President of GM North America Mark Reuss recently shared his thoughts about a few topics pertinent to the automaker’s operations. For starters, the engineer-turned-executive discussed GM’s strategy of globalizing the Chevrolet brand.

“We’re not everywhere with Chevrolet and I don’t think we should be,” he said. “I’m not sure we have the right market scope with Chevrolet. There may be some changes there because we’re participating in some places where it’s not a place that’s going to change and grow. Therefore we have to go after the places where we can capture the growth first.”

The news comes in the face of a new global sales record for the Bow Tie brand in 2012, even though the marque still lags behind other non-luxury global brands such as Toyota when it comes to global sales.

Reuss also mentioned that autonomous vehicles could be ten years away, but that the biggest impediment to their deployment are industry and government standards about how vehicles communicate with each and with the infrastructure. GM is currently participating in an autonomous vehicle study headed up by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute.

Speaking about GM’s European subsidiary Opel, Reuss expressed confidence about turning around the struggling loss-making brand: “We know how to engineer very good products there, we can get that back,” he said.

GM is in the process of revitalizing Opel after over a decade’s-worth of financial losses. The brand, which faces a shrinking European market during the region’s economic troubles, plans to introduce a flurry of vehicles and engines over the next few years while cutting overcapacity and expanding internationally. GM’s leadership has actively been reorganizing the unit’s leadership and management structure headed up by Vice Chairman Steve Girsky.