According to this article GM might finally be getting it:
With gas prices near $4 a gallon, and sales of GM's big trucks and SUVs falling, the automaker announced 3,500 layoffs at the factories making those vehicles earlier this week. On Wednesday, it announced a first-quarter net loss of $3.25 billion.
So going green has become vital to the automaker's survival, GM Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said in a speech Thursday in San Francisco. That's why it's pushing the forthcoming hybrid-electric Chevrolet Volt, part of a "major transformation" at GM, he said.
Right now auto industry lobbyists are using scare tactics in Springfield telling state legislators that tougher emissions standards in the Illinois Clean Car Act will cost jobs. Yet, once again we see that what's really costing jobs is American car companies refusing to meet the market demand for fuel efficient, environmentally friendlier cars. More Americans would have jobs today if American car companies had listened to environmentalists about fuel efficiency years ago.
Wagoner goes on to say later in the article, "Energy supply, sustainable growth, CO2 emissions, fuel economy - these are top concerns around the world,"
Yet at the same time the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, of which GM is a member, is fighting against new laws that address those problems. If Wagoner means what he says then he will end GM's opposition to the Pavley emissions standards in Illinois and other states.
For no particular reason, here's Car Song by Elastica: