U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

89–888 2015

THE GM IGNITION SWITCH RECALL: WHY DID 

IT TAKE SO LONG? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND 

INVESTIGATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 1, 2014 

Serial No. 113–131 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

Vice Chairman 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

BILL JOHNSON, Missouri 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

Ranking Member 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

Chairman Emeritus 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

Chairman 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

Vice Chairman 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

Ranking Member 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex officio) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Tim Murphy, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth 

of Pennsylvania, opening statement ................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 3 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the state of Michigan, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8 

Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the state of 

California, opening statement ............................................................................. 9 

WITNESSES

Mary T. Barra, Chief Executive Officer, The General Motors Company ............ 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 133 

David Friedman, Acting Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration .......................................................................................................... 57 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 154 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Letter of March 31, 2014, from minority staff to Ms. Barra ................................ 103 

Subcommittee minority memorandum ................................................................... 110 

Subcommittee majority memorandum ................................................................... 118 

Article entitled, ‘‘An Engineer’s Eureka Moment With a G.M. Flaw,’’ the 

New York Times, March 28, 2014 ...................................................................... 130 

Document binder 1 ................................................................................................... 101 

1The information has been retained in committee files and is available at 

http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ 

ByEvent.aspx?EventID=102033. 

(1) 

THE GM IGNITION SWITCH RECALL: WHY DID 

IT TAKE SO LONG? 

TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in room 

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tim Murphy (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Murphy, Burgess, Blackburn, Gingrey, 

Scalise, Harper, Olson, Griffith, Long, Barton, Upton (ex officio), 

Terry, DeGette, Braley, Schakowsky, Castor, Welch, Tonko, 

Yarmuth, Green, Dingell (ex officio-nonvoting), and Waxman (ex 

officio). 

Staff Present: Carl Anderson, Counsel, Oversight; Gary Andres, 

Staff Director, Charlotte Baker, Deputy Communications Director; 

Mike Bloomquist, General Counsel; Sean Bonyun, Communications 

Director; Matt Bravo, Professional Staff Member; Leighton Brown, 

Press Assistant; Karen Christian, Chief Counsel, Oversight; Brad 

Grantz, Policy Coordinator, O&I; Brittany Havens, Legislative 

Clerk; Sean Hayes, Deputy Chief Counsel, O&I; Kirby Howard, 

Legislative Clerk; Peter Kielty, Deputy General Counsel; Alexa 

Marrero, Deputy Staff Director; Brian McCullough, Senior Professional Staff Member, CMT; Brandon Mooney, Professional Staff 

Member; Paul Nagle, Chief Counsel, CMT; John Ohly, Professional 

Staff, O&I; Krista Rosenthall, Counsel to Chairman Emeritus; 

Peter Spencer, Professional Staff Member, Oversight; Shannon 

Weinberg Taylor, Counsel, CMT; Tom Wilbur, Digital Media Advisor; Jessica Wilkerson, Legislative Clerk; Michele Ash, Minority 

Chief Counsel, CMT; Phil Barnett, Minority Staff Director; Brian 

Cohen, Minority Staff Director, O&I, and Senior Policy Advisor; 

Elizabeth Ertel, Minority Deputy Clerk; Kiren Gopal, Minority 

Counsel; Hannah Green, Minority Staff Assistant; Elizabeth Letter, 

Minority Press Secretary; Karen Lightfoot, Minority Communications Director and Senior Policy Advisor; and Stephen Salsbury, 

Minority Investigator. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TIM MURPHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. MURPHY. I now convene this hearing of the Oversight and 

Investigations subcommittee, entitled the ‘‘GM Ignition Switch Recall: Why Did It Take So Long?’’ 

2 

Ms. Barra, if you would like to take a seat, please. Thank you. 

This question is the focus of our investigation. As soon as the 

Chevy Cobalt rolled off the production line in 2004, customers 

began filing complaints about the ignition switch. These customers 

told General Motors that just by bumping the key with their knee 

while driving the Cobalt, it would shut off. In 2004 and 2005, GM 

engineers twice considered the problem and even developed potential solutions to fix it, but GM decided the, quote, ‘‘tooling cost and 

piece prices are too high,’’ unquote, and that, quote, ‘‘none of the 

solutions represent an acceptable business case,’’ end quote. 

The solution GM ultimately settled for was to tell their dealers 

to ask Cobalt drivers to remove heavy objects from their key 

chains, and yet just a year later, GM decided to fix the ignition 

switch. In 2005, GM told their supplier, Delphi, to increase the 

torque in the ignition switch so the key wouldn’t move out of the 

run position and into accessory mode. 

GM was not alone in examining problems with the Cobalt. The 

lead government safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic 

Safety Administration, known as NHTSA, was also evaluating concerns with the Cobalt. But NHTSA didn’t look at the ignition 

switch problem, just air bag nondeployment. In 2007, 3 years after 

the Cobalt’s release, the chief of NHTSA’s Defects Assessment Division proposed that the agency investigate the Cobalt because he 

spotted a, quote, ‘‘pattern of nondeployments,’’ unquote, in Cobalt 

air bags that didn’t exist with similar sedans. 

An internal NHTSA presentation noted a spike in warranty 

claims for Cobalt air bags, a total of 29 crashes causing 25 injuries, 

4 deaths, and 14 field reports. Yet NHTSA ultimately decided not 

to investigate. Even when the issue was again raised 3 years later 

in 2010, NHTSA again passed on investigating. 

GM was also looking into the air bag nondeployments. As early 

as 2007, GM started tracking incidents where Cobalt air bags did 

not deploy in car crashes. 

In 2011 and 2012, GM assigned at least two groups of engineers 

to examine the problem. According to GM’s public statements, it 

wasn’t until December 2013 the company finally put the pieces together and linked the problems with the air bags with the faulty 

ignition switch, almost 10 years after customers first told GM the 

Cobalt ignition switch didn’t work. 

We know this. The red flags were there for GM and NHTSA to 

take action, but for some reason, it did not happen. Why didn’t GM 

and NHTSA put the pieces together for 10 years? Why didn’t anyone ask the critical important questions? Why did GM accept parts 

below their own company standards and specs? When GM decided 

to get a new ignition switch for the Cobalt in 2006, did GM do so 

because they recognized that the faulty switch posed a safety problem? Why did GM keep the old part number which led to confusion? When GM replaced the ignition switch, did engineers also 

consider how the faulty ignition impacted other systems in the car 

like air bags? Why did GM the replace the ignition switch in new 

cars but not the older models? Why did GM think a memo about 

the size of key chains was enough to solve the problems? Why did 

NHTSA twice decide not to investigate the Cobalt? And why didn’t 

3 

1 1A1 Office of NHTSA Defects Investigation panel to the Defects Assessment Division 

NHTSA make the link between the keys being in the accessory position and air bags not deploying? Did anyone ask why? 

And for both GM and NHTSA, are people talking to one another? 

Do GM and NHTSA have a culture where people don’t pass information up and down the chain of command? To borrow a phrase, 

what we have here is a failure to communicate, and the results 

were deadly, a failure to communicate both between and within 

GM and NHTSA. Today we will ask GM and NHTSA what they 

are doing to not just fix the car but to fix the culture within a business and a government regulator that led to these problems. This 

is about restoring public trust and giving the families and crash 

victims the truth about whether this tragedy could have been prevented and if future ones will be prevented. It is my hope and expectation that today we will not hear a blame game or finger pointing. All the brilliant engineers and workers in the world won’t matter if the people don’t really care, and as the old saying goes, people don’t care that you know until they know that you care. 

This investigation is only 3 weeks old, and we are determined to 

find the facts and identify the problem so a tragedy like this won’t 

ever happen again. This investigation is bipartisan, it is a priority 

of all the members of this committee. I want to thank Mary Barra 

for being here and also the head of NHTSA, David Friedman, ranking members Waxman, DeGette, and Dingell for working with us, 

and I now yield the remaining amount of my time to Dr. Michael 

Burgess. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Murphy follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. TIM MURPHY

I now convene this hearing of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, entitled ‘‘The GM Ignition Switch Recall: Why Did It Take So Long?’’ 

This question is the focus of our investigation. 

As soon as the Chevy Cobalt rolled off the production line in 2004, customers 

began filing complaints about the ignition switch. These customers told GM that 

just by bumping the key with their knee while driving, the Cobalt would shut off. 

In 2004 and 2005, GM engineers twice considered the problem and even developed 

potential solutions to fix it. But GM decided the ‘‘tooling cost and piece price are 

too high’’ and that ‘‘none of the solutions represents an acceptable business case.’’ 

The solution GM ultimately settled for was to tell their dealers to ask Cobalt drivers 

to remove heavy objects from their key chains. 

And yet, just a year later, GM decided to fix the ignition switch. In 2005, GM told 

their supplier, Delphi, to increase the torque in the ignition switch so the key 

wouldn’t move out of the run position and into accessory mode. 

GM wasn’t alone in examining problems with the Cobalt. The lead government 

safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was also evaluating concerns with the Cobalt. 

But NHTSA didn’t look at the ignition switch problem, just airbag non-deployment. 

In 2007, 3 years after the Cobalt’s release, the chief of NHTSA’s Defects Assessment Division proposed that the agency investigate the Cobalt because he spotted 

a ‘‘pattern of non-deployments’’ in Cobalt airbags that didn’t exist with similar sedans. 

An internal NHTSA presentation 1A1 noted a spike in warranty claims for Cobalt 

airbags: a total of 29 crashes causing 25 injuries and four deaths; and 14 field reports. Yet, NHTSA ultimately decided not to investigate. Even when the issue was 

again raised 3 years later, in 2010, NHTSA again passed on investigating. 

GM was also looking into the airbag non-deployments. As early as 2007, GM 

started tracking incidents where Cobalt airbags didn’t deploy in car crashes. In 2011 

and 2012, GM assigned at least two groups of engineers to examine the problem. 

4 

According to GM’s public statements, it wasn’t until December 2013 that the company finally put the pieces together and linked the problems with the airbags with 

the faulty ignition switch—almost 10 years after customers first told GM the Cobalt 

ignition switch didn’t work. 

We know this: the red flags were there for GM and NHTSA to take action—but 

they didn’t. 

Why didn’t GM and NHTSA put the pieces together for 10 years? Why didn’t anyone ask the critically important questions? 

Why did GM accept parts below their own company standards and specs? 

When GM decided to get a new ignition switch for the Cobalt in 2006, did GM 

do so because they recognized that the faulty switch posed a safety problem? 

Why did GM keep the old part number, leading to confusion? 

When GM replaced the ignition switch, did engineers also consider how the faulty 

ignition impacted other systems in the car like the airbags? 

Why did GM replace the ignition switch in new cars but not the older models? 

Why did GM think a memo about the size of keychains was enough to solve a 

problem? 

Why did NTSHA twice decide not to investigate the Cobalt? 

Why didn’t NHTSA make the link between the keys being in the accessory position and airbags not deploying? Did anyone ask why? 

And for both GM and NHTSA: are people talking to one another? Do GM and 

NHTSA have a culture where people don’t pass information up and down the chain 

of command? 

To borrow a phrase, ‘‘what we have here is a failure to communicate’’—and the 

results are deadly. 

A failure to communicate both between and within GM and NHTSA. 

Today we will ask what GM and NHTSA are doing—not just to fix the car—but 

to fix a culture within a business and government regulator that led to these problems. This is about restoring public trust—and giving the families of crash victims 

the truth about whether this tragedy could have been prevented and if future ones 

will be prevented. 

It is my hope and expectation that today we will not hear a blame game or finger 

pointing. All the brilliant engineers and workers in the world won’t matter if the 

people don’t think you care. As the old saying goes: ‘‘People don’t care that you 

know, until they know that you care.’’ 

This investigation is only 3 weeks old. We are determined to find the facts and 

identify the problems so a tragedy like this never happens again. This investigation 

is bipartisan and is a priority of all members on this committee. 

I thank GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra and NHTSA Acting Administrator David Friedman for appearing before the committee today to answer our 

questions. I thank Ranking Members Waxman, DeGette and Dingell for working 

with us. 

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the chairman for yielding. 

I thank our witnesses for being here. I thank our witnesses for 

being so responsive to the committee staff request. We are here to 

examine a very important matter. The hearing is appropriately 

named. We do have questions for General Motors. 

We have questions for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Two chances to open up formal investigations into the 

recalled General Motors cars: Both in 2007 and 2010, NHTSA initially examined problems with the vehicles and both times—both 

times—decided that no investigation was needed. 

We need to hear from NHTSA today how you intend to improve 

the process going forward, and we were just here 5 years ago with 

the Toyota investigation. We heard a lot of things out of NHTSA 

on those hearings. I would like to know how they have improved 

the process and how we can expect to have confidence in their ability going forward. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. I now recognize the ranking member of the committee, Ms. DeGette, of Colorado. 

5 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANA DEGETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Like all of us, I am deeply troubled about what our investigation 

has revealed about GM’s business practices and its commitment to 

safety. 

Here is what we know. We know that GM has recalled over 2.5 

million vehicles because of defective ignition switches. We know 

they should have done it much, much earlier. We know that GM 

failed to provide Federal regulators with key information, and 

sadly, we know that at least 13 people are dead. And there have 

been dozens of crashes because GM produced cars that had a deadly effect. 

Mr. Chairman, I have a copy of the ignition switch assembly for 

one of these vehicles, and this is it. A spring inside the switch, a 

piece that cost pennies, failed to provide enough force causing the 

switch to turn off when the car went over a bump. 

GM knew about this problem in 2001. They were warned again 

and again over the next decade, but they did nothing. And I just 

want to show how easy it is to turn this key in this switch. If you 

had a heavy key chain, like my long key chain, or if you were short 

and you bumped up against the ignition with your knee, it could 

cause this key to switch right off. 

Mr. Chairman, we now know that these switches were defective 

from the start. In February of 2002, GM’s ignition switch supplier, 

Delphi, informed the company that the switch did not meet GM’s 

minimum specifications, but GM approved it anyway. 

Now, yesterday, we sent Ms. Barra a letter about this decision. 

I would like unanimous consent to make that letter a part of the 

hearing record. 

Mr. MURPHY. Without objection. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Ms. DEGETTE. Soon after this approval, the defective cars were 

on the road, and it didn’t take long for problems to appear. In 2003, 

June 2003, the owner of a Saturn Ion with 3,474 miles on the 

odometer made a warranty report that he or she, quote, ‘‘bumped 

the key and the car shut off.’’ GM would receive more than 130 

similar warranty claims from owners about this problem over the 

next decade, but it never informed the public or reported the problem to Federal safety regulators. 

The minority staff conducted this warranty analysis, and again, 

we prepared a memo about these claims. I would also ask unanimous consent to put that in the record, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. Without objection. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Ms. DEGETTE. Initially, GM opened multiple investigations into 

the ignition switch issue, each which concluded the switch was bad; 

it didn’t meet the minimums. In 2005, GM identified solutions to 

the problem but concluded that, quote, ‘‘the tooling cost and piece 

price are too high... Thus none of the solutions represents an acceptable business case.’’ 

Documents provided by GM show that this unacceptable cost increase was only 57 cents. 

6 

And Mr. Chairman, we have this document that we got from GM. 

Somehow it is not in the binder. I would ask unanimous consent 

to put this in the record as well. 

Mr. MURPHY. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Ms. DEGETTE. Another technical investigation completed in 2005 

led GM to issue a technical service bulletin advising dealers to distribute key inserts to help reduce the problem. This was a simple 

fix to reduce the force on the switch. 

And Mr. Chairman, these are the keys of one of my staff members who actually owns one of these cars, and as you can see, there 

is a long, long insert. What the key inserts were supposed to do is 

go in the middle and just create a little hole so the key and the 

keys wouldn’t go back and forth. Unfortunately, GM never made 

this bulletin public. More than 500 people out of the thousands of 

drivers who had cars with faulty switches got the key insert, and 

GM knew it. 

Soon after this decision, company officials quietly redesigned the 

switch, but they never changed the part number, and astonishingly, this committee has learned that when GM approved a new 

switch in 2006, they did it still knowing that the new switch didn’t 

meet specifications. The company even put more cars with bad 

switches on the road from 2008 until 2011, and we still don’t know 

all the information about this. 

Between 2003 and 2014, GM learned hundreds of reports of ignition switch problems through customer complaints, warranty 

claims, lawsuits, press coverage, field reports and even more internal investigations, but time and time again, GM did nothing. The 

company continued to sell cars, knowing they were unsafe. 

I know we have a lot of family members here, Mr. Chairman, 

and I want to express my deepest sympathies to them, but I want 

to tell them something more. We are going to get to the bottom of 

this. We are going to figure out what happened, and we are going 

to make sure it doesn’t happen again. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Ms. Barra for coming. She 

is brand new at the company. I believe she is committed to fixing 

this situation. We have a lot of questions to ask today, though, and 

I know every member of this committee is concerned about this. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. MURPHY. And the gentlelady’s time expired. 

I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Upton, 

for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. UPTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We know that with a 2-ton piece of high velocity machinery, 

there is in fact a zero margin for error. Product safety is indeed a 

life or death issue, but sadly, vehicle safety has fallen short, and 

it is not the first time. 

During the late summer of 2000, in this very room, I led the 

oversight hearings that examined the Ford-Firestone recalls, a tire 

malfunction was causing violent crashes, and Americans did not 

feel safe behind the wheel. We gathered testimony from the comVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:33 Jun 03, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 113\113-131 CHRIS
7 

pany and agency officials and reviewed thousands and thousands 

of pages of documents, and we found that the system indeed had 

failed. Information about the defective tires had been shared with 

the companies and with NHTSA, the parties failed to protect the 

public safety, and over 100 people died. 

After that investigation, I introduced the TREAD Act to correct 

many of the problems that contributed to the Ford-Firestone tragedy. That bill was meant to ensure data about safety is reported 

so that defects can be quickly identified and fixed and lives ultimately saved. The TREAD Act has now been law since November 

of 2000, yet here we are investigating another safety failure. It is 

de ́ja vu all over again. 

One month ago, GM issued a recall for an ignition switch defect 

in six vehicles, totalling 1.6 million cars. And last Friday, they 

called another 900,000 vehicles. GM acknowledges that a dozen 

people have died in automobile crashes associated with that defect. 

Two were teenagers from my own community. 

Testifying today are GM CEO Mary Barra and NHTSA Acting 

Administrator David Friedman, a first step in our quest to find out 

what went wrong. 

The committee’s purpose is the same as it was in 2000, making 

sure that drivers and families are protected and cars are safe. And 

I will repeat what I said at the first oversight hearings on Firestone tires in 2000. Today’s hearing is very personal to me because 

I come from Michigan, the auto State, the auto capital of the world. 

That is no less true today. Michigan is proud of its auto industry, 

and while Michigan citizens build cars, obviously, we drive them, 

too. 

Documents produced to the committee show that both NHTSA 

and GM received complaints and data about problems with ignition 

switches and air bags. These complaints go back at least a decade. 

NHTSA engineers did crash investigations as early as 2005 and 

twice examined whether complaints with air bags constituted a 

trend. GM submitted early warning reports to NHTSA, including 

data about crashes in the recalled cars. With all that information 

available, why did it take so long to issue the recall? 

In this case, just as it was with Ford-Firestone, it was news reports that brought the problem to the Nation’s attention. This investigation of the recall is indeed bipartisan, as it should be. We 

will follow the facts wherever they lead us, and we are going to 

work until we have the answers and can assure the public that indeed they are safe. I would like to note that the chairman of our 

CMT subcommittee, Mr. Terry, will be joining us for questions this 

afternoon. With his subcommittee’s record on motor vehicle safety 

issues, he will be watching closely as this investigation unfolds so 

that he can take our findings and determine whether and what 

changes may be needed to the laws designed to keep drivers safe 

on the road. After all, our goal on every issue follows the Dingell 

model: Identify the problem or abuse fully, and where needed, fix 

it with legislation so that it won’t happen again. 

I yield to the vice chair of the committee, Mrs. Blackburn. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:] 

8 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON

With a two-ton piece of high-velocity machinery, there is zero margin for error; 

product safety is a life or death issue. But sadly, vehicle safety has fallen short. And 

it’s not the first time. During the late summer of 2000, in this very room, I led the 

oversight hearings that examined the Ford-Firestone recalls. A tire malfunction was 

causing violent crashes, and Americans did not feel safe behind the wheel. We gathered testimony from company and agency officials and reviewed thousands of documents. And we found that the system had failed. Information about the defective 

tires had been shared with the companies and with NHTSA. The parties failed to 

protect the public’s safety, and over 100 people died. 

After that investigation, I introduced the TREAD Act to correct many of the problems that contributed to the Ford-Firestone tragedy. That bill was meant to ensure 

data about safety is reported so that defects can be quickly identified and fixed— 

and lives can be saved. 

The TREAD Act has been law since November 2000, yet here we are, investigating another safety failure. It’s de ́ja vu all over again. One month ago, GM 

issued a recall for an ignition switch defect in six vehicles, totaling 1.6 million cars. 

Last Friday, they recalled another 900,000 vehicles. GM acknowledges that 12 people have died in automobile crashes associated with this defect. Two were teenagers 

from southwest Michigan. 

Testifying today are GM CEO Mary Barra and NHTSA Acting Administrator 

David Friedman, a first step in our quest to find out what went wrong. The committee’s purpose is the same as in 2000: making sure drivers and families are protected 

and cars are safe. 

I will repeat what I said at the first oversight hearing on Firestone tires in 2000: 

‘‘today’s hearing is very personal to me, because I come from Michigan, the auto 

state, the auto capital of the world.’’ That is no less true today. Michigan is proud 

of its auto industry, and while Michigan citizens build cars, we drive them, too. 

Documents produced to the committee show that both NHTSA and GM received 

complaints and data about problems with ignition switches and airbags. These complaints go back at least 10 years. NHTSA engineers did crash investigations as early 

as 2005 and twice examined whether complaints with airbags constituted a trend. 

GM submitted Early Warning Reports to NHTSA, including data about crashes in 

the recalled cars. With all this information available, why did it take so long to 

issue the recall? In this case, just as it was with the Ford-Firestone affair, it was 

news reports that brought the problem to the nation’s attention. 

This investigation of the recall is bipartisan—as it should be. We will follow the 

facts where they lead us. And we will work until we have those answers, and can 

assure the public that they are safe. 

I’d like to note that the Chairman of our Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade 

Subcommittee, Mr. Terry, will be joining us for questions this afternoon. With his 

subcommittee’s record on motor vehicle safety issues, he will be watching closely as 

this investigation unfolds so that he can take our findings and determine whether 

and what changes may be needed to our laws designed to keep drivers safe on the 

road. After all, our goal on every issue follows the ‘‘Dingell model’’—identify the 

problem or abuse fully, and where needed, fix it with legislation so that it can’t happen again. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And Ms. Barra, thank you very much for being here today. We 

really owe this hearing to the American people, to GM customers, 

and to the relatives of the 12 individuals that have lost their lives. 

And it is important that we get to the bottom of this and to see 

what the roles of GM and NHTSA were in this, figure out who is 

at fault, and we want to know who knew what when. 

And Ms. Barra, that includes you. We are going to want to know 

what your exposure was to this issue as you took the helm at GM 

as the CEO. 

You know, in my district, we have the GM plant. The Saturn Ion 

has been recalled. That was made at that plant there in Spring 

Hill, so this is something that is important to my constituents. 

Those that have worked with GM, I thank you for being here, and 

we look forward to the answers. 

9 

I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. The gentlelady yields back. 

I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. 

Waxman, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a sad 

sense of de ́ja vu as I sit here today. I was part of this committee 

when we held our Ford-Firestone hearings in 2000. I led the committee’s hearings on Toyota’s problems with unintended acceleration in 2010. Each time, we heard about how auto manufacturers 

knew about potential defects and about how Federal safety officials 

at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration missed signals that should have alerted them to defective cars on the road, 

and here we are today under similar circumstances. 

Over the last month, the full dimensions of another auto safety 

disaster have unfolded. General Motors has recalled 2.5 million vehicles due to a defective ignition switch, and the company has acknowledged that these cars have caused dozens of crashes and 13 

fatalities. 

Mr. Chairman, I know the families of some of these victims are 

in the audience for today’s hearing. I want to acknowledge them, 

thank them for coming. We owe it to them to find out what happened. 

The facts that we already know are hard to believe. GM has 

known for years about this safety defect and has failed to take appropriate action to fix the problem. The company installed an ignition switch it knew did not meet its own specifications. Numerous 

internal investigations resulted in nothing but a nonpublic technical service bulletin that partially fixed the problem for fewer 

than 500 drivers. 

A new analysis I released this morning revealed that over the 

last decade, GM received over 130 warranty claims from drivers 

and GM technicians who experienced and identified the defect. 

Drivers reported that their car shut off after hitting bumps or potholes at highway speeds when they did something as simple as 

brushing the ignition switch with their knee. One GM technician 

even identified the exact part causing the problem, a spring that 

would have caused at most as much as a few postage stamps, a 

couple of dollars. 

Because GM didn’t implement this simple fix when it learned 

about the problem, at least a dozen people have died in defective 

GM vehicles. What is more, new information the committee received last week suggests that GM still has failed to fully own up 

to potential problems. GM finally modified the ignition switch for 

later model cars, but Delphi, the manufacturer of the ignition 

switch, told the committee that the switches installed in model 

year 2008 to 2011 vehicles still did not meet GM’s own specifications. GM finally announced a recall of these vehicles last Friday 

but told the public that it was because of bad parts installed during 

repairs, not because of defective parts originally installed in the vehicles. 

10 

There are legitimate questions we need to ask about whether 

NHTSA did enough to identify and uncover this problem. In retrospect, it is clear that the agency missed some red flags, but NHTSA 

was also laboring under a handicap. There appears to have been 

a lot of information that GM knew but they didn’t share with the 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. We need to make 

sure that NHTSA and the public have access to the same information about safety as auto executives. 

