the vehicles it manufactures and sells?

Alex Bruce: We have a very comprehensive strategy aimed at removing the automobile from the energy and environment equation. This strategy has a number of short, medium and long-term objectives.

In the short-term, we are looking at ways to continually refine conventional technology, namely the conventional internal combustion engine and existing petrol and diesel powertrains.

One specific example of how we are refining engine technology is the mid-cycle enhancement of the Vauxhall Astra that we manufacture at Ellesmere Port.

Brought online this year, it delivers a 14 percentage reduction in CO2 emissions across the engine range compared to the previous vehicle.

We are refining conventional technology using things like variable valve timing, six-speed transmissions, turbo charging and downsizing of engines and so on.

We are also looking to try and diversify energy supply for vehicles away from fossil fuels and trying to encourage alternative fuel sources such as biofuels.

In the UK, our Saab brand with BioPower is leading the way in this area. Saab BioPower is a range of vehicles that can run on E85, which is a blend of 15 per cent petrol and 85 per cent renewable bio-ethanol. 

Bio-ethanol is produced from a variety of different plant matters and can deliver a reduction in overall CO2 compared to conventional fuels of between 50-70 per cent.

This is a very significant reduction and a very cost effective way of reducing CO2 from new cars in the short to medium-term.

For the medium-term, we are also investing very heavily in plug-in electric vehicles. We recently displayed the Chevrolet Volt at the Detroit motor show in January and then more recently the Opel Flextreme at the Frankfurt motor show.

Both of these vehicles are plug-in electric vehicles which combine a lithium ion battery with a conventional motor which can run on a variety of energy sources that provide back up power to that battery.

Essentially, the Flextreme is a plug-in electric vehicle which, when running off the battery, can run for about 40km on pure electric power.

If you are going further than that distance, the on-board back up motor provides power to recharge the battery and allows the vehicle to go at a normal range for a vehicle of that type. We would expect that according to a European drive cycle that the vehicle could deliver CO2 emissions of around 40 grams per kilometre.

This is an example of the ultra low carbon technology that we are looking to develop. The critical issue with the technology is that we need to make a breakthrough in lithium- ion batteries for this vehicle to become viable as a production vehicle, so we're working very hard to address that and looking to bring the vehicle onto the market in the course of the next five years or so.

For the long-term, we are looking at hydrogen fuel cell technology. These are cars that run on hydrogen and emit nothing but water vapour from the tail pipe. Back in 2005, we launched a vehicle called the Chevrolet Sequel, the first car in the world to run 300 miles non-stop with zero emissions.

Next year we will be launching the world’s largest consumer trial of fuel cell vehicles when we'll have over 100 vehicles worldwide being placed directly in the hands of consumers to give them a chance to test the vehicles out themselves in real world conditions.

Question: Don't alternative fuels like biofuels do more harm than good to the environment?

Alex Bruce: There has been an awful lot of media speculation about the impact of biofuels on the environment.

Issues to do with land capacity, impact on rainforests and so on. I think the first point we would make is that we think it is completely unsustainable for road transport to remain 97 per cent dependent on fossil fuels for its energy and I think most people would agree that that is the case.

On that basis, we need to look for alternative energy sources to power tomorrow's vehicles and we therefore believe that biofuels need to play an important role.

It is certainly true that there is a variability in the impact of biofuels depending on how you produce the fuel, how you grow the crops to make that fuel, and so on, but all the scientific evidence proves that if you optimise production processes you can deliver a very significant reduction in CO2 in a very responsible, cost effective way - and a way that consumers can easily adapt to because the fuel behaves exactly the same as conventional fuel.

So biofuels are a cost effective solution, we believe the fuel can be produced in a sustainable way, and as we move further into the future with electric powered vehicles or vehicles that run on hydrogen, we will need to look at alternative and sustainable ways of generating the energy to power those vehicles – therefore, power sources such as biomass will have an important role to play.

So by supporting today's biofuel industry, we will be developing sustainable feedstocks to generate the electricity and hydrogen that will power tomorrow's vehicles as well.

Question: Are rising fuel costs a significant challenge for your business?

Alex Bruce: We see increasing price volatility in the market for conventional fossil fuels. It's an issue of fuel security - we are very dependent on volatile regions of the world for those fuel supplies.

This reinforces the case for us to look at alternative sources of energy and for looking at biofuels and other alternative energy sources to power today's and tomorrow's vehicles.

Question: Isn't binding regulation the best way of reducing the environmental impact of cars?

Alex Bruce: First of all, I think it is important to recall how far the automotive industry has come in attempting to reduce CO2 emissions. Over the past 10 years or so, the average CO2 from cars in Europe has come down by about 13 per cent.

But at the same time, the industry is grappling with a large number of regulatory requirements, whether that's to do with pedestrian protection or occupant safety, that add weight to the vehicle, as do requirements related to air quality and reducing nitrogen oxide emissions and particulates.

In many cases, these requirements therefore work against the industry's efforts to reduce CO2 from cars.

Secondly, of course manufacturers have a role to play in terms of technology and also, very importantly, in terms of CO2 that's emitted during the production of the vehicles.

General Motors has taken very aggressive action throughout the world to reduce CO2 output at our manufacturing sites. Between 2000-2005, we reduced CO2 emissions worldwide from our facilities by about 10 per cent, and between 2005-2010, we are aiming to have reduced CO2 emissions worldwide by a further eight percent from our manufacturing facilities.

In terms of the technology side of things, I think I've already outlined GM's strategy. But that can only contribute so much to the CO2 impact of cars - how vehicles are used is also critically important.

And we think that any workable policy to reduce CO2 emission from cars needs to be combined with measures to make drivers drive responsibly or in a more eco-friendly way, to consider alternative modes of transport, and to avoid making unnecessary journeys.

We also think government has a role to play in giving information to consumers about how to make responsible choices when buying their next car and we also think that the tax system has an important role to play in terms of encouraging people to buy new technologies and lower emission vehicles, and to encourage the development of new alternative fuel sources such as biofuels.

There has to be an integrated approach to this objective of reducing CO2 - it can't purely be left up to the manufacturers to make that change. Consumers have a role to play, governments have a role to play, and we will all have to work together to achieve this objective.

Question: What are General Motors doing to give back to the local communities where it operates?

Alex Bruce: General Motors have a long heritage in the UK and we are very keen to give back to the local communities where we operate. We run a number of schemes focused on the two areas immediately surrounding our manufacturing operations in the UK, namely Bedfordshire and Cheshire.

We have something called the Griffin Awards which is an annual awards scheme which we run locally for organisations that have made a contribution to the local community in terms of community or charitable work.

At our annual awards ceremony for the Griffin Awards, we award a first prize of £10,000 to the most deserving organization, some runners-up cash prizes and also the loan of a vehicle for a year to one organization.

These awards are an opportunity for General Motors to recognise all the good work that goes on in these local communities to make those areas a better place to live.

We also try to encourage our employees to get involved in volunteering for good causes in the local community through a global initiative called GM Volunteer plus.

For every 40 hours of voluntary work that an employee does, they will earn the cash equivalent donation of $250 to the charity for which they've done that volunteering. This is a good way of encouraging our workers to give back to the community in which they operate.

These are just two of the many initiatives we are pursuing currently to really try and give something back to the communities where we work.