Photo: General Motors
On the fateful day of February 6 of 2014, all hell broke loose at the General Motors HQ. The General Motors ignition switch saga ensued and, for what it’s worth, it ended after the reporting of 274 injuries, 124 fatalities, and the recall of 2.6 million small cars.
In many people’s eyes, the ignition switch problem is General Motors’ worst moment after the shameful Chapter 11 reorganization in June 2009. The United States government lost $11.2 billion on the bailout, while General Motors lost a smattering of car brands in the process.
But there’s one big difference between the bailout and the ignition switch problem. That difference is human casualties, something that the General Motors Corporation can never wash off its hands.
As per a story from Bloomberg, General Motors chief executive officer Mary Barra had the following things to declare to jurors at a trial from 2015: “A series of mistakes were made over a period of time that caused the ignition-switch defect,’’ testified the head honcho of the biggest automaker of the Big Three in Detroit. “This had tragic consequences,” added the big kahuna.
The video testimony clipped from a previously unreleased deposition features Barra talking about what the engineers did back in 2004 and 2005.
According to the most powerful woman in the auto industry, GM engineers “misdiagnosed it [the ignition switch problem] as a customer satisfaction issue and not a safety issue.” So yeah, even Mary Barra agrees that Old GM was as rotten as a corporation can be.
This bit of General Motors news comes a week after an ignition switch lawsuit was dismissed in Texas. A judge in Harris County, Texas, had dismissed a case from 2013 regarding a 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt fitted with the faulty switch. Still, that’s better than being fined $900 million over the ignition switch fiasco or spending $600 million on compensations for the dead and injured.
But there’s one big difference between the bailout and the ignition switch problem. That difference is human casualties, something that the General Motors Corporation can never wash off its hands.
As per a story from Bloomberg, General Motors chief executive officer Mary Barra had the following things to declare to jurors at a trial from 2015: “A series of mistakes were made over a period of time that caused the ignition-switch defect,’’ testified the head honcho of the biggest automaker of the Big Three in Detroit. “This had tragic consequences,” added the big kahuna.
The video testimony clipped from a previously unreleased deposition features Barra talking about what the engineers did back in 2004 and 2005.
According to the most powerful woman in the auto industry, GM engineers “misdiagnosed it [the ignition switch problem] as a customer satisfaction issue and not a safety issue.” So yeah, even Mary Barra agrees that Old GM was as rotten as a corporation can be.
This bit of General Motors news comes a week after an ignition switch lawsuit was dismissed in Texas. A judge in Harris County, Texas, had dismissed a case from 2013 regarding a 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt fitted with the faulty switch. Still, that’s better than being fined $900 million over the ignition switch fiasco or spending $600 million on compensations for the dead and injured.
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