Rick Wagoner North Quotations

Given the challenges we face in North America, it makes sense for me to assume control of GM North America's day-to-day operations and shorten the lines of communication and decision-making,

GM's top priority is to restore our North American operations to profitability and positive cash flow as quickly as possible. In 2005, we laid out a comprehensive and integrated strategy to address the structural issues that impede our competitiveness and profitability, and we are focused on rapidly executing all aspects of the turnaround plan.

Over the last nine months we have been aggressively implementing our North American turnaround plan.

We're pleased to see the significant progress in our first quarter results and in the implementation of all four elements of our North American turnaround plan.

While this sounds like a large number, we recognize that it only goes part of the way we need to go to put GM North America in the fully competitive position that is necessary to maintain and enhance our future viability and growth.

All of our business units except GM North America are on or above track, and that has the extreme attention of us all. Progress is moving in the right direction ... but we still have more work to do.

In order to improve financial results in 2006 and 2007, we are moving quickly to implement several important actions that will address these weaknesses in North America. And we have a good line of sight on the steps we need to take to further reduce structural costs on a global basis that will position GM for long-term success.

The automotive market in North America remains very competitive, and our results reflect that, ... Improving market share and profitability remain an important priority.

The first quarter represented an important milestone in GM and GM North America's turnaround.

It was a year in which two significant fundamental weaknesses in our North American operations were fully exposed - our huge legacy cost burden and our inability to adjust structural costs in line with revenue.

I don't think having me do both the jobs, the corporate job and the North American job, is the right long-term answer. But I think while we're in the midst of the turnaround, the value of the shortened lines of communication speaks for itself. And so we're going to stick with it for a while longer.

Health costs in this country are out of control, ... This will significantly improve our overall cost competitiveness ... and will be critical to getting GM North America back to profitability as soon as possible.