That is why today I am introducing the Motor Vehicle Safety Act 

of 2014. This bill is modeled on the legislation that the committee 

passed in 2010 but was never enacted into law. It will make more 

information on defects available to the public, and it will increase 

NHTSA’s funding and increase civil penalties for manufacturers 

when companies like GM fail to comply with the law. 

Mr. Chairman, we should learn as much as we can from this investigation. Then we should improve the law to make sure we are 

not here again after another auto safety tragedy in the near future. 

I want to yield back my time. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

I would now like to introduce the witness on the first panel for 

today’s hearing. Ms. Mary Barra is the chief executive officer of 

General Motors Company and has been in this role since January 

15th, 2014, when she also became a member of its board of directors. 

She has held a number of positions in this company. From 2008 

to 2009, Ms. Barra served as vice president of global manufacturing engineering, and from 2005 to 2008, she was executive director of vehicle manufacturing engineering. She has also served as a 

plant manager and director of competitive operations engineering 

as well as numerous other positions. 

I will now swear in the witness. 

Ms. Barra, you are aware that the committee is holding an investigative hearing and, when doing so, has a practice of taking testimony under oath. Do you have any objections to testifying under 

oath? 

Ms. BARRA. No. 

Mr. MURPHY. The chair then advises you that under the Rules 

of the House and under the rules of the committee, you are entitled 

to be advised by counsel. Do you desire to be advised by counsel 

during today’s hearing? 

Ms. BARRA. No. 

Mr. MURPHY. In that case, if you would please rise and raise 

your right hand, I will swear you in. 

[Witness sworn.] 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Ms. Barra, you are now under oath and 

subject to the penalties set forth in Title 18, Section 1001 of the 

United States Code. You may now give a 5-minute summary of 

your written statement. 

STATEMENT OF MARY T. BARRA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

THE GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY 

Ms. BARRA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members. 

Mr. MURPHY. Please pull your microphone close to your mouth 

and make sure it is on. Thank you. 

11 

Ms. BARRA. Can you hear me? OK. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members. My name is 

Mary Barra, and I am the chief executive officer of General Motors. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. More than a decade 

ago, GM embarked on a small-car program. Sitting here today, I 

cannot tell you why it took so long for a safety defect to be announced for this program, but I can tell you we will find out. 

This is an extraordinary situation. It involves vehicles we no 

longer make, but it came to light on my watch, so I am responsible 

for resolving it. 

When we have answers, we will be fully transparent with you, 

with our regulators, and with our customers. 

While I cannot turn back the clock, as soon as I learned about 

the problem, we acted without hesitation. We told the world we 

had a problem that needed to be fixed. We did so because whatever 

mistakes were made in the past, we will not shirk from our responsibilities now or in the future. 

Today’s GM will do the right thing. That begins with my sincere 

apologies to everyone who has been affected by this recall, especially the families and friends of those who lost their lives or were 

injured. I am deeply sorry. 

I have asked former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas to conduct a 

thorough and unimpeded investigation of the actions of General 

Motors. I have received updates from him, and he tells me he is 

well along with his work. He has free rein to go where the facts 

take him, regardless of outcome. The facts will be the facts. Once 

they are in, my leadership team and I will do what is needed to 

help assure this does not happen again. We will hold ourselves 

fully accountable. 

However, I want to stress I am not waiting for his results to 

make changes. I have named a new vice president of global vehicle 

safety, a first for General Motors. Jeff Boyer’s top priority is to 

quickly identify and resolve any and all product safety issues. He 

is not taking on this task alone. I stand with him, and my senior 

leadership team stands with him as well, and we will welcome 

input from outside of GM, from you, from NHTSA, from our customers, our dealers, and current and former employees. 

The latest round of recalls demonstrates just how serious we are 

about the way we want to do things at today’s GM. We’ve identified 

these issues, and we brought them forward and we’re fixing them. 

I have asked our team to keep stressing the system at GM and 

work with one thing in mind, the customer and their safety are at 

the center of everything we do. Our customers who have been affected by this recall are getting our full and undivided attention. 

We are talking directly to them through a dedicated Web site with 

constantly updated information and through social media platforms. We have trained and assigned more people, over 100, to our 

customer call centers, and wait times are down to seconds. And of 

course, we are sending customers written information through the 

mail. 

We have empowered our dealers to take extraordinary measures 

to treat each case specifically. If people do not want to drive a recalled vehicle before it is repaired, dealers can provide them with 

a loaner or a rental car free of charge. Today, we provided nearly 

12 

13,000 loaner vehicles. If a customer is already looking for another 

car, dealers are allowed to provide additional cash allowances for 

the purchase of a lease or new vehicle. 

Our supplier is manufacturing new replacement parts for the vehicles that are no longer in production. We have commissioned two 

lines and have asked for a third production line. And those parts 

will start being delivered to dealers next week. These measures are 

only the first in making things right and rebuilding trust with our 

customers. And as I have reminded our employees, getting the cars 

repaired is only the first step. Giving customers the best support 

possible throughout this process is how we will be judged. 

I would like this committee to know that all of our GM employees and I are determined to set a new standard. I am encouraged 

to say that everyone at GM, up to and including our board of directors, supports this. I am a second generation GM employee, and I 

am here as our CEO. But I am also here representing the men and 

women who are part of today’s GM and are dedicated to putting 

the highest quality, safest vehicles on the road. 

I recently held a town hall meeting to formally introduce our new 

VP of safety. We met at our technical center in Michigan. This is 

one of the places where the men and women who engineer our vehicles work. They are the brains behind our cars, but they are also 

the heart of General Motors. It was a tough meeting. Like me, they 

are disappointed and upset. I could see it in their faces. I could 

hear it in their voices. They had many of the same questions that 

I suspect are on your mind. They want to make things better for 

our customers and, in that process, make GM better. They particularly wanted to know what we plan to do for those who have suffered the most from this tragedy. 

That is why I am pleased to announce that we have retained 

Kenneth Feinberg as a consultant to help us evaluate the situation 

and recommend the best path forward. I am sure this committee 

knows Mr. Feinberg is highly qualified and is very experienced in 

handling matters such as this. Having led the compensation efforts 

involved with 9/11, the BP oil spill, and the Boston marathon 

bombing, Mr. Feinberg brings expertise and objectivity to this effort. 

As I have said, I consider this to be an extraordinary event, and 

we are responding to it in an extraordinary way. As I see it, GM 

has civil responsibilities and legal responsibilities. We are thinking 

through exactly what those responsibilities are and how to balance 

them in an appropriate manner. Bringing on Mr. Feinberg is the 

first step. 

I would now be happy to answer your questions. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Ms. Barra. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Barra follows:] 

13 


89888.031
14 


89888.032
15 


89888.033
16 

Mr. MURPHY. I also want to acknowledge all the families that are 

here today and know that we are aware and you have sympathies 

of all the committee here. One Kelly Erin Ruddy of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is one of those who we offer sympathy to the family, but 

we have all of your in our hearts. 

Ms. Barra, our committee reviewed more than 200,000 pages of 

documents. What we found is that as soon as the Cobalt hit the 

road in 2004, drivers began to immediately complain to General 

Motors that the car’s ignition systems didn’t work properly. You 

can imagine how frightening it is to drive a car that suddenly you 

lose your power steering and power brakes. When the switch for 

the Cobalt was being built back in 2002, GM knew the switch did 

not meet its specification for torque. Am I correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. GM engineers began to look at the problem and try 

to figure out how to address it. GM understood the torque and the 

switch as measured below its own specifications. Is that right? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. Is it common practice for GM to accept a part that 

does not meet GM specifications? 

Ms. BARRA. No, but there is a difference between a part meeting 

or not meting specifications and a part being defective. 

Mr. MURPHY. So under what scenario is accepting parts that 

don’t meet GM specs allowable? 

Ms. BARRA. An example of that would be when you are purchasing steel. You will set a specification for steel, but then because of the different suppliers and availability of steel to make 

products, you will assess the performance, the functionality, the 

durability, you know, the aspects of the part, or in this case, steel, 

that is necessary to live up to what the performance and the durability the safety needs to be. 

Mr. MURPHY. Well, let’s—— 

Ms. BARRA. So that is an example of when you would have a part 

or have material that doesn’t meet the spec that was set out but 

is acceptable from a safety, from a functionality perspective, performance as well. 

Mr. MURPHY. Is that switch acceptable? 

Ms. BARRA. The switch—I am sorry, the switch. 

Mr. MURPHY. Is the switch acceptable? 

Ms. BARRA. At what timeframe, I am sorry? 

Mr. MURPHY. Well, at the beginning. It didn’t meet the specs for 

GM, so is that what you would consider acceptable? 

Ms. BARRA. As we clearly know today, it is not. 

Mr. MURPHY. So, in 2006, GM changed its ignition switch, and 

GM’s switch supplier Delphi put in a new spring to increase the 

torque. Am I correct? 

Ms. BARRA. I didn’t hear the last part. I am sorry. 

Mr. MURPHY. GM switch supplier Delphi put a new spring in to 

increase the torque. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. There was a new part. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Now, in that binder next to you, if you 

would turn to tab 25. This is an e-mail exchange between Delphi 

employees in 2005 discussing the changes to the ignition switch. 

The e-mail notes that a GM engineer is asking for information 

17 

about the ignition switch because, quote, ‘‘Cobalt is blowing up in 

their face in regards to turning the car off with the driver’s knee,’’ 

unquote. 

If this was such a big problem, why didn’t GM replace the ignition switch in the cars already on the road, the cars where the 

torque fell well below GM’s specifications, instead of just the new 

cars, why? 

Ms. BARRA. What you just said does not match under tab 25. 

Mr. MURPHY. It is the bottom of the page; there should be something there. Well, just note that what I have said—I apologize for 

that. 

Ms. BARRA. OK. 

Mr. MURPHY. But there was a statement made, that Cobalt is 

blowing up in their face just by a bump of the driver’s knee. 

Ms. BARRA. Clearly, there were a lot of things that happened. 

There has been a lot of statements made as it relates. That is why 

we have hired Anton Valukas to do a complete investigation of this 

process. We are spanning over a decade of time. 

Mr. MURPHY. But you don’t know why they didn’t just replace 

the switch on the old cars as well as the new cars? 

Ms. BARRA. I do not know the answer to that, and that is why 

we are doing this investigation. 

Mr. MURPHY. Well, given the number of complaints about ignitions turning off while driving, why wasn’t this identified as a safety issue? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I can’t answer specific questions at that point 

in time. That is why we are doing a full and complete investigation. 

Mr. MURPHY. Well, then, another one, in the chronology GM submitted to NHTSA, GM states it didn’t make the connection between the ignition switch problems and the air bag nondeployment 

problems until late 2013. So my question is, when GM decided to 

switch the ignition in 2006, did the company ever examine how a 

faulty ignition switch could affect other vehicle systems like the air 

bags? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, that is part of the investigation. 

Mr. MURPHY. Should they? 

Ms. BARRA. Should we understand? 

Mr. MURPHY. Should they look at how it affects other vehicle systems? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. Let me ask another question then. So when GM 

concluded, and you heard from my opening statement, that the 

tooling cost and price pieces are too high, what does that mean? 

Ms. BARRA. I find that statement to be very disturbing. As we 

do this investigation and understand it in the context of the whole 

timeline, if that was the reason the decision was made, that is unacceptable. That is not the way we do business in today’s GM. 

Mr. MURPHY. Well, how does GM balance cost and safety? 

Ms. BARRA. We don’t. Today, if there is a safety issue, we take 

action. If we know there is a defect in our vehicles, we do not look 

at the cost associated with it. We look at the speed in which we 

can fix the issue. 

Mr. MURPHY. Was there a culture in GM at that time that they 

would have put cost over safety? 

18 

Ms. BARRA. Again, we are doing a complete investigation, but I 

would say, in general, we have moved from a cost culture after the 

bankruptcy to a customer culture. We have trained thousands of 

people on putting the customer first. We have actually gone with 

outside training. It is a part of our core values, and it is one of the 

most important cultural changes we are driving in General Motors 

today. 

Mr. MURPHY. I understand today. We are asking about then. 

I am out of time. 

Ms. DeGette, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, GM knew about the defect in the ignition switches as 

far back as 2001, 13 years before the recall. Correct? Yes or no will 

work. 

Ms. BARRA. The investigation will tell us that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. You don’t know when GM knew about the defect? 

Ms. BARRA. I would like—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Take a look at tab 7 in your notebook, Ms. Barra. 

This is a GM document, and what this GM document talks about 

is this switch. It says, Tear down evaluation on the switch revealed 

two causes of failure, low contact force and low detent plunger 

force. 

Do you recognize that document, ma’am? 

Ms. BARRA. This is the first I have seen this document. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Well, so you don’t know how long GM knew 

about this, right? 

Ms. BARRA. And that is why—and that is why I am doing an investigation. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. In fact, Delphi, the manufacturer of the ignition switch, informed GM in 2002 that the switch was supposed to 

be 15 minimum torque specification, but in fact, these switches 

were between 4 and 10, didn’t it? 

Ms. BARRA. The specification is correct that it was supposed to 

be 20, plus or minus 5. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And these switches were between 4 and 10, correct? Yes or no will work. 

