Autoline Daily is a Detroit show “dedicated to reporting on, discussing and dissecting the inner workings of the auto industry and the products that it makes.” Hosted by automotive journalist John McElroy, it “often the first stop for auto executives, industry insiders, and consumers looking for the latest news about cars and the industry.” So when we caught this editorial on last week’s firings of several General Motors executives regarding the ignition switch recall, we sat up and took notice.
Basically, McElroy brings up the question (to paraphrase), “If there is a culture of dysfunction at General Motors, why haven’t we heard more about these transgressions? Or are there more waiting in hiding?” And, “If there was no cover-up, why did GM fail to turn over certain documents to litigants?”
Those and more questions are being posed in the Autoline insight below.
Comment
I am disappointed in John as he should know better.
The fouled culture at GM was no secret to those who know the industry as he does. There are several books that predate the ignition issues that even document many cases.
John knows full and well how screwed up GM was and missed it here.
As for cover up there is a lot more to this. When a company faces an issue like this you get your ducks in a row no matter what before you just hand over things. What you hold and what you say can be used against you in a court of law. This is a legal matter and you must prepare and present your case to protect yourself as the other side often will take things out of context and use it against you.
The fact is GM was so screwed up that they could not deal with this on getting the car right do you really think the flawed culture was sharp enough to cover this up this well? Really think about this. You can not keep that many people quiet and that many document hidden if you can not even build the car right to begin with.
There are many more cases of failure within GM over the years but none that the media have ever really focused on. Even going back to the Corvair swing axles show how they used to think then the Vega and many other failures.
Mary did not talk in her first DC trip because again you can not speak freely when all the fact are not in and so many pending legal cases are out there.