GM: 'Holden future secure'

General Motors remains committed to Holden, despite selling off its European Opel operation to French group PSA.

The owners of Citroen and Peugeot announced on Monday (European time) that it would take control of GM's Opel and Vauxhall. The sale could have a significant impact on Holden's future model plans as several of its key models are sourced from Opel, including the Astra small car and the new generation Commodore, sold overseas as the Insignia.

Speaking to Australian media at the 2017 Geneva motor show, General Motors president Dan Ammann expressed the global giant's commitment to making Holden work.

"We're 100 per cent committed to the business in Australia and New Zealand," said Ammann, an expatriate Kiwi.

"We've got a lot of exciting things in the pipeline and it's going to be a really good period in time for the business down there.

"As a lot of you know there are a lot of people in the business at General Motors that have a lot of history and linkage to Holden and there's nothing we want to see more than seeing the business prosper down there. So we're really committed to making the business work down there."

However, he was quick to explain that key decisions about Holden's long-term product line up are yet to be made. In the short-term he confirmed that the existing deal to take the Astra and Commodore from Opel will remain in place.

"So no specific decisions have been taken on that front," Ammann explained. "We have, I'd say as a result of yesterday's announcement, more not less opportunities going forward."

"Clearly the current models that are just launching will run through their full lifecycle and what we do after that is yet to be determined."

With GM retaining a stake in the new PSA-Opel partnership Holden could, in theory, have a choice of sourcing future models from the French firm or finding new alternatives from with GM, as it is currently doing with the new Astra sedan which is based on the Chevrolet Cruze.

Ammann also downplayed any suggestion that the decision to sell-off the UK Vauxhall brand will limit the option of right-hand drive models for Australia.

"We've talked about this a lot previous times we've met," he said. "As we have been developing the next generation of all our architectures globally we've increased, not decreased, the flexibility for right-hand drive and made that a much easier thing to do."

Ammann stressed that Holden is important to GM and gave a swift "no" to questions about both selling off Holden or changing its name to Chevrolet.

"We have a strong brand, we've got a lot of history [with Holden]," he said. "We've got a lot of work to do. My perspective is we're doing the work we need to and we're starting to see the early results of that and we've got to stick to that and get to where we need to go."

He also revealed that there are no restrictions on PSA plans to take the Opel brand global again, which could see it revived in Australia to compete alongside Holden.

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