Ms. BARRA. We know that now. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And GM was notified by Delphi of this, correct, 

yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. I am not aware of being notified. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Then—— 

Ms. BARRA. Can I also correct I was not aware that—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. I need a yes or no. I only have 5 minutes. I am 

sorry. 

So, as far back as 2004, 10 years ago, GM conducted a problem 

resolution tracking system inquiry after it learned of an incident 

where the key moved out of the run condition in a 2005 Chevrolet 

Cobalt. Is this correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, you are relating specific incidents that happened—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. You don’t know? 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. In our entire investigation. 

19 

Ms. DEGETTE. You don’t know about that? Take a look at tab 8, 

please. And by the way, ma’am, I am getting this information from 

the chronology that GM provided to NHTSA. 

Ms. BARRA. Right. And they are—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. So, let me ask you again, as far back as 2004, GM 

conducted a problem resolution tracking system inquiry after it 

learned of an incident where the key moved out of the run condition. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Now, after the PRTS inquiry, one engineer advised against further action because there was, quote, ‘‘no acceptable business case 

to provide a resolution and the PRTS was closed.’’ Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. If that is true, that is a very disturbing fact. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes, it is. 

Ms. BARRA. That is not the way we make decisions. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Again in 2005, GM received more reports of 

engines stopping when the keys were jerked out of the run condition. Further investigations were conducted, and engineers proposed changes to the keys. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. It is part of our investigation to get that complete 

timeline. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Much of this I am taking from the timeline GM 

has already done. 

Ms. BARRA. Which was a summary. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. So, as a result of the investigation, a technical service bulletin was issued to dealers that if car owners complained, they should be warned of this risk and advised to take unessential items from the key chain, but this recommendation was 

not made to the public. No public statements were issued. No recall 

sent. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. To my understanding, yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

In 2006, GM contracted with Delphi to redesign the ignition 

switch to use a new detent plunger and spring that would increase 

torque force in the switch. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. 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? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, this new switch also did not meet GM’s minimum torque specifications either. This one, Delphi said, was in the 

range of 10 to 15, and it really should have been 15 at a minimum. 

Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. I have not seen the test results from that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. You don’t know that. OK. 

Now, despite these facts, GM continued to manufacture its car 

with these same ignition switches for the model years 2008 to 

2011. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And between 2004 and 2014, no public notices 

were issued as a result of GM’s knowledge of these facts and no 

20 

recalls were issued for the over 2.5 million vehicles manufactured 

with these defective ignition switches. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And finally, three recalls were made this year, 

2014, two in February, and one just last Friday. Is that right? 

Ms. BARRA. Related to this ignition switch? 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, I have just a couple of more questions. 

The first question I have, Ms. Barra, GM is intending to replace 

all the switches for those cars beginning on April 7th. Is that right? 

Ms. BARRA. We will begin shipping material or new parts this 

week. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, are you going to put a completely redesigned 

switch, or are you going to put the old switches from 2006 into 

those cars? 

Ms. BARRA. It is going to be a switch that meets the—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Is it going to be a newly designed switch or is it 

going to be the old switch from 2006? 

Ms. BARRA. It is the old design that meets the performance that 

is required to operate safely. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. I have more questions, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps we can do another round. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. But an important part, a follow up of several members being concerned about this, too. You are saying that there is 

an ongoing investigation; you cannot comment on these yet. Are 

you getting updates on a regular basis as this is going on? 

Ms. BARRA. From Mr. Valukas? 

Mr. MURPHY. From anybody in the company regarding these proceedings, are you getting updates? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, I am. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Now go to the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Upton for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. UPTON. Thanks, again, Ms. Barra, for being here this afternoon. I want to make sure that we ask similar questions of both 

you and of NHTSA. We want to learn about the documents that 

were submitted on a timely and appropriate basis to NHTSA, and 

in fact, what did they do with that information. 

The documents that we have looked at as produced show that 

GM received complaints about its Cobalt ignition switches for 

about 2 years that ultimately resulted in a redesigned ignition 

switch in 2006. Who within GM would have known about those 

specific complaints? What was the process back then? 

Ms. BARRA. I was not a part of that organization at the time. 

That is why I am doing the investigation to understand that. 

Mr. UPTON. So you don’t know the folks that it would have been 

reported to at this point. Is that right? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t know the people who would have been handling this issue at that point. 

Mr. UPTON. But you are getting updates, and what is supposed 

to happen? Looking back, what should have happened when these 

reports came in? 

Ms. BARRA. In general, when you have an issue, a product issue, 

a safety issue, a field incident, any type of issue that comes in, you 

have a team of engineers that are the most knowledgeable that 

21 

work on that. If they see there is an issue, they elevate it to a 

cross-functional team that looks at it, and then it goes to a group 

for decision. 

Mr. UPTON. Now, we know that the ignition switch was in fact 

redesigned because it didn’t meet the specs that were there. Is that 

right? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. UPTON. Now, I would guess engineering 101 would normally 

require that when you assign a new part or replace a new part or 

replace a part with a new part, that that newly redesigned part, 

in fact, should have a different number on it. Is that right? 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. 

Mr. UPTON. And that didn’t happen, right, did not happen? 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. 

Mr. UPTON. Who within GM made the decision to move forward 

with that redesigned switch without a new part number? Do you 

know who that is? 

Ms. BARRA. I do not know the name of the individual. 

Mr. UPTON. Are you going to be able to find that out for us? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, I will. 

Mr. UPTON. And will you give that name to our committee? 

Ms. BARRA. And provide that. 

Mr. UPTON. Is it likely that that same person was the one that 

decided not to recall the defective version? Where in the timeline 

is that? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t know, but that is part of the investigation 

that we are doing. 

Mr. UPTON. Do you know when it was that it was discovered, 

what year, where in the timeline that it was discovered that in fact 

a new part number was not assigned? 

Ms. BARRA. I became aware of that after we did the recall and 

the timeline was put together. 

Mr. UPTON. So that was just in the last month or so. Is that 

right? 

Ms. BARRA. That is when I became aware. 

Mr. UPTON. But when did GM realize that no new part number 

had been assigned? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, that is part of our investigation. I want to 

know that just as much as you because that is an unacceptable 

practice. It is not the way we do business. 

Mr. UPTON. So, you stated publicly that something went wrong 

with our process. How is the process supposed to work? How are 

you redesigning the process to ensure that in fact it should work 

the way that it needs to work? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, one of things we are doing is the investigation 

by Mr. Valukas. I have some early findings from Mr. Valukas. As 

we look across the company, it appears at this time there was information in one part of the company, and another part of the company didn’t have access to that. At times, they didn’t share information just by course of process or they didn’t recognize that the 

information would be valuable to another area of the company. We 

have fixed that. We have announced a new position. Jeff Boyer, 

who is the vice president of Global Vehicle Safety, all of this we 

will report to him. He will have additional staff and will have the 

22 

ability to cut across the organization and will also have the right 

functional leadership that understands what is going on in the different areas, so that is a fix we have already made, and he is operating that way today. 

Mr. UPTON. So, when GM received complaints about the ignition 

switches for a number of years and ended up resulting in the redesigned ignition switch in 2006, when was it that anyone linked up 

the ignition switch problems to look at the Cobalt’s air bags not deploying? Was that at about the same time? Was that later? What 

is the timeline on that? 

Ms. BARRA. That is something I very much want to understand 

and know, but again, we are doing an investigation that spans over 

a decade, and it is very important, because designing a vehicle is 

a very complex process, that we get a detailed understanding of exactly what happened because that is the only way we can know 

that we can fix processes and make sure it never happens again. 

Mr. UPTON. When was it that GM informed NHTSA that in fact 

a redesigned—did in fact GM inform NHTSA that the ignition 

switch had been redesigned? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t know that. 

Mr. UPTON. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. 

Waxman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, we heard about how in 2002, GM approved the use 

of faulty ignition switches in Cobalts, Ions, and other cars. That is 

what caused many of the problems that led to the recall of the cars 

from model years 2003 to 2007. So new ignition switches were designed and approved by General Motors. These were switches that 

were in use in the model years 2008 to 2010. Does that all sound 

right to you? Am I correct in what I am saying? 

Ms. BARRA. There are a couple of statements you made at the beginning that I don’t know to be true. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, in 2002 GM approved the use of what turned 

out to be faulty ignition switches in several of these cars. 

Ms. BARRA. They were actually in—they were parts that went 

into a 2003 was the earliest model. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, the tests were done in 2002, but the cars 

were 2003 to 2007, so we had a recall of those cars. 

Ms. BARRA. Right. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And then there was a new switch, new ignition 

switch designed and approved by GM, and these new switches were 

in use in the model years 2008 to 2010 Cobalts and Ions. Is 

that—— 

Ms. BARRA. To the best of my knowledge, that’s correct. 

Mr. WAXMAN. OK. But in a briefing last week, Delphi told committee staff that these new switches also did not meet GM specifications. They told us the force required to turn these switches 

was about two-thirds of what GM said it should be, and documents 

that were provided to the committee also confirmed that top GM 

officials were aware of the out-of-spec switches in 2008 to 2010 vehicles in December 2013. 

23 

So, there’s a document, if you want to look it up, it’s tab 39, page 

6 of your binder. There was a December presentation for GM’s high 

level executive field action decision committee, at that meeting they 

show that the performance measurement for almost half of the 

2008, so you go to 2008–2010 model year vehicles, ignition switches 

were below the minimum GM required specifications. My question 

to you is, are you concerned that many 2008 to 2010 model year 

cars have switches that do not meet the company specifications? 

Ms. BARRA. As we assess the situation, my understanding that 

there was work going on to look at the switches again, looking at 

just because a switch, or a part, any generic part doesn’t meet specifications does not necessarily mean it is a defective part. As that 

analysis was going on, at the same time we were doing the look 

across to make sure we could get all of the spare parts, and when 

we recognized that spare parts might have been sold through third 

parties that have no tracking to know which VIN, we made the decision to recall all of those vehicles. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, your own executives were informed that a lot 

of these cars, that those model years had switches that were just 

as defective as the 2003 to 2007 cars, that—those cars were recalled, but you didn’t recall the model year 2008 to 2011 vehicles 

until a month later on March 28th. Why did the company delay in 

recalling these newer vehicles? 

Ms. BARRA. The company was looking—my understanding is the 

company was assessing those switches, but again, at the same 

time, in parallel, they were looking at the spare parts issue, and 

the spare parts issue became very clear we needed to go and get 

all of those vehicles because we couldn’t identify which vehicles 

may have had a spare part put in them, and we then recalled the 

entire population. 

Mr. WAXMAN. But you recalled those vehicles. You recalled them 

later. 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, we did. 

Mr. WAXMAN. But not when you knew there was a problem. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, we recall them—— 

Mr. WAXMAN. Your recall of these later vehicles did not mention 

the faulty switches that were originally installed in the cars. They 

mention only, quote, ‘‘faulty switches may have been used to repair 

the vehicles.’’ 

Why did the company not announce that subpar switches may 

have been installed in those vehicles in the first place? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, there was an assessment going on to understand if the specification—the parts performance was adequate. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, wasn’t it misleading to say that that company didn’t tell them sub par switches may have been installed in 

the first place? What if I owned a later model car with its original 

ignition switch? Your recall implies that I don’t have to do anything, but my car might still have a sub par switch. Will your company conduct a detailed analysis of these late model vehicles to determine if they are safe and will you provide the committee with 

warranty reports and other information so we can do our own analysis? 

Ms. BARRA. I believe we’re recalling all of those parts. All of 

those vehicles are being recalled. 

24 

Mr. WAXMAN. They are all being recalled. 

Well, I must say, in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I am concerned. 

I know you have taken this job in an auspicious time; you are trying to clean up a mess that was left behind for you by your predecessors, but I have one last question. How can GM assure its customers that new switches being installed beginning April 7 will finally meet GM’s requirements? 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Ms. BARRA. We are working very closely with our supplier. Our 

executive director responsible for switches is personally looking at 

the performance of the new switches. We will do 100 percent endof-line testing to make sure that the performance, the safety, the 

functionality of these switches are safe. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Gentleman’s time expired. 

Ms. Barra, you are being asked a number of questions. I just 

want to be clear. Did you review the documents that GM submitted 

to the committee? 

Ms. BARRA. No, I did not. There was over 200,000 pages, my understanding. 

Mr. MURPHY. How about the document Mr. Waxman was talking 

about? Did you review that? 

Ms. BARRA. This page right here? 

Mr. MURPHY. Yes. 

Ms. BARRA. I actually saw this for the first time I think a day 

ago. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

I now recognize Mrs. Blackburn for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. 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. 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. And that you are making some changes. 

I want to ask you just a little bit about timeline, helping us to 

get our hands around this because this is the first investigation we 

are going to do. We are 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? 

Ms. BARRA. At the senior level of the company, we learned of this 

after the recall decision was made on January 31st. I was aware 

in late December there was analysis going on on a Cobalt issue, 

but I had no more information than that. But I can assure you, as 

soon as we understood, the senior leadership understood this issue 

and that a recall decision had been made, we acted without hesitation. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. OK. Then, how did you find out about it? Was 

it through someone bringing the issue to you to say, ‘‘Ms. Barra, 

we have a real problem here’’ or, in doing your due diligence, did 

you find out about it? 

