General Motors Corp. plans to devote a...

General Motors Corp. plans to devote a far bigger portion of its capital spending to creating new products and will share more of those costs with high-tech suppliers, GM President Robert Stempel said. Stempel and Dieter Spethmann, chairman of West Germany’s Thyssen AG, opened the five-day Automotive News World Congress, an annual gathering of auto industry executives, suppliers and analysts. Stempel renewed his call for a slowdown in new industry regulation, saying some legislative demands, such as zero pollutants in emissions, either are impossible or far more expensive than they are worth to consumers. Stempel also said the Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirement has served its purpose and no longer is necessary, because oil is in easy supply and cars of the 1980s are much more fuel-efficient than cars of a decade earlier. “This legislation was ill-conceived,” he said.