Yesterday, General Motors announced three new recalls affecting a total of 1.5 million vehicles, on top of the existing 1.6 million vehicles which were recalled over faulty ignition switches. The additional recalls are the result of a comprehensive internal safety review spearheaded by GM CEO Mary Barra, and involve Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans, Cadillac XTS full-size sedans, and Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and Chevrolet Traverse full-size CUVs.
Accompanying the announcement of the initial recalls, Barra has issued a video statement providing an update on where things stand for the ignition switch recalls. She says that GM’s supplier, Delphi, has added a production line to help speed up the availability of the replacement switches, adding that letters to owners should be available to send out by the second week of April.
Barra also noted GM is doubling back on its pending product reviews, bringing them forward and resolving them as quickly as possible, hence the additional recalls announced Monday. She added that the automaker is conducting “an intense review” of its internal processes, and will have more developments regarding to recalls in the near future.
“The bottom line is we will be better because of this tragic situation if we seize the opportunity, and I believe we will do just that,” Barra said. Watch (video might not be friendly to all mobile devices):
Comments
WOOOOW………Tho Old GM caused this Major problem but this is a New GM who is determine to fix the Past, Present & Future problems and take Major Hits from the Public & Media and Not BullShit anyone…….Very Impressive so far!
She already looks worn out and haggard. Clearly, not the correct choice to lead this company. She will be shown the door within 18 months.
Clearly Dave you don’t know much about Mary Barra; here’s a little education for you.
She studied electrical engineering at General Motors Institute (now Kettering University), obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree. Receiving a GM fellowship at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1988, she obtained a Masters in Business Administration from the school in 1990.
She started working for General Motors at the age of 18 as a co-op student in 1980 and subsequently held a variety of engineering and administrative positions, including being manager of the Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant.
In February 2008 she became Vice President of Global Manufacturing Engineering. In July 2009 she advanced to the position of Vice President of Global Human Resources, which she held until February 2011, when she was named Executive Vice President of Global Product Development. The latter position included responsibilities for design; she has worked to reduce the number of automobile platforms in GM. In August 2013, her Vice President responsibility was extended to include Global Purchasing and Supply Chain.
She was judged to be the 35th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2013, having been 41st in 2012.
I guess you’d rather have a bouncing off the wall sales pitch from some polished media person than a sincere, educated, experienced person who actually is an every day down to earth person who can relate to people.
Of course if this was Ford, they’d have Mike Rowe do this PR bit.
I did not read all of what you wrote dpach about Mary Barra I do not care about her accomplishments. All I know is that a lot of people died due to corporate greed. I found Mary Barra statement “Terrible things happened” to be insulting to the families of the dead. That is the bottom line, not the financial bottom line either. The fact is GM knowingly did not fix a faulty condition that KILLED PEOPLE !
Donna, exactly what would you be saying if you were in her position. She inherited a nightmare situation from a decade ago from idiots who ran GM before the restructuring. Yes, 12 people have died and yes, that is a terrible thing. She is sincerely addressing those people and has put steps very quickly into action to improve the quality control, testing and expedite recalls faster and better, all within 2 weeks. Plus she’s been the head of GM for all of 60 days.
As for the issue itself, if you read other articles on this matter, NHSTA actually did investigations into this a few years ago and found no evidence that the deaths were caused by this ignition system. So what should GM have done if the national safety committee can’t find anything wrong?
I guess she could have done what Toyota did with the acceleration problem; come with a couple of bogus fixes (floor mat anchor and new gas pedal) only after EIGHTY-NINE (yes, 89) people died in their cars from this issue over 10 years. Plus, cars are still having the issue and Toyota is telling customers that it can’t be the same issue because everyone knows they “fixed” the issue; Toyota is wiping their hands of the issue.
Yet everyone still thinks Toyota’s crap doesn’t stink.
Clearly, you know ho t cut and paste a bio. Having an education does not mean she is a good leader. She can’t make a decision to save her life.
Dave, I do know how to cut and paste a bio; I assume you’d just try and slowly retype it?
This lady has been the head of GM for how many days? 60. She is inheriting huge issues from a decade ago from a bunch of boneheads who ran the old GM and is doing a great job dealing with this issue.