25 

Ms. BARRA. The leadership committee responsible for making recall decisions made a decision on January 31. They notified Mark 

Royse, who immediately picked up the phone and called me. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. OK. And could you submit to us the members 

of that leadership committee that makes those recommendations. 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. Thank you. 

And then was Mr. Akerson, your predecessor, was he aware of 

this issue? 

Ms. BARRA. Not to my knowledge. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. He was not. 

Are any of the members of the leadership committee also—were 

they a part of his leadership committee? 

Ms. BARRA. There are members of today’s team that were also 

members of Mr. Akerson’s leadership team. And, to my knowledge, 

they were not aware. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. Do you think there was a coverup or it was 

sloppy work? 

Ms. BARRA. That is the question I have asked Mr. Valukus to uncover, and I am anxiously awaiting the results from his study. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. OK. Do you think it had anything to do with 

the auto bailout? 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry? 

Ms. BLACKBURN. With the auto bailout. Do you think it had 

any—— 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I need to get the results of the study to make 

all determinations. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. And going back to what Mr. Upton said, you are 

going to be sharing that information with us? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. We will be transparent. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. OK. The engineers that were responsible for 

this, have you brought them into the process? I know this is something that the part was actually created by Delphi. Correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Correct. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. And they have an engineering team that was 

working on that; so, they have a shared responsibility and liability 

in this entire issue. 

Have you met with them and with the engineering team that 

was responsible for this switch? 

Ms. BARRA. I have not met with the specific engineering team 

that is responsible, but I am speaking to leadership. And those individuals are being interviewed as part of the investigation conducted by Mr. Valukus. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. OK. Now, going back, did you say that this was 

a defective part when you talked about it earlier? 

Ms. BARRA. We have learned when we knew—when the recall decision was made and we later went back and looked at the chronology, there are points that suggest, and that is why we are doing 

the investigation. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. OK. All right. Now, I think that you are going 

to hear from more than one of us about not having a new part 

number assigned. 

26 

Who made that decision? Was that strictly a Delphi decision or 

did that come into the GM supply chain for that decision to be 

made as to how that part number would be coded? 

Ms. BARRA. At a general level, General Motors is responsible for 

General Motors’ parts numbers. But, again, that is part of the investigation, to understand how that happened. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. OK. Does that seem inconceivable to you? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. It is inconceivable. It is not our process, and it 

is not acceptable. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. OK. I would think that it probably is not. 

Have you asked Delphi if you can have access to their documentation and their e-mail chain dealing with this issue? 

Ms. BARRA. I have not. And, again, Mr. Valukus will go—as the 

investigation takes him to get the information he needs to make a 

complete and accurate account of what happened. 

Ms. BLACKBURN. My time has expired. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Just for clarification, Ms. Blackburn, we have 

asked for that e-mail chain from Delphi and we will let you know 

when we get that. 

Now recognize Chairman Emeritus of the committee, Mr. Dingell, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your courtesy. 

I begin by telling the families of those who were injured or killed 

by the defective General Motors’ vehicles they have our sympathy, 

and we believe the events here are tragic, indeed. And I join everyone in expressing my condolences to the families who were killed 

or injured in those crashes. 

Now it is incumbent upon the Congress, Federal regulators, and 

General Motors to determine how these deaths could have happened and to take reasonable steps to ensure that the safety of 

American motorists and their families are moving forward. I expect 

that this investigation will be thorough. And I counsel all the 

stakeholders to be unabashedly forthright. 

Now, Ms. Barra, I would like to build on Chairman Murphy’s line 

of questioning. And all of my questions will require ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ 

answers. If you cannot answer some of my questions, I expect that 

you will submit responses for the record and all available relevant 

supporting materials. 

Now, Ms. Barra, is it correct that GM has now recalled approximately 2.5 million small cars in the United States due to defective 

ignition switches? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Ms. Barra, is it correct that GM recently expanded its recall of small cars because it was possible that defective ignition switches may have been installed as replacement 

parts? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Ms. Barra, is it correct that the ignition switch in 

question was originally developed in the late 1990s and approved 

by General Motors in February of 2002? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Ms. Barra, is it correct that General Motors’ own 

design specifications for such ignition switch required 20 plus or 

27 

minus 5 newton centimeters of torque to move the switch from the 

accessory position to the run position? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Ms. Barra, is it correct that General Motors approved production of such ignition switch despite test results by 

Delphi during the production part approval process, or PPAP, 

showing that the switch did not meet GM’s torque requirement? 

Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. It is not clear to me. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Ms. Barra, is it correct that General Motors 

approved a redesign of the ignition switch used in the presently recalled vehicles in April of 2006? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Ms. Barra, is it correct that GM’s torque requirement for the redesigned switch remained the same as for the original ignition switch? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. It is not clear to me. And that is why we are focusing 

the investigation on that area specifically. 

Mr. DINGELL. When that information becomes available, would 

you submit it to the committee, please? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, I will. 

Mr. DINGELL. Ms. Barra, to your knowledge, did the redesigned 

ignition switch meet GM’s torque requirements? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. I—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Want me to say it again? 

To your knowledge, did the redesigned ignition switch meet GM’s 

torque requirement? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. It is part of the investigation. 

Mr. DINGELL. Ms. Barra, will you please submit for the record an 

explanation of the factors that GM takes into consideration when 

approving a part for production. Are there circumstances where 

GM may approve parts for production when such parts do not 

make such design specifications? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. If so, could you please submit materials for the 

record explaining when and why that might occur. 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Ms. Barra, I appreciate the lengths to which GM, 

under your leadership, is going to recall the vehicles and ensure 

that they are safe to drive. 

GM’s cooperation with the committee is necessary in order to understand the process by which—and the reasons decisions were 

made leading up to the 2014 recall. You may have so far done so, 

and I expect that you will continue to do so. 

Thank you for your courtesy, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Ms. Barra. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

I now recognize the Chairman Emeritus of the majority, Mr. Barton of Texas, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before I ask my questions, I want to make just a general observation. This is probably the last major investigation that this subVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:33 Jun 03, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 113\113-131 CHRIS
28 

committee and full committee is going to conduct where we have 

the services of Mr. Dingell and Mr. Waxman. 

We have had a history on this committee and this subcommittee 

going back at least 40 to 50 years that, when we have major issues, 

we try to approach them on behalf of the American people in a nonpartisan, very open way. And it certainly appears that we are going 

to continue that tradition today. 

So I hope that we can show the best to the American people, that 

the Congress at its best gets the facts, presents the facts, and does 

so in a way that in the future we protect the public health and 

safety for the American people. 

Now, with that caveat, I do have a few questions. 

A number of congressmen so far have made the point that these 

ignition switches didn’t appear to meet specifications. 

And my assumption is that you have agreed that they did not 

meet specifications. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. We have learned that as we did the recall. 

Mr. BARTON. Now, I am an industrial engineer. I used to be a 

registered professional engineer. I am not currently registered, but 

I have been in the past. 

Why in the world would a company with the stellar reputation 

of General Motors purchase a part that did not meet its own specifications? 

Ms. BARRA. I want to know that as much as you do. It is not the 

way we do business today. It is not the way we want to design and 

engineer vehicles for our customers. 

Mr. BARTON. I mean, I just don’t understand that. I have never 

worked in an auto assembly environment. I have worked in a defense plant, an aircraft plant. I was plant manager of a printing 

plant. 

I have done very limited consulting in the oil and gas industry, 

but I have never been a part of an organization that said, ‘‘We set 

the specs. When a part doesn’t meet the specs, we go ahead and 

buy it anyway.’’ 

You know, you are currently the CEO, but at one time, I think, 

before you became CEO, you were the vice president for Global 

Product Development, purchasing and supply chain. 

Is it your position now that General Motors will not accept parts 

that don’t meet specifications? 

Ms. BARRA. We will not accept parts that don’t meet our performance, safety, functionality, durability requirements. As I mentioned 

before in the steel example, there will be times where there will be 

a material or a part that doesn’t meet the exact specification, but 

after analysis and looking at the performance, the safety, the durability, the reliability, the functionality, it will be OKed. That happens very often as we buy steel to make the bodies of the vehicles. 

Mr. BARTON. Well, then, you don’t need specifications—with all 

respect—— 

Ms. BARRA. No. But—— 

Mr. BARTON [continuing]. What you just answered is gobbledygook. It is your own specification. It is your company’s specification. 

If a part doesn’t meet the specification, why in the world would 

you not refuse it and only accept a part that meets the specification? 

29 

Ms. BARRA. There needs to be a well-documented process if you 

accept a part that doesn’t meet the original specifications. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. BARTON. Briefly, yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Do you have that information? 

Ms. BARRA. On steel? 

Ms. DEGETTE. No. On starters. 

Ms. BARRA. On the ignition switch—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes. 

If it didn’t meet specifications, do you have the information on 

these starters that it met all those other criteria? 

Ms. BARRA. That is part of the investigation. But, clearly, by the 

fact that we made a recall, it did not meet the performance specifications. 

Mr. BARTON. We have the advantage, as a subcommittee, that we 

know now what happened in the past. We know now that there is 

a real problem. We know now that a number of young people have 

lost their lives apparently because of this defect. 

So we have the advantage of hindsight. So I understand that. 

But as Ms. DeGette just said and a number of others, there is no 

reason to have specifications if you don’t enforce them. 

This next question is not a trick question, but it is an important 

question. Right now, how many parts are being used in General 

Motors’ products that don’t meet your own company’s specifications? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t have that exact number. But I can tell you 

the parts that we are using today meet the performance and the 

reliability, the safety, that they need to. If we find we have a part 

that is defective, that doesn’t meet the requirements, we then do 

a recall. 

Mr. BARTON. Well, again, with due—that is not an acceptable answer, I think, to the American people. 

We are not telling you the specifications to set. Now, there are 

some safety specifications that—by law and NHTSA, by regulation, 

sets, but there shouldn’t be a part used in any GM product or, for 

that matter, any other automobile product that is sold in the 

United States that doesn’t meet the specifications. 

At what level was the decision made to override and to use this 

part even though it didn’t meet specification? Was that made at the 

manufacturing level, at the executive level, or even at some subcomponent purchasing level? Do you know that right now? 

Ms. BARRA. That is part of our investigation to answer that question. 

Mr. BARTON. All right. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

I now recognize Mr. Braley for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, we have had different perspectives during this hearing. You have been appropriately focusing your attention on the 

members of this committee and answering our questions. 

I have been staring at these photographs on the back wall. And 

I see young women the same age as my daughter. I see young men 

30 

the same age as my two sons. My son Paul owns one of your Cobalts. 

I see a young Marine in his dress blues, and I am reminded of 

the photograph I have in my office upstairs of my father at the age 

of 18 in his dress blues at Camp Pendleton. 

And the focus of this hearing so far has been on GM’s commitment to safety, which I think we all agree on is an important topic 

for this hearing. 

You testified in your opening—and I think I am quoting—‘‘Our 

customers and their safety are at the center of everything we do.’’ 

And you responded to a question from Ms. Blackburn and told 

us that you were going to run GM differently than it has been run 

in the past. 

And I have a copy of GM’s March 18 press release announcing 

Jeff Boyer as your new vice president of Global Vehicle Safety. 

And in this press release he is quoted as saying, ‘‘Nothing is 

more important than the safety of our customers and the vehicles 

they drive. Today’s GM is committed to this, and I am ready to 

take on this assignment.’’ 

Twenty years before this hearing an Iowa family harmed by another defective GM vehicle gave me this promotional screwdriver 

set that they got from their local GM dealer. And if you look at it, 

on the outside it has a slogan, ‘‘Safety comes first at GM.’’ 

So my question for you and I think the question that these families back here want to know is: What has changed at GM? Isn’t it 

true that, throughout its corporate history, GM has represented to 

the driving public that safety has always been their number one 

priority? 

Ms. BARRA. I can’t speak to the statements that were made in 

the past. All I can tell you is the way we are working now, the 

training that we have done, we have changed our core values, the 

decisionmaking we are leading, we are leading by example. 

One of the process changes that we have also made is, in addition to when the technical community makes their decision about 

a safety recall or a recall, we are going to be reviewing it, Mark 

Royce, the head of Global Product Development, and myself, to see 

if there is more that we want to do. 

Mr. BRALEY. Haven’t the core values of General Motors always 

been that safety comes first? 

Ms. BARRA. I have never seen that part before. 

Mr. BRALEY. Isn’t it true that throughout the history of the company, it has made representations like this to the driving public as 

a way of inducing them to buy your vehicles? 

Ms. BARRA. Today’s General Motors—all I can tell you is today’s 

General Motors, we are focused or safety. We have over 18 vehicles 

that have a five-star crash rating. Our entire Buick lineup meets 

that requirement. We take it very seriously. 

Mr. BRALEY. But we are talking about these vehicles and what 

has changed. 

