General Motors: Mark Reuss to succeed Dan Ammann as president

General Motors stated on Thursday that Mark Reuss would succeed Dan Ammann as president, effective immediately, as part of the automaker’s continued shift to electric and self-driving vehicles in North America and China.

Reuss remains concentrated on rebuilding the Cadillac brand and streamlining automaker’s product development operations, while boosting the resources, mainly engineering hours, allocated to electric and self-driving vehicle programs in the next two years, the company stated.

GM has budgeted $8 billion for the development of electric and self-driving vehicles, with SoftBank Group and Honda Motor vowing to invest $5 billion in automaker’s Cruise self-driving unit.

Dan Ammann became chief executive officer of GM Cruise, the self-driving car unit, on January 1.

The appointment of Reuss, a 35-year GM veteran, comes as the automaker cuts back on producing conventional sedans.

In the United States, GM remains strong in pickups and utility vehicles, which represented two-thirds of the company’s sales in last year.