General Motors’ woes: What do you recall?

Barra’s embarrassment

WHEN Mary Barra took the wheel at General Motors in January she inherited a company in good shape. Five years after bankruptcy, its profits were exceeding expectations and its share price was rising. But the new boss’s to-do list was long: fixing GM’s loss-making European arm, keeping up momentum in China amid signs of a slowdown and rejuvenating the product line. Ms Barra’s predecessor, Dan Akerson, warned her that she would also face “curve balls”. The first has arrived sooner than she might have expected.What appeared to be a routine recall in mid-February of about 800,000 older models, linked to a faulty ignition switch, has turned out to be anything but. The number of cars recalled has leapt to more than 2.6m. The company’s inept handling of a safety problem that first became apparent a decade ago is now linked to the deaths of at least 13 motorists. Called before Congress on April 1st to answer for GM’s failings Ms Barra said she was “deeply sorry” but insisted that the post-bankruptcy “new GM” was not like the “old GM”, which had failed to deal with the ignition switches for years. Politicians and the...



from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1pWGsbH