all right, this hearing will come to order. today we revisit the tragic management failures at general motors that killed people. first i want to acknowledge in my opening remarks then from my viewpoint the ceo of general motors, mary barra, has stepped up and with courage and conviction has confronted head on the problem and the corporate culture that caused it. some see the record number of recalls at general motors as a problem. i see it as a good sign. second, i want to briefly say that i think i speak on behalf of all members of congress who have asked very difficult questions surrounding these tragic events that while we are asking tough questions, we have great respect for the workers of general motors. i would like to take this moment to thank the workers at general motors. you are terrific. you build good cars. and you are also the victims of outrageously incompetent management. management was the problem here, not the workers. the valukas report i ve spent some ti
override and to use this part even though it didn t meet specificication? was that made at the manufacturing level, at the executive level or even at some subcomponent purchasing level? do you know that? that s part of our investigation to find the answer to that question. thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. you can watch this entire hearing on our website, www.c-span.org. we invite your feedback on this issues bought light program on the gm recalls. call this week, we will be focusing on president lyndon johnson s vision for a great society and its impact today. join the conversation by calling us or sending us an e-mail. you can also send us a tweet. a couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow here on c-span beginning with the community action are ship annual convention. include sister simone campbell and the author of a nun on the bus. a discussion on the conflict between russia and ukraine. family members of victims who gm sor were injured due to faulty
thank you, mr. chairman. ms. barra you ve mentioned several times in your comments today s gm. so my assumption is that you are going to run gm in a different manner than it has been run in the past? and that that s correct. and you are making some changes. i want to ask you just a little bit about time line. helping us to get our hands around this because this is the first investigation we re going to do. we re going to have others. and continue to look at this to get answers and figure out what has happened here between you all and nhtsa, and also within what happened at gm. so you mentioned in your testimony that this came to light on your watch. so i am assuming that there was no widespread knowledge in gm about this issue until you became ceo. am i correct on that? at the senior level of the company, we learned of this after the recall decision was made on january 31st. i was aware in lace debtber december there was analysis going on cobalt issue. but as soon as
yes. and for some reason, though, the new switch was not given a part number and instead shared a number with the original defective switch. is that correct? yes. now this new switch also did not meet gm s minimum torque specificications either. this one delfi said was in the range of 10 to 15 and it really should have been 15 at a minimum. is that correct? i have not seen the test results. you don t know that. ok. now, despite these facts gm continued to manufacture cars with these same ignition switches with the model years 2008 to 2011. is that correct? yes. and between 2004 and 2014, no public notices were issued as a result of gm s knowledge of these facts and no recalls were issued for the over 2.5 million vehicles manufactured with these defective ignition switches. is that correct? yes. and finally, three recalls were made this year, 2014. two in february and one just last friday. is that right? related to this ignition switch? now, i have just a cou
and why he did not know it and what kind of direction did he give a legal department that would allow them to do nothing in the face of the evidence they were confronting over years of litigation by people who were trying to get the attention of general motors about the fatal defects in the product they were selling. this is one of the darkest chapters in the history of general motors. and a mission switch an ignition switch was approved although it failed to meet gm s own standard specifications for torque resistance. the ignition switch would slip from run to accessory with little more than the knee hitting the key or the car driving over a bump. the car s power shut off while it was being driven. even for the most experienced drivers, there is nothing more terrifying than a loss of power while moving at high speeds. i can only imagine the sheer terror of the individual driving these vehicles the minute the ignition switched out of run. what those drivers did not know a