DETROIT – General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) has come to an agreement with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for failing to report in a timely manner the ignition switch defect. As part of this agreement, GM will pay a $35 million fine.
“We have learned a great deal from this recall. We will now focus on the goal of becoming an industry leader in safety,” said GM CEO Mary Barra. “We will emerge from this situation a stronger company.”
Working with NHTSA, GM has already begun reviewing processes and policies to avoid future recalls of this nature.
“We are working hard to improve our ability to identify and respond to safety issues,” said Jeff Boyer, vice president of Global Vehicle Safety, who is assigned to integrate safety policies across the company. “Among other efforts, GM has created a new group, the Global Product Integrity unit, to innovate our safety oversight; we are encouraging and empowering our employees to raise their hands to address safety concerns through our Speak Up for Safety initiative, and we have set new requirements for our engineers to attain Black Belt certification through Design for Six Sigma.”
Having signed this agreement, GM now has its sights set on effectively serving customers and completing the ignition switch recall.
“GM’s ultimate goal is to create an exemplary process and produce the safest cars for our customers – they deserve no less,” said Barra.
GM SETS RECALL PARTS PLAN
Seven-day operation expects to have all parts needed made by October
DETROIT – With parts production running seven days a week on multiple shifts, General Motors plans to produce enough repair parts by October to have the ability to repair the majority of the vehicles impacted by the ignition switch and ignition cylinder recalls.
“Given that the ignition switch was in very limited production for several years, GM’s supplier, Delphi, increased production, pulled machinery out of storage, and found new suppliers for some of the part components,” wrote Jeff Boyer, vice president of GM Global Safety, today on GM FastLane. “We are buying new machinery and equipment to make parts quickly.”
GM and Delphi are working to get two additional production lines up and running this summer.
The cars covered are model years:
2003-2007 Saturn Ion
2005-2010 Chevrolet Cobalt
2007-2010 Pontiac G5
2006-2010 Pontiac Solstice
2007-2010 Saturn Sky
2006-2011 Chevrolet HHR
Owners of affected vehicles should contact their dealer or go to www.GMIgnitionUpdate.com to initiate the parts request.
For more thoughts from Boyer on the parts production process, go to GM FastLane
www.fastlane.gm.com/2014/05/16/gm-manufacture-ignition-recall-replacement-parts