Wagoner Has Open Mind on Alliance

General Motors Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said Tuesday that he is not against a proposed alliance with Renault and Nissan.

“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” he said in a live interview on the financial news cable channel CNBC.

In his first interview since billionaire shareholder Kirk Kerkorian proposed an alliance of GM, Renault of France and Nissan Motor Co. of Japan, Wagoner said his mind was open but too few details were available to make a judgment.

“Our experiences with alliances -- and we’ve had a lot of them over the years, as you know -- really gets into what kind of products can you share, what kind of powertrains can you share, where are there opportunities to work together in distribution, so you really need to get into the details,” he said.

Wagoner also said he had excellent support from the GM board of directors and defended the pace of GM’s turnaround effort. He said the company has cut more than $8 billion in structural costs over the last 12 to 14 months and is in the process of introducing many new products.

“I think this thing is coming around pretty quickly, to be honest,” he said.