Have you had a chance to read this article in the Saturday New 

York Times, ‘‘A Florida Engineer’s Eureka Moment With a Deadly 

G.M. Flaw?’’ 

Ms. BARRA. I believe I read a portion of that article. 

31 

Mr. BRALEY. This is an article by a writer named Bill Vlasic. And 

he wrote in here about an engineer named Mark Hood who is ‘‘at 

a loss to explain why the engine in Brooke Melton’s Cobalt had 

suddenly shut off, causing her fatal accident in 2010 in Georgia.’’ 

Then he bought a replacement for $30 from a local G.M. Dealership, and the mystery quickly unraveled. For the first time, someone outside G.M., even by the company’s own account, had figured 

out a problem that it had known about for a decade, and is now 

linked to 12 deaths. 

Even though the new switch had the same identification number, 

Mr. Hood found big differences. 

And then the article continues, ‘‘So began the discovery that 

would set in motion G.M.’s worldwide recall of 2.6 million Cobalts 

and other cars, and one of the gravest safety crises in the company’s history.’’ 

Do you agree with the author that this is a grave safety crisis 

in the history of General Motors? 

Ms. BARRA. I have said that this incident took way too long, it 

is not acceptable, and that is why we are making a radical change 

to the entire process, adding more resources, naming a vice president of Global Vehicle Safety who is tremendously experienced and 

of the highest integrity, and we will continue to make process 

changes and people changes as we get the results of the Mr. 

Valukus investigation, and we will take all of those recommendations and we will make changes. 

Mr. BRALEY. Before I yield back, Mr. Chairman, I would like to 

ask unanimous consent to have this article added to the record for 

the hearing, if it is not already a part of the record. 

Mr. MURPHY. Without objection. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Ms. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman would yield his remaining second, Ms. Barra said they had changed their core values. I think it 

would be great if she could submit to us what those new core values for GM are so we would have those for the record. 

Mr. MURPHY. We will ask that for the record. 

Mr. BRALEY. I would also like to have any prior statement of core 

values from General Motors over the last 20 years so that we can 

see what has changed, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. We will be asking members for several questions 

to submit to GM for the record. 

Now recognize the vice chair of the subcommittee, Dr. Burgess, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the chairman. 

And thank the witness for spending so much time with us this 

afternoon. 

You mentioned, Ms. Barra, at the start of your written testimony 

that, over a decade ago, General Motors embarked upon a small car 

program. 

Do you recall why that was? 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry? 

Mr. BURGESS. Why did GM embark upon a small car program 10 

years ago, over a decade ago? 

Ms. BARRA. To have a complete portfolio, I believe. 

32 

Mr. BURGESS. But the mission—or the type of car that was manufactured by GM previously had not fit that model; so, this was an 

entirely new business line that GM was undertaking? 

Ms. BARRA. The Cobalt—and there are several products. But if 

you are speaking specifically about the Cobalt, it was following a 

previous small car, but it was an all-new program architecture, et 

cetera. 

Mr. BURGESS. Was any part of this done because of the CAFE 

standards that were changing? Was any of this done because of 

congressional action that had occurred previously? 

Ms. BARRA. I cannot answer that question. I wasn’t in on decisionmaking at that point. 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me ask you this. When Mr. Waxman was giving his opening statement, he said it was a shame that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not have access 

to the same information that General Motors had. 

Do you think that was a fair statement for him to have made? 

Ms. BARRA. As part of the investigation we are doing, I am looking at what information was provided and when. 

Mr. BURGESS. And that becomes, then, the troubling part of all 

of this. 

I think Ranking Member DeGette had you look at tab 8 in the 

information binder, and this was talking about the ignition key cylinder assembly. And the date of the PDF that I have is January 

1 of 2005. Again, you will find that under tab 8. 

But later on in the same document it says, ‘‘We are closing this 

with no action. The main reasons are all possible solutions were 

presented. The lead time for solutions is too long. The tooling costs 

and piece price are too high, and none of the solution seems to fully 

countermeasure the possibility of the key being turned off.’’ 

So that was all in January of 2005. And then, you know, as part 

of our document evaluation for getting ready for this hearing, there 

were several accident reports that were supplied to us. And one of 

those occurred not too far away in Maryland in the middle of the 

summer of 2005. 

And in that accident sequence, a Cobalt hit a series of trees at 

the end of a cul-de-sac. The driver was fatally injured during that. 

She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. She wasn’t a terribly large individual. She weighed about 100 pounds. 

Because the air bag did not deploy, though—or it would be my— 

well, you just have to wonder. Had the air bag deployed, would her 

small frame have been protected? 

I mean, she broke the rim off the steering wheel because of the 

impact of the collision, her body with the steering wheel and steering column. 

Of course, the steering wheel, being somewhat indented toward 

the driver—the lower part of the driver’s body, hit her under the 

ribcage, apparently resulting in a liver laceration, which resulted 

in the exsanguination and the time sequence to get her out of the 

crash and get her to the hospital. 

You can’t help but wonder—because the other injuries that were 

reported with that crash are really fairly mild. You have got to believe the air bag would have made a difference there. 

33 

I just can’t help but think that the people evaluating this must 

have asked themselves why no air bag went off with this type of 

crash. She was going 70 miles an hour and hit an oak tree. 

Wouldn’t that be a logical place for an air bag to deploy? 

Ms. BARRA. First of all, it is a very tragic situation. Some of the 

fatalities in these vehicles, again, we see as a tragedy, and we have 

apologized. 

As I read the document that you asked me, I find that unacceptable, that any engineer would stop at that point if there was an 

issue that they felt was a safety defect. 

That is why we are doing the investigation, again, to put a complete timeline together. And I commit to you, we will take action. 

We have made process changes. We will fix the process. Our goal 

is to have a world-class safety process. 

Mr. BURGESS. And I respect you for being here and answering 

that way. 

One of the other accidents that is recorded in our binder under 

tab 20 was a head-on collision that occurred, I believe, in Pennsylvania where the Cobalt was not at fault. 

Another car went over the center line, and there was a head-on 

impact. Again the Cobalt air bags did not deploy. The driver of the 

other vehicle—the air bag did deploy. 

I mean, it seems to me this should be a red flag to the people 

who investigate air bag non-deployments as an occurrence or as an 

issue. 

In fairness, let me just state that all of the front-seat occupants 

of both vehicles were deceased as a result of that accident; so, the 

deployment of the air bag in that situation did not protect, preserve 

the life of the driver. 

But, still, you would have to ask the question. You have a Cobalt 

and a Hyundai meeting head on. Why did the Cobalt’s air bags not 

deploy? 

It was the exact same force for both vehicles. There was no 

intercedent jarring of the vehicle. They didn’t run off the curb. 

They didn’t run over another tree first. So the air bag did not deploy. 

Why would that have been the case in that particular accident? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, it is a tragic situation anytime there is a loss 

of life in a traffic situation. Again, this is not an investigation that 

was done by GM. I can’t answer your questions because it is usually very complex as they look at that. So I can’t comment on this 

particular study. 

Mr. BURGESS. If that is part of your internal investigation, 

though, I would like for you to make that information available to 

the committee staff and to the committee. 

Ms. BARRA. We will make whatever information we have available. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you. And thanks for being here. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

I will now recognize Ms. Schakowsky for 5 minutes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Braley talked about the pictures in the back, and I think 

that what must make it even more painful is that these deaths 

were needless. 

34 

So I want to ask you about something a little bit more than an 

apology. One of the many questions raised about GM is how you 

will handle accidents that happened prior to the company’s bankruptcy. 

GM filed for bankruptcy in June 2009, emerging as new GM 

about 6 weeks later. So that means that new GM, the company as 

it exists today, I have been told, may not be liable for accidents 

that occurred prior to July 2009. 

Is that your understanding, Ms. Barra? 

Ms. BARRA. We at General Motors want to do the right thing for 

our customers, and that is why we feel this is an extraordinary situation, as I have said. 

It took too long to get to the answers and the understandings 

about this part. That is why we have hired Mr. Feinberg. 

We feel Mr. Feinberg has had extensive experience and he will 

bring his experience and objectivity to assess what are the appropriate next steps, because we do understand that we have civic responsibilities as well as legal responsibilities. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Are you saying that the hiring of Mr. Feinberg 

indicates that GM will give some kind of settlement to the families 

whose loved ones lost their lives? 

Ms. BARRA. We have just begun to work with Mr. Feinberg. In 

fact, our first meeting will be on Friday. It will take probably 30 

to 60 days to evaluate the situation. So we have not made any decisions. We have just started this process with Mr. Feinberg. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And that might include people who have been 

injured as well? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, we have not made any decisions. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Let me ask you this: During GM’s restructuring, did the company disclose what it knew about this ignition 

switch defect? By 2009, there is no doubt that officials in GM were 

aware of this problem. 

Ms. BARRA. I was not aware of this issue. I can’t speak to what 

was disclosed. So, again, our investigation will cover if there was 

any information. But, to my knowledge, it was not known at the 

senior leadership of the company. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. So does GM accept responsibility for the accidents caused by the company’s defective vehicles? 

Ms. BARRA. First of all, I again want to reiterate we think the 

situation is tragic and we apologize for what has happened and we 

are doing a full investigation to understand—— 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I am talking about responsibility and even liability. 

Ms. BARRA. Responsibility—I am sorry. I don’t understand your 

question. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And even liability. 

Do you take responsibility? Is the company responsible? The new 

GM, is it responsible? 

Ms. BARRA. We will make the best decisions for our customers, 

recognizing that we have legal obligations and responsibilities as 

well as moral obligations. We are committed to our customers, and 

we are going to work very hard to do the right thing for our customers. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I hope that you do do the right thing. 

35 

Let me ask you about some of the people who potentially knew 

about this. 

So you have appointed for the first time a president of Global Vehicle Safety. I have to tell you I am underwhelmed by that, thinking that it is such an obvious thing to have someone high up that 

would, in fact, be able to connect the departments so everybody 

knew. I guess it is a good thing, however, that it is finally done. 

So we know that Ray DeGiorgio was the GM engineer who approved the ignition switch redesign in 2006. Is he still an employee 

of your company? 

Ms. BARRA. I believe he is. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Do you know who signed off on the initial 

faulty ignition switch that did not meet your specifications? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t. But that is what I will learn with the investigation. And after we have a complete investigation from a very 

complex process, we will take action. 

We will change process, and we will deal with any people issues. 

I think we demonstrated in the issues we learned in India with the 

Tavera about a year ago, we will take serious steps and hold people 

accountable. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. So no one right now has lost their job as a result of this knowledge about this defective part? 

Ms. BARRA. We are just a few weeks into the investigation by 

Mr. Valukus. We have already made process changes. 

And as I return to the office after this, we will begin to look at 

the implications, now that we have more data coming from the investigation, and take the appropriate steps. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentlelady yields back. 

Now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

This hearing is much appreciated, pretty poignant to me, since 

Brooke Melton lived in my congressional district at the time. 

And had it not been for an outstanding plaintiff’s attorney in the 

Cobb Judicial District of Georgia in bringing this case—I am sure 

it was against a local dealership—resulted in a settlement, but it 

brought to light what is going on now and the purpose. And, hopefully, some good can come from this hearing. 

And I want to thank Chairman Murphy for holding it and investigating the root cause of the General Motors recall of over 2.6 million vehicles linked to these ignition defects. Unfortunately, Ms. 

Barra, I heard just yesterday that the recall now includes 6.3 million vehicles. 

And I do want to speak a little about this young lady named 

Brooke Melton, a nurse in Paulding County, Georgia, which, at the 

time, was in the district I represent. 

And she was, as you know, tragically killed March the 10th, 

2010, on her 29th birthday in a horrific side-impact accident on 

Highway 92, and the ignition switch in the accessory position. 

Just the day before, just the day before, her death, she took her 

2005 Chevy Cobalt into the dealership for service, and the service 

36 

report stated, ‘‘Customer states engine shut off while driving. 

Please check.’’ 

Despite the fact that a service bulletin was issued from General 

Motors for faulty ignition switches back in 2005 for that make and 

that model, the on-site mechanic cleaned the fuel line, cleaned the 

fuel injection, told her to come pick up her car, which she did. 

Brooke Melton’s tragic death is not acknowledged as part of this 

recall because it involved a side impact instead of a front impact. 

Ms. Melton’s parents, Ken and Beth—they are not here today, I 

don’t think, but they deserve answers. 

Ms. Barra, is Brooke Melton included in General Motors’ death 

count? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. To my knowledge, no. 

Mr. GINGREY. No? 

Ms. BARRA. Because it was a side impact and we—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Right. 

Why did General Motors not include the non-deployment of air 

bags from side-impact accidents resulting in loss of life or injury in 

this recall? 

Ms. BARRA. As you look at a frontal collision and the way the air 

bag is to operate, I believe the assessment was made that would 

potentially be related to the switch. 

Mr. GINGREY. Yes. But, Ms. Barra, if you connect the dots—I 

mean, the ignition gets knocked over to the accessory position. 

There was a problem using faulty, even by your own standards, 

equipment. 

