The first official drive of a hydrogen fuel cell car in china. G.M boss Rick Wagoner telling CNN his company's ultimate financial viability depends on taking a lead in alternative fuel technology.

I wouldn’t want to try to be the, the you know the highest volume guy in in,in the world without the significant capabilities in alternative propulsion.

Hydrogen fueled cars emit only water but they remain largely experimental. No company has announced a general production date. Wagoner admits GM is playing catch-up with some green engine technology but claims the fight is only beginning.

You know in the end it matters who can get them into customers' hands, make a business out of it, and make you know really make the significant changes in the energy demand and ,and the environment, and so I think the game is significantly going to be played much more over the next 10 to15 years than it has been played over the last you know 10 years.

Wagoner says within a few years perhaps a little over 5 years, alternative fuel vehicles will account for half of all GM sales.

In the next decade, china will overtake the United States to become the NO.1 car market in the world. The challenge for china and other emerging markets is how to meet that demand without blowing out the oil budgets or further destroying the quality of the air.

The priority at GM’s newly announced 250 million dollars science campus in Shang Hai will be studying automotive ethanol from non-food sources like grass and waste. GM started this years lagging TOYOTA in total sales it has squeaked back in front in the third quarter. But Wagoner says he can’t be certain GM won't end the year in second place, for the first time in more than 75 years.

I will tell you whether we win or lose we are gonna be back next year trying to get every sale again and.

Future growth will chiefly be outside the US, but Wagoner says the recent deal with the Unions shifting much of GM’s crippling health cost off the books will go a long way towards restoring GM's competitiveness at home in the domestic market.

Hugh Riminton, CNN Beijing.

Notes:

Fuel Cell: An electrochemical cell in which the energy of a reaction between a fuel, such as liquid hydrogen, and an oxidant, such as liquid oxygen, is converted directly and continuously into electrical energy.