• Reuters, Brandchannel, Friday, October 16, 2009 10:42 AM

General Motors board member Stephen Girsky says that General Motors' turnaround plan assumes that the company will hold on to the "19% and change" share of market that it had in the third quarter. "That is what everything is being based on," he said during a panel discussion at a conference at Columbia Business School yesterday, Caroline Hunter and Kevin Krolicki report.

Girsky joined GM's 13-member board as a representative of the United Auto Workers union when the automaker emerged from bankruptcy in July. Looking 10 or 20 years into the future as electric cars are more prevalent, Girsky says he could see an industry where the carmakers assemble the car, but the consumer focuses on branded parts inside.

Changing attitudes among young folk may damper expectations, however. A new J.D. Power report says that teens and 20-somethings "lack what was once thought to be the genetic desire to own a car," Susan Chi reports in Brandchannel.

Researchers analyzed hundreds of thousands of conversations on blogs and social media sites. "With the advent of social media and other forms of electronic communities, teens perceive less of a need to physically congregate, and less of a need for a mode of transportation," the resulting study says.

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