It didn't take long for Mary Barra to feel the heat.
"Less than six weeks into her new job as CEO, Barra is facing a challenge potentially as consequential as the global recall scandal that rocked rival Toyota Motor Corp. four years ago," Detroit News business columnist Daniel Howes writes.
Mary Barra, above, became the automaker's first female CEO on Jan. 15.
The challenge involves "The automaker’s recall of 1.6 million vehicles with faulty ignition switches in unrepaired vehicles — blamed for 13 deaths," Howes explains,
A GM chronology prepared for federal regulators suggests a series of missed opportunities. It shows GM in 2005 canceled a proposed redesign of the ignition key head. The timeline also shows GM declined to issue a recall in 2007, despite 10 crashes in which air bags failed to deploy because of the balky ignition switches.
The situation also is the focus of a lead article Sunday in The New York Times, which notes that federal regulators face their own credibility test:
A New York Times analysis of consumer complaints submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that since February 2003 it received an average of two complaints a month about potentially dangerous shutdowns, but it repeatedly responded that there was not enough evidence of a problem to warrant a safety investigation. . . .
Many of the complaints detailed frightening scenes in which moving cars suddenly stalled at high speeds, on highways, in the middle of city traffic, and while crossing railroad tracks. A number of the complaints warned of catastrophic consequences if something was not done.
NHTSA got more than 260 such complaints over the last 11 years, the paper says.
In his News column, Howes writes that "urgent letters heading to customers as early as Monday [are] a chance for GM to bolster ties with potential repeat customers — or to squander good will in the service of corporate self-defense.
He lists tough issues confronting GM.
Many questions loom:
Why did GM’s processes fail?
What did the company know in 2005?
Why did they engineer a fix and cancel it? Who canceled it?
Did federal regulators aggressively push for a solution, or were they distracted by GM and, later, the auto bailouts and their aftermath?
Did GM’s team of technical experts charged with evaluating how and whether to issue recalls slow-walk the risks to GM customers and the company itself?
Did the team’s independence from its managers, intended to minimize executive meddling in engineering and data-driven decisions, too tightly compartmentalize information?
-- Alan Stamm
