GM's Barra pleads ignorance

  • 10 years ago
General Motors new CEO Mary Barra was quickly put on the defense, appearing in front of a Congressional Subcommittee investigating several GM recalls tied to ignition switch problems.

Representative Tim Murphy:

SOUNDBITE: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TIM MURPHY (ENGLISH) SAYING:

"When GM concluded and you heard from my opening statement that the tooling cost and price pieces are too high, what does that mean?"

SOUNDBITE: MARY BARRA, CEO, GENERAL MOTORS (ENGLISH) SAYING:

"I find that statement to be very disturbing. As we do this investigation and understand it in the context of the whole time line if that was the reason a decision was made that was unacceptable. That is not the way we do business in today's GM."

Later, Barra admitted this was the first time she had seen a document signed by a GM engineer approving a change in the ignition switch design.

Representative Steve Scalise:

SOUNDBITE: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE STEVE SCALISE (ENGLISH) SAYING: