Dan Strong's column

	some of the people I have spoken to are telling me gm is committed to developing driverless cars - and they'll be on sale soon

It’s got to be one of the greatest quotes I have heard all year. “The General is going niche” were the five words from UK management that summed up exactly what General Motors is planning to do over the coming 12 months – and why we should all be excited. Saying that GM has had it tough of late is like suggesting Cinderella got a raw deal from her stepsisters. With challenges from top-selling Toyota – and the unstoppable rise of the Chinese car industry – life has been far from a fairytale for the company that owns Vauxhall, Saab and Chevrolet.

Once the world’s biggest, most profitable car builder, GM has spent the past year licking the wounds inflicted by its fall from number one status. And its efforts to regroup are beginning to pay a dividend. Fighting talk from bosses is just a part of the revival process. But how seriously should we take the claim that a company which churns out millions of new Vectras every year can also do “niche”? Perhaps not too much – although reading between the lines, it seems it is focused on the difficulties of the road ahead. So, what will GM’s future products really look like?

Quick research reveals that a more daring design is bound to be part of the package in 2008. And if the new Vectra, which made its near-production debut as the GTC concept at March’s Geneva Motor Show, had you choking on your Mondeo order form, the next Zafira, as described by the Flexstreme concept at Frankfurt in September, should have you heading straight for the nearest Vauxhall dealer to place a deposit.

Yet styling is only a small part of GM’s solution. Yes, the firm wants to move the likes of Chevrolet, Saab and Vauxhall upmarket to give clear air between its products and the kind of cheap rivals it expects to arrive here from places such as China. But it also hopes to distinguish them with technology. As a result, the company is pouring millions of dollars into much-publicised hybrid and fuel cell systems. Then again, who isn’t? Honda, Toyota and even Ford all have similar product plans.

Here, if you want to predict the future, the trick is to look at what the company is not talking about as much as what it is. So, on that basis, you might like to know that somewhere out in the Californian desert, a General Motors concept has recently won a million prize for finishing first in a race with a real difference – as the vehicles taking part had no drivers. The entrants powered themselves around a 60-mile course, on motorways, in towns and through busy junctions, with no human interference.

The firm has also built cars that communicate with each other, logging relative positions in an effort to reduce accidents. In fact, some of the most serious research undertaken has been to minimise the role of the driver in future products, managing the speed, fuel consumption and even road positioning of a vehicle to ensure its safety.

Sounds like fantasy? Maybe not. We first reported on GM’s plans to build cars that drove themselves 12 months ago… And at least some of the people I have spoken to tell me the company remains committed to developing such systems – and quickly.

But is it niche? Well, there’s nothing else like this on the road at the moment – which will certainly give the firm a unique sales proposition when it begins to bring such technology to showrooms as early as 2008.

And who can blame GM? In a market rammed with choice, what better way to distinguish your new car than with some startling piece of new technology? So, will the firm’s products prove the belles of the ball in 12 months’ time? When it comes to cars such as the new Vauxhall Vectra – due next summer – we wouldn’t discount it.