Can’t make a decision Dave? She has quickly decided they will fix this issue instead of hiding behind the old GM bankruptcy act, plus decided to quickly deal with recall issues in the Lamda platform and the Savana/Express vans, plus started the ball rolling on a new quality control program and a program to expedite recalls faster. All in a couple of weeks.
I’d like to see you in her position; you’d be CRAPPING YOUR PANTS!!
Donna lighten up.
First off you and no one else can tell us the exact number of people killed. One is too many but we all take a risk when ever we get in a car and things happen no matter if there is a problem or not.
Second you and no one else can tell us the circumstances of the crashes and what exactly happened. If it was the smaller number over half of them could have had contributing factors that lead to the death over above the power loss.
Losing power is not considered a death causing problem. Inconvenient yes but not something you would expect a death from. Most anyone who has ever driven a car have had it happen at some point in their life.
Any death is tragic but the percentage of deaths here even if you use the false inflated number is not a percentage that jumps out at you. To be honest more people may have died from bald tire blow outs in these same cars.
The reality is the media is making a bigger issue of this than it really is and does not even have all the facts correct. We have seen more deaths in the Crown Vic fires and other cars with issues that most went little reported.
Now I am not saying old GM were saints. They were very dysfunctional and made a lot of mistakes. The fact I take great interest in is the new GM is doing a lot to do things that old GM would never have done.
I ponder that more folks have died in these cars in drunk driving accidents but where is the media there? Death is tragic and it dose not need to always include GM to make it a story. The liberal media loves a villain corporate company.
Life is not fair and their are a thousand ways to die. This is 998 and it happened.
I agree any death is never acceptable but it is going to happen. This is not a good deal but we have had as bad and worse before and will see worse again in the future.
Mary has been handed a difficult situation and past sins of others. It is her place to walk a tight line to fix the issues, protect the company and not say anything that could damage any legal action that is taking place.
This is no different than if you cause an accident. Even if you are at fault you do not say I am sorry it is all my fault as legally you put yourself in a dangerous position. Even if it is not what I would call the taking responsibility move you have to just let things work out and no say anything. That is a sad part of our legal system anymore. I believe many companies would do more to help victims but if they did often they would open themselves up for so much more damage they can not do it.
What is important now Is how GM handles things post Chapter 11 and be more proactive. As it is this is what we are seeing. I think you will see some major changes here and most will come from Mary as she fixes many of the things that GM still has to work on. They were a very damaged company and it will take 10 years to get where they need to be. Right now they are 5 years in.
She is by far the best CEO I have ever seen! I want to meet her and praise her just how well she and the rest of GM are handling this unfortunate situation. I do think that they should pay for the unexpected funerals of the innocent people who lost their lives and give free cars to the affected families. There is always good that comes from bad though. I feel that GM really takes safety seriously now and appreciates their customers very much so!
LMAO. Best CEO??? You must be related to her to be able to post such nonsense
I suggest you apply for the job! Apparently you are the greatest judge of character and know everything about being a CEO of one of the largest companies in the world.
In case you really are slow Dave, that was sarcasm.
Wow, the fact that the GM engineers changed the faulty plunger that was causing the key to drop out of the on position and go into accessory means nothing to any of you experts. The fact they knew there was a problem and did not do a recall is acceptable to you. Very sad to me to read so many comments standing up for the corporate companies, As far “Donna Lighten up” maybe if you were family member killed, you may not feel so forgiving.
We are not saying it is OK because it is not. What happened was a terrible thing. The people you should be going after are the old boys who ran GM back when this was first becoming an issue, not the people who’ve been the leaders for 60 days.
Yes GM changed the ignition system up but they didn’t know it was affecting the air bag system. Even NHSTA investigate the situation back then and could not find anything. As far as both parties new, it was just causing the ignition to turn the car off to the accessory position (in which you can still push hard on the brakes to stop and still have steering – only it take more arm strength), so they changed up their design in 2008 after owners had enough miles on to start seeing the issue.
In the 1.3 Million vehicles sold, there have been a few hundred reports; not thousands, hundreds over the 10 years. That is less than 0.1% of customers.