And so maybe what happened was that all of a sudden the car 

stalls. She is driving perfectly, trying to control without any power 

steering, without any power brakes, and may very well have—and 

I don’t know the details of that accident—but may very well have 

run through a four-way or a red light and was slammed into from 

the side. 

Whether it was a head-on collision or a side collision, it was for 

the same reason, and she is dead. And that was almost 4 years 

ago. 

I don’t understand why General Motors does not include the nondeployment of air bags from side-impact accidents resulting in loss 

of life or injury in this recall. Can you explain that to us. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first of all, all of the accidents and fatalities are 

very tragic, as you have indicated, and we are deeply sorry for 

those. 

We have been very clear of the number that we put forward. 

There has been a lot of analysis that has gone on to look at potential incidents and—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, did General Motors investigate or do you 

plan to investigate whether this condition relates to the non-deployment of air bags in side-impact crashes? 

Ms. BARRA. We have individuals that are looking at the available 

information from accidents—— 

Mr. DINGELL. You told us about your recent hire, and I hope— 

well, lastly, Ms. Barra, to what extent did GM regularly inform 

dealerships, like the dealership, obviously, in Cobb County, of its 

2005 technical service bulletin on faulty ignition switches so that 

these service technicians, these young guys, maybe working there 

37 

6 months to a year, that they could properly address a customer 

complaint like Brooke had the day before her death? 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry. Was your question how do we communicate service bulletins? 

Mr. GINGREY. How do you make sure that these dealerships all 

across the country and their service departments are making sure 

that their technicians are getting and receiving the instruction? 

Ms. BARRA. We can provide details on exactly how we communicate service bulletins and how that is rolled out to each of our 

dealerships across the country. 

Mr. GINGREY. I hope you will. Thank you, Ms. Barra. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Ms. Barra, related to his questions, with all these 

cars in recall and waiting for parts, what are drivers supposed to 

do in the meantime while their cars sit in the driveway? 

Ms. BARRA. We have communicated and we have done extensive 

testing that, if you have just the ignition key with the ring or just 

the ignition key, the vehicle is safe to drive. 

If people are not comfortable with that, we are making loaners 

or rentals available. They can go to their dealer. We have over 

13,000 customers that have these vehicles in rentals or loaners 

right now. 

Mr. MURPHY. And you are assuring people that it is safe to drive 

if they just take the other things off the key? 

Ms. BARRA. There has been extensive testing done by the engineering team. And with just the key and the ring or just the key, 

we believe it is safe based on our testing. 

Mr. MURPHY. Recognize Mr.—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. 

Is that true of the earlier ignitions as well as the 2006, all of 

them? All these cars, that’s true? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Tonko, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Ms. Barra, thank you for appearing before the committee. 

And I have to believe, for the family members and friends of the 

victims of this tragic outcome, it must be a very painful process to 

sit here and listen to the exchange. 

Just a comment at first. We are hearing a lot about information 

that will come post the investigation or the review. 

However, I hold in my hands a February report and a March report to NHTSA on behalf of GM under your watch that provides 

detailed timelines with a whole bit of knowledge exchanged. 

And I am confused somewhat about that fair amount of knowledge that has been formally exchanged to NHTSA and, at the same 

time, we are hearing, ‘‘Well, we don’t know until the investigation 

is complete.’’ 

So there is a conflict that I think is brought to bear here in terms 

of an exchange that has been detailed in the last few weeks under 

the watch of the new General Motors, today’s GM. 

And at the same time, when I was listening to our representative 

from Illinois ask about the corporate chart and the changes, no 

changes have been made. We are waiting for that pending the inVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:33 Jun 03, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 113\113-131 CHRIS
38 

vestigation. But at the same time, we have characterized—or relabeled it as today’s General Motors. 

So while we are all products of the environment that produces 

us, the cultural impact of GM seems to still be in play with a number of people who have perhaps shifted positions, but are all part 

of that organization. 

So comfort me by telling me that there is a new thinking, there 

is a new culture, that has beset GM while all the players are there 

in the corporate chart. Tell me how the company has restructured 

and reorganized so as to bring comfort to the consumer. 

Ms. BARRA. First, there are many new people in the company as 

well as people who have experience across the company. There is 

a new structure. For instance, in Global Product Development, we 

have streamlined, eliminated bureaucracy. 

We took out an entire layer of management in the product development. We have completely redone the quality processes over the 

last—it started in the 2011–2012 time frame. 

We have changed our test procedure. We have added additional 

validation. So there has been a complete remake of the way we 

drive quality. We test to failure instead of testing to a standard. 

That is just one example. 

And we have looked across the entire organization. We have rebuilt our supplier quality organization, adding over 100 resources 

just in this country alone. 

So systematically we have gone across the company and we are 

making changes, even in the chronologies which I think you held 

up. 

Those are the most detailed chronologies that we have ever provided, sharing, again, in a summary fashion, the information we 

have now, but then we are conducting an investigation with Mr. 

Valukus. 

We have also rolled out new values with the customer as our 

compass, relationships matter and individual excellence. We have 

trained thousands of people. 

But, most importantly, it is leadership at the top. It is the leadership of how we behave, of how we demonstrate when we make 

decisions, and that we make decisions that focus on the customer, 

focus on safety, focus on quality. And I can tell you, from my leadership team and the next layer, we continue to drive that every 

day. 

We recognize culture change doesn’t happen in a year or two, but 

we are well on that journey, and we are dedicated to it and we very 

clearly want to have the safest vehicles on the road. 

Mr. TONKO. And will you make that list public from the report 

that you are anticipating? 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry? 

Mr. TONKO. Will you make the list that will be coming forth public? Will you share it? 

Ms. BARRA. That’s the list of? I am sorry. 

Mr. TONKO. The full report coming from Mr. Valukus. 

Ms. BARRA. Mr. Valukus will give us findings and we will make 

the appropriate findings available to this body, to our customers, 

and to our employees. 

Mr. TONKO. The appropriate findings. 

39 

What about the full report? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t know if he will give a report or if he will 

share findings. 

Mr. TONKO. If he does, will you share the full report? 

Ms. BARRA. We will share the appropriate information. 

Mr. TONKO. Not the full report? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I don’t know if there will be a full report. But 

we will share—— 

Mr. TONKO. If there will be a full report, will you share it? 

Ms. BARRA. I commit that we will be very transparent and we 

will share what’s appropriate. 

Mr. TONKO. So, in other words, there is no commitment to share 

the full report? 

Ms. BARRA. I am saying I will share what is appropriate. 

Mr. TONKO. I hear the answer. 

Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentleman yields back. 

Recognize the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Scalise, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you having 

this hearing. 

Ms. Barra, I thank you for being here. 

Let me say first my prayers are with all the families of those 

who lost their lives and others who have been impacted by this. I 

want to thank you all for being here in this room as well. 

Obviously, the questions we have are even more pertinent to the 

families that are here, and that is why it is important that we ask 

the questions and get answers. 

And if we are going to make sure that we can prevent something 

like this from happening again, we have got to get into the real details of what went on during that period of years, unfortunately, 

years, where it seemed somewhere inside of General Motors there 

was knowledge that this was a problem before it got to the level 

of recall. 

I want to first take you, Ms. Barra, to the tab you have got there, 

Number 38. Tab 38 is the signoff. This is what is called a General 

Motors commodity validation signoff. This is the actual sheet that 

the engineer signed off on that approved the design change in the 

faulty ignition switch. 

Have you seen that document before? 

Ms. BARRA. This is the first time I have seen this document that 

is labeled ‘‘Delphi.’’ 

Mr. SCALISE. Now, what we are talking about here—how long 

have you been aware of the problem with these faulty ignition 

switches? 

Ms. BARRA. I was aware that there was a faulty ignition switch 

on January 31. 

Mr. SCALISE. Of this year? 

Ms. BARRA. Of this year. 

Mr. SCALISE. OK. So as you are going through—I’m sure some 

of the questions you have and are asking and maybe some of the 

ones we are having—the first question you would want to ask is: 

What did we know about it? When did we know? Did we know well 

in advance? And why didn’t we prevent it from happening? 

40 

The first thing we all are talking about is when was this found 

out within GM to the point where they actually made a change. I 

mean, you all made a design change. 

The letter I have got here, this form, is dated April 25 of 2006. 

So 2006 is when your engineers—and there is a name on this 

sheet. There is an actual engineer who you just said under oath 

earlier is still employed with GM. 

There is an engineer that actually signed this document requesting—not requesting—approving a change in this ignition switch, in 

fact, with the part number. The part number is on here. 

To your knowledge, has anyone in GM taken this—he is an employee of yours. You can just pull him aside right now and ask him, 

‘‘When you signed off on this in 2006, number one, why didn’t you 

change the part number? And, number two, why did you approve 

a change in the ignition switch and not bring it to the level of recall?’’ 

In 2006—clearly people lost their lives after this was signed off 

on. So do you know right now—and you are under oath—do you 

know of anyone that has asked the person that signed this—that 

signed off on this—have any of you all asked him those basic questions? 

Ms. BARRA. I know this is part of the Anton Valukus investigation. And I want to know the answers to the questions you are asking as well as you. 

Mr. SCALISE. Do you know of anyone that’s asked him that question? I mean, he’s an employee of yours right now. You can pull 

him aside right when you leave here today and ask him these questions. 

Ms. BARRA. I think it is very important as we do an independent 

investigation that we let Mr. Valukus go do a thorough investigation, talk to people, that there are not a lot of side investigations 

going on. He is the one standard that we are going to use in this 

investigation. He brings the objectivity to it. 

Mr. SCALISE. Clearly, there—I mean, you talk about a new culture. 

Has anyone been held accountable as of now for what’s happened? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, we learned of this on January 31. 

Mr. SCALISE. Well, again, you have a design change in 2006 related to what we are talking about. This is not a 2014 issue. 

The recall was issued in 2014, but the product, the faulty ignition switch we are talking about, was redesigned in 2006 by one 

of your engineers who’s still an employee of General Motors. 

If you can’t get me that information—and if you do find that information out, by the way, would you get that to the committee? 

Ms. BARRA. It will be part of the investigation and we will share 

that. 

Mr. SCALISE. The other question I want to ask you—because 

later on we are going to have the acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

Some of the things he says in his testimony—before you leave, 

I would like to get at least some responses. He says, number one, 

‘‘We are pursuing an investigation of whether GM met its timeliVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:33 Jun 03, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 113\113-131 CHRIS
41 

ness responsibilities to report and address this defect under Federal law.’’ 

Are you aware of whether or not GM has met its obligations of 

timeliness? 

Ms. BARRA. That will be part of the investigation that we are 

doing. 

Mr. SCALISE. But you are not aware at this time, though. I mean, 

if you are aware of something, that would be a violation of Federal 

law. 

If you are aware of that already, can you share that with us? 

Ms. BARRA. I am aware of the findings that I have already 

shared from Mr. Valukus today. 

Mr. SCALISE. And another question he asks—in the brief time I 

have left, he says, ‘‘GM had critical information that would have 

helped identify this defect.’’ 

That’s the gentleman that’s testifying right after you. You don’t 

have the opportunity to come behind him and respond. He is going 

to be saying this. He is writing this in his testimony. 

What would you say in response to his statement that GM had 

critical information that would have helped identify this defect? 

Ms. BARRA. As I have already said, we have already learned 

through Mr. Valukus’s investigation that there were points in time 

where one part of the organization had information that wasn’t 

shared across to the other side of the organization. You can call it 

a silo. 

At some point, they didn’t understand that the information 

would be valuable to another party. So I have already shared that 

we have found that to be true and we have already made changes 

to the structure and to the responsibilities of people. So that won’t 

happen again. 

Mr. SCALISE. We appreciate getting the full range of answers to 

all these questions. 

And, with that, I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. Time is expired. 

I now recognize Mr. Green for 5 minutes, of Texas. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, first of all, congratulations on being the CEO of General Motors. Like a lot of my constituents, I have been a customer 

of GM. In fact, I can’t list the number of vehicles I think I have 

owned. Although my wife drives a Tahoe, I lease a Malibu. I have 

a Blazer. And, you know, we keep them for a long time. So I appreciate GM products. 

And you have heard the questioning today, and it seems like on 

a bipartisan basis we are trying to find out what is happening, although—Mr. Chairman, I know you heard it—I was surprised because Dr. Gingrey is a good friend of mine and a physician and, 

to say he thanked a plaintiff’s lawyer for something, you have at 

least gotten Republicans and Democrats on the same side on something. Phil’s not here now, but there is a reason we have a civil 

bar. 

You have gone down the litany with the other questions of the 

problems that were happening. In 2002, the switch was acknowlVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:33 Jun 03, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 113\113-131 CHRIS
42 

edged it was below specs. In 2005, the dealers were notified of a 

problem, but it was because of heavier key rings. 

And I thought about my wife’s key ring that she uses. It has everything in the world on that key ring. So I couldn’t imagine that 

would be an issue. 

But, I guess, getting down to the concern I have—and in 2007 

you modified the switch ignition for future models, but—though the 

switch ignition still fell below the initial torque standards by GM. 

Let me give you an example of what this has caused. I have a 

constituent who I talked to yesterday before I left Houston whose 

mother, Lois, owns a 2003 Regal, which is 10 years old. And she 

has owned GM products, like I guess I have, for many years. 

