Former General Motors CEO Dan Akerson says neither him nor current CEO Mary Barra knew the company had millions of vehicles on the road with defective ignition switches, according to a recent report from Forbes.
Conspiracy theorists believe Barra was thrown under the bus by Akerson and other GM executives, who they say knew about the potential defect before Akerson left the position on January 15. Akerson claimed Barra didn’t know about the defect when she assumed the role in an interview earlier this week, and now says he was equally as uninformed.
“If I knew about it, she’d have known about it. And I didn’t know about it,” said Akerson.
GM Chairman Tim Solso also said he was unaware of the defect when he took over the role earlier this year and said that the automaker initially underestimated its scope.
“I became non-executive chairman in mid-January and I assure you I did not know anything about it at that point. Right after she knew, she called me,” Solso said.
He said there was nothing “extraordinary” about the initial conversation regarding the recall between him and Barra, adding they “didn’t know the depth and all the circumstances” until later.
Even though GM has acknowledged that some employees knew about the problems, Barra believes she wasn’t set up for failure, adding that it was a coincidence that the issue surfaced just weeks after she took over as CEO.
“I believe this issue came up, and we learned about it, the leadership learned about it on Jan 31 and we’re dealing with it, and it just happened to be two weeks after I officially came into this job,” she said.
Comments
There’s something foul in the kingdom of Denmark, er, in this company, when the top management had no knowledge of what’s going on in the company. And its gravest problems.
Read Lutz book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters and you will find that GM was so dysfunctional that it could be a real possibility.
Yes things were that bad and so layered.
It is a case of who knew what when and how it was communicated. If you read up you will find GM could not communicate well enough to fix issues that would make them money and build better cars let alone pass defect info on.
To be honest I really do not think GM in that era was fully capable and had a competent enough culture that they could have covered it up this well.
I think it is only their own dysfunction in the 90’s till the chapter 11 that is covering anything up. They could not get the things they needed right so how do you really think they could cover something up this well.
It was really bad inside GM in this era and we only know part of it.
During the congressional hearings, lawmakers tossed around the terms “cover-up” and “criminal deception.” Yet none of the documents to surface so far indicated that GM employees flagged the flimsy ignition switch as a safety problem.
In fact, GM reached an understanding with federal regulators in October 2004 that played down the seriousness of stalling unless it was accompanied by a risk of engine fire or other consequences.
In a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Gay Kent, GM’s then-director of product investigations, wrote: “Among other things, NHTSA and GM agree that stalling is not a per se safety-related defect, and that the specific facts and circumstances need to be analyzed in considering whether a particular problem constitutes such a defect.”
It is a shame the law makers do not follow their own laws and consider corporations innocent till proven guilty.
At times I am not sure who is the worse offender the media or those in Congress and the Senate.
Even the White House is doing a bigger stone wall of their scandals but yet many in the media forgive them.
I would recommend the new story on the GM switch in the new Car and Driver.
It gives a very accurate and balance look at the issue.
They look at 11 of the deaths and tell what many failed to tell like this.
4 of the 11 drivers were impaired by drugs and alcohol.
A fifth driver a known epileptic was slumped over the wheel before he crashed.
7 of the 13 victims were unbelted.
The last line of the story is this “Most cars have a Achilles heal. Sometimes two, when you factor in the driver.”
Page 19 July car and driver.
It is a good fair story and does not absolve GM totally but also factors in the responsibility of the drivers too.