GM Chief Executive Mary Barra: ‘We failed our customers’
In her first interview since the automaker recalled nearly 20 million vehicles over faulty ignition switches and other problems, Barra said firings are over, but recalls might not be.
Hours after news broke that General Motors has halted sales of its 2013-2014 Chevrolet Cruze models over possibly defective air bags, the company’s CEO, Mary Barra, sat down with the “Today” show’s Matt Lauer to talk about the millions of cars GM has recalled this year.
Many of the recalled vehicles had faulty ignition switches, which have been linked to 13 deaths and 54 crashes, though reports state they’re likely to have caused many more than that.
“Clearly this issue took too long to find,” she told Lauer. “In this case, we failed our customers. We failed them with these vehicles.”
She said she didn’t believe there was a cover-up of the potential dangers in the cars’ faulty ignitions. Rather, she said information was in silos within the company and employees failed to come forward with the information they had.
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