The big question about the slew of initiatives from General Motors is whether they will be enough to get the world’s biggest carmaker firing on all cylinders again.

The immediate reaction from financial markets was positive with GM shares climbing 8 per cent in early trading. “The outlook for 2006 earnings has now improved notably,” Himanshu Patel, analyst at JPMorgan, said in a report. But Ron Tadross, his counterpart at Banc of America Securities, said: “We still have a lot of questions.”