GM CEO uncertain that US auto sales will hit forecast, says company plans to be more efficient

August 9th, 2011 | Associated Press

The top executive at General Motors Co. is having doubts about whether U.S. auto sales will recover this year as expected, even as the stock market rebounded a bit Tuesday from its huge losses.

Speaking to industry analysts about GM’s long-term financial plans Tuesday, GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson said the company is sticking with its U.S. sales forecast of around 13 million cars and trucks for the year, but he’s not certain sales will make it that high.

“There’s a lot of turmoil in the business, and turmoil means uncertainty,” Akerson said. GM’s finances, he said, are strong enough to “power through these dips” in sales.

The statements came amid optimistic predictions for the future of the company, which has made billions just two years out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Analysts were told that GM is looking to become more efficient in the future so it can make even stronger profits, and that it plans to raise factory capacity by 45 percent in Brazil, Russia, India and China by 2014 to take advantage of expected sales growth.

Company executives made the statements at GM’s second-annual global business conference. The U.S. stock market slide and international government debt problems barely were mentioned during the presentation, which lasted more than four hours.

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