Every manufacturer has had issues with vehicles that have caused deaths. These are mechanical machines build by people like you and I, and we have bad ideas and bad days too. Ford had people killed when the tires they approved for their Explorer were blowing, when cars like the Crown Vic’s were catching fire, etc. Toyota had 89 deaths due to their acceleration issue which they never did find a correct fix (the two recalls were bogus and didn’t fix the issue), and these are just examples from 2 leading manufacturers.
The old GM boys would have shoved this under the rug or passed the blame around in circles. I give this lady credit for taking on the old boy’s issues, addressing the public and the families involved, getting a recall initiated instead of using the bankruptcy act to protect them, initiating a review of their recall process and implementing the structure of a better quality control and recall processing system, all within 60 days of her getting this position. That is more than any CEO of any auto manufacturer has done in their first year on the job.
I have two questions for you Donna: first, there wasn’t an internet back when the Ford Explorer tire issue was killing people, so were you picketing back and forth outside Ford’s head office on a witch hunt like you are on here doing now?
Second, since there was the internet when Toyota’s issue killed 89 people, were you protesting all over the Toyota forums like you are now?
Wow, now it is a witch hunt to express your opinion. No, to question number one. No, to question number two. Since this is still America and I still have the right (So far) to freedom of speech as you do…. I will express my opinion just as much as you have the right too.
Yes you are right; everyone does have the freedom of speech. This forum is about opinion and debate. That’s all I was doing. If someone jumps all over a company or person, they had better be prepared to defend jumping all over that person and not the ones responsible or other companies who have done the same or worse.
Again, I wasn’t saying this wasn’t a horrific occurrence; people died. But the debate was about stringing a 60 day old CEO up for things done or decided on nearly a decade ago by an old boys club. What exactly was she suppose to say in that video? There’s nothing she could have said to bring those 12 people back. All she can state is how they are going forward from these horrific incidences to make sure it won’t happen again.
dpach-
You have said this very well.
Donna you have a right to say what ever you have but there are a lot more factors here than even we have listed.
First off no one can give a true number of deaths. Yes one is too many but even at that people dies due to many mass produced items and it is sad it happens but it happens.
Second what deaths we do know about are not well documented. At this point only 12 are well enough documented that anyone can even comment on them. But even then are they eve qualified as to how many happened before there was a know issue and what were the circumstances.
Now not to defend GM or any other company but in this legal climate many companies often have to remain quiet or appear non caring as if they say or do too much it opens them up to all sorts of legal action. Some of it is creditable but in many cases it is just people or lawyers filing cases where they are just hoping for a settlement as they really have no case.
I will be the first to day 10 years ago GM was a dysfunctional wreck. It may have not too clear just on who inside GM knew and did not know as in many cases of how they built cars the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing.
At this point the cars will be addressed. GM will settle with the legitimate cases where folks were killed and even many who may have had marginal cases too. I know money will not bring them back but nothing else will either.
GM will face a fine from the government to settle any issues with them.
Finally the people who are in place now at GM are fixing things that have needed fixed for a long time. From this point on GM will be in a better place to be on top of these things and they will be a better company for it.
Running a large corporation is difficult and walking into a company as messed up as GM was will take time to fix many things. This one got moved up because of this.
At this point the good thing is this was in the big picture a small issues with the number of cars built and the numbers of issues and injury or deaths. I have seen much worse over the years and many thing much more dangerous that have been gotten away with in cars. Just look at the fuel tank in a old Mustang. It was the floor of the trunk as well as the gas tank. they now make a after market replacement for collectors not willing to take the risk.
Hell seat belts were not even standard till the 60’s.
People and companies make mistakes people dies and they learn from it. I for one am alive today due to seat belts and because others dies with out them. So the real key is to find improvement from loss.
Also I believe their should be major Tort reform in this country to where people can not just file a legal case just because they spilled hot coffee on themselves. It does a real disservice to the people who have real cases that need to be heard and often it prevents companies from being as proactive as many would like to be as it could put them at a disadvantage if they have to go to court over a non legitimate case as too often what they say or do can be used against them even if it was a act of responsibility.
As for tragic deaths and injury I have had it happen first hand in my family to answer your previous comment. You learn to deal with it and blaming all sorts of people are not going to make them walk again or bring them back.