General Motors (NYSE: GM) will be celebrating its 100th birthday this year. Instead of completely focusing on the past, the automaker will focus on the future and what the next century will bring to the storied Detroit auto company.

Right off the bat, GM wants to have the first mass-produced, 100% electric vehicle on the planet available to its customers. Unless ExxonMobil and Valero Energy are prepared to shrivel up and go away, we'll all believe that when we see it. But when GM CEO Rick Wagoner starts talking about a future GM vehicle that's a safer, more fuel-efficient transportation "appliance," that garners much more attention. Wagoner will be giving his pitch at next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the gadget gathering to which automakers and cellphone manufacturers come together to talk about working together.

Wagoner recently said that "A lot of the first century was about the U.S. and developed markets ... it's really going to be a very different geography for our business as we go forward." GM's 100-year celebration - -dubbed GMnext -- gives some interesting insight into what the automaker has planned for the near and far future.

Although GM has been credited with taking Henry Ford's idea of assembly-line car manufacturing and giving customers several brands, styles and colors to choose from, the company lost U.S. market share domestically in 2007 and saw its stock dive to low levels. Let's hope the next 100 years end in a much brighter picture.

Is General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) really making a better car than it was just six years ago? According to GM CEO Robert Lutz, that is precisely what is happening. GM's current stable of brands and cars is being particularly well-received this year, from the Buick Lucerne to the Saturn Aura. Problem is, sales aren't living up to the newfound reputation.

In a way, this is to be expected. I can't go a week without someone telling me of a recent horror story with a GM car or truck that burned them "for life" on GM. It's not that GM is so bad (every company has bumps in the road), but it's that there are so many competitors with a consistent track record to choose from. Changing the "hearts and minds" of the American car consumer will take a while, but GM's investors may not want to wait -- like any impatient financial entity.

Can GM overcome the fear of risk aversion so many American consumers have about its brand, regardless of the actual reliability and competitiveness of its cars and trucks? That's a hard question to answer, and one only the consumer, over time, will be able to answer. The foreign competition will do anything but sit still in the interim, so if GM is really serious about winning back the American consumer, it's going to take more than expensive and slick marketing. A track record of years and years of superior reliability and satisfaction numbers will be only the start.