But the Regal began stalling and turning off in February of 2013 

and even the car had less than 50,000 miles. Since she’s owned the 

car, it’s gone to the GM dealer six times. 

The battery has been replaced, and each time the dealer did not 

fix the problem. She ended up finding—and I quote Mrs. Knutson 

who told it to me—she finally found a shade tree mechanic who actually fixed it. 

And I guess what bothers me, if you go back to the dealer this 

many times—and I hold the dealers’ repair shops to a higher level 

simply because they know the product—that what has happened— 

can you confidently say that these stalling issues are limited only 

to the Cobalt, the HHR, the Pontiac G5, the Solstice and Saturn 

Ion, and the Sky models of vehicles or is it other ones like the 

Regal or maybe like the Malibu I drive? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I am not aware of any other stalling issues. 

If we have an issue, we put it into our recall process and make decisions. So if there is a defect that you are aware of, I would appreciate the information, and I will definitely look into it. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, we will get you that information. 

I have a couple minutes left. But I represent a very industrial 

area. We have refineries and chemical plants. What we do is inherently dangerous. And so you have to take extra concern about it. 

It looks like in the last 10 years GM has not—somewhere along 

that line, the culture of the company is not there to deal with that. 

And, as the new CEO, I would hope you would make sure it happens. 

And I have said this many times. When I have a chemical plant 

or a refinery that has an accident and somebody dies and—we have 

been able to pinpoint sometimes with civil justice, but sometimes 

through Chemical Safety Board, on what decision was made that 

they didn’t do that caused people to die. 

That is what happened here. And General Motors is a much 

greater company than to do that, and I would hope the culture of 

your corporation would be better so it would continue to earn the 

respect that both this lady and I have. 

But that is your job now as CEO, but you need to fix it and fix 

it as quick as you can because it is going to cause problems, obviously. 

Ms. BARRA. I agree with you. It is completely my responsibility, 

and I will work day and night. We have already made tremendous 

change at General Motors. We will continue to do that, and I recognize it is my responsibility. 

43 

Mr. GREEN. The last thing in my 30 seconds is: Should my constituent—should she have her mother in Phoenix take that Regal 

back and have it checked by a dealer now and see what happened? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. And I wish you would send a note to me, and 

I will—— 

Mr. GREEN. I will get you that information. 

Ms. BARRA. Thank you. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. I now recognize Mr. Griffith for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, you have indicated that not having a new part number when the part was changed in 2006 is not acceptable. Is that 

correct? 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. Yes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And I guess it is hard to figure that somebody 

would have just done that by accident and that there had to be a 

reason. 

Because that was a breach of protocol, wasn’t it? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t think there is an acceptable reason to do that. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. And while there may not be an acceptable 

reason, you would have to acknowledge that a reason in somebody’s 

mind, while not acceptable, might be that it is actually harder to 

track the problem with the old part when you have an improved 

new part that is put in its place. Isn’t that correct? Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And while you have indicated that you did not 

know the individual name of the person who made that decision, 

do you know whose job title it was or in whose chain of command 

it was to make the decision not to create a new part number for 

that part? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t. It would be within the engineering organization, but I will learn that from the investigation and we will take 

appropriate action. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And would that engineering department have been 

under your chain of command at some point in your tenure with 

GM? 

Ms. BARRA. Since February of 2011. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. But it never got to you? Nobody ever brought this 

to your attention? 

Ms. BARRA. No, it did not. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I appreciate that. 

I do have this question, and I think that the answer probably is 

that your investigation will reveal this. 

But it is somewhat concerning that, while the trial lawyer that 

uncovered this may be very savvy and his expert might be pretty 

sharp, you all have sharp people working at GM as well; do you 

not? 

Ms. BARRA. I believe we do. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. It is one of those questions that I am sure your 

investigation will uncover. But why didn’t your team of engineers 

connect the dots and figure out that, when the ignition slips into 

that auxiliary position, the air bags won’t function properly? 

Ms. BARRA. Congressman, those are the questions I want to answer and, as I have said, it has taken way too long. And we will 

44 

learn from this and we will make changes and we will hold people 

accountable. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And not only holding people accountable, but you 

were asked earlier—and I know you are in a tough spot on that— 

as to what kind of liability GM will end up accepting because there 

is legal liability and moral liability. And you have said that. 

One of the questions that I would have—it would have been a 

whole lot easier just to have actually listed these liabilities in the 

bankruptcy; would it not? It would have been easier to do it in the 

bankruptcy instead of having to come out now, wouldn’t it? 

Ms. BARRA. The best thing in the world would be, as soon as we 

find a problem, we fix it and it doesn’t exist in the marketplace and 

doesn’t affect our customers and doesn’t create tragedies. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And here is one of the things that concerns me. 

Have you been given any estimates yet by Mr. Feinberg or others 

as to what a best-case or worst-case scenario is on your civil liabilities? 

Ms. BARRA. We have just been in initial conversations with Mr. 

Feinberg. I believe we will work through him to evaluate the situation over the next 30 to 60 days. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Has anybody else given you a best-case or worstcase scenario over liability issues related to this problem? 

Ms. BARRA. There has been a lot of estimates done in the public, 

but none given specifically to me. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK. Would those liability issues have negatively 

impacted the prospects of either a bailout by the Federal government, or prior to the bailout, the people who were lending you 

money to keep GM afloat with its heavy liabilities already existing, 

would not the additional liabilities that would have come forward 

by this problem have had the potential to dissuade private investors or the Federal government from giving cash to GM? 

Ms. BARRA. As I look at it, as soon as we identify an issue and 

fix it, then there aren’t liabilities or the liabilities are contained. As 

we look at problems as we go forward, we want to fix them as soon 

as we can. If there is a safety issue, we are going to make the 

change, make the right investment, and accept that. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. But in the real world of business, if there is a new 

set of liabilities that come onto the page that weren’t there before, 

it is harder to get money from both public and private sources; isn’t 

that true? 

Ms. BARRA. I think it depends on the situation. So it is a general 

question. I don’t feel appropriate commenting. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I appreciate that. 

Let me ask this last question. When this issue first came up, the 

corresponding Problem Resolution Tracking System report document identified the issue of severity 3. What does that mean? 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry, I didn’t hear you. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Severity 3. I am referencing back to some of the 

documents that you have given and your folks have given us. And 

it is initial assessment in 2004, 2005 when your Problem Resolution Tracking System report came out, it related this problem as 

being severity 3. What does that mean? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t have a specific definition for that. I—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Can you get one for us? 

45 

Ms. BARRA. I can. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I appreciate that. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Can I ask a clarifying question to what Mr. Griffith 

was saying. 

Did GM purposely, willfully negotiate, during the bankruptcy 

issues or in the process of obtaining the loans, did they purposely 

withhold any information that they may have known about pending lawsuits or things that would be emerging in the future about 

the Cobalt or other cars? 

Ms. BARRA. I am not aware. I personally did not withhold any 

information. I am not aware, but I can’t speak to every single person. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Mr. Welch, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you. 

I have to congratulate General Motors for doing the impossible: 

You have got Republicans and Democrats working together. And I 

thank my colleagues for their focus on this hearing. 

Couple of things. How many cars have been recalled as of this 

date? 

Ms. BARRA. Related to the ignition switch? 

Mr. WELCH. Right. 

Ms. BARRA. Over 2.5 million. 

Mr. WELCH. Now, this ignition switch issue, it came to light in 

2006; is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Through our investigation, we will know when it 

came to light. It came to light to me on January 31st, 2014. 

Mr. WELCH. That is totally irrelevant to the people who lost their 

lives. 

Ms. BARRA. I understand. 

Mr. WELCH. I mean, you are the current CEO, but that is not 

relevant to the question I asked. 

Ms. BARRA. I’m sorry, I thought you asked when I became aware 

of it. 

Mr. WELCH. No. GM. 

Ms. BARRA. Again, that is what we will learn in our investigation. 

Mr. WELCH. Well, you changed the switch after 2006. You began 

in 2007 changing the switch; right? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, there were changes made. 

Mr. WELCH. So would it be a logical inference that somebody 

thought there was a reason to change the switch that had been in 

use in 2006 to 2007? 

Ms. BARRA. As we do our internal investigation, I hope to get 

those answers. 

Mr. WELCH. Wouldn’t that be a starting point? Somebody for 

some reason decided to change the very critical part in the car, between 2006, 2007; correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Correct. 

Mr. WELCH. So let me ask you this: If you had recalled cars and 

acted on this aggressively in 2006, when you were making the decision that you had to change this—GM, not you. 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry. 

46 

Mr. WELCH. GM changed the switch, how many cars would you 

have had to recall had you acted in 2007 when you made the decision to change the switch? 

Ms. BARRA. I can get you the exact number. But it would have 

been significantly less. I don’t know. 

Mr. WELCH. Give me an estimate. You can talk to your back row 

there if you want. 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I will confirm with an answer, but I would assume it is something around more 1.2 million. 

Mr. WELCH. Just from 2000—so you would have cut it down at 

least in half, and maybe more—— 

Ms. BARRA. Because, again, we are starting with vehicles that 

the Saturn Ion was in production in 2003. 

Mr. WELCH. Let me just get a business-type question here. What 

do you estimate would have been the cost to GM of this recall had 

they done it in 2007? 

Ms. BARRA. When we looked at the population from 2003 to 2007, 

actually, if I look at all of the vehicles that had this, it would have 

been a higher number, I believe it was 1.8. And that would have 

probably—the estimated costs for those two pieces is something 

less than a hundred million. 

Mr. WELCH. OK. And what do you estimate will be the cost of 

the recall now that it is being done 8 years later? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, there is a larger population. We can provide 

the information. 

Mr. WELCH. I want an estimate. I want people to be able to hear 

this. A decision delayed is money and lives at risk. So I am trying 

to get an opinion from you, and it is ballpark so it can be adjusted, 

as to what the costs would have been had you acted 8 years ago 

versus acting now. You, GM. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, if we would have acted at that point we would 

have had a smaller population, as we talked about. 

Mr. WELCH. I know that. That is obvious. 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry, I am not trying to be difficult. I don’t understand your question. 

Mr. WELCH. You know what? If I were on the board of directors 

and I had an obligation to shareholders, and I had a company that 

could have acted 8 years ago, to deal with a problem but by not 

acting let that problem increase in magnitude, do more damage to 

shareholders, do more damage to the bottom line, do enormous 

damage to the reputation of this company, and cause we don’t 

know how much harm to citizens, I would want an answer to the 

question. 

Ms. BARRA. I agree. It would have been substantially less at that 

time frame had we done it than what it will be now. 

Mr. WELCH. GM was involved in litigation concerning allegations 

that this switch was defective and caused problems; correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. WELCH. And GM settled some of these litigation matters; 

correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Correct. 

Mr. WELCH. After very aggressive defense. Those settlements 

were secret? 

Ms. BARRA. They are confidential by both parties. 

47 

Mr. WELCH. By both parties—some of us have been in court. By 

‘‘both parties’’ usually means by the request of the party that is 

paying the damages. 

Ms. BARRA. I wasn’t involved in those settlements. All I know is 

confidential was by both parties. 

Mr. WELCH. OK. This is not good. You are the company right 

now. All right? 

Ms. BARRA. I am. 

Mr. WELCH. Let me ask this question. Do you believe that when 

a company that has been sued about a matter involving product 

safety, where a person has been seriously injured or has died, that 

the company that settles as a matter of policy, should be entitled 

to keep secret what that settlement was about? 

Ms. BARRA. I am not—I think that there are issues associated 

with that that every settlement is unique and it is a decision that 

is agreed to by both parties. And I don’t have any comment beyond 

that. Each one is unique. 

Mr. WELCH. Let me ask you this: If a company, GM or any other 

company, settles litigation and pays a substantial amount of money 

pertaining to an allegation about serious bodily injury or death, 

should that company be permitted to keep secret that settlement 

from the governmental agency whose responsibility it is to protect 

the public safety? 

Ms. BARRA. If that is information required by that government 

agency, then we would provide it if the two parties involved in the 

settlement agree to it, that is their agreement. 

Mr. WELCH. So if you don’t have to do it, you won’t do it? 

Ms. BARRA. If both parties want that. I am making the assumption that both parties agreed to it, which what is I have been told. 

Mr. WELCH. I yield back. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentleman’s time has expired. 

Now recognize the gentleman from Missouri for 5 minutes, Mr. 

Long. 

Mr. LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for being here, Ms. Barra. 

And I want to thank the families that are here today for keeping 

safety in the forefront of America’s and Congress’s consciousness 

when it comes to automobile safety. And we have heard about the 

same subcommittee in the past, dealing with the issue before I 

came to Congress, the Ford Explorer/ Firestone tire situation. We 

have heard about the Toyota accelerating car issue. And, like I say, 

I wasn’t here, but I can imagine that the questions were similar: 

Who knew what when? Who was responsible? Did you know this 

person? Have you done anything about it? 

I want to take a little different tack with my line of questioning, 

as I normally do. And that is that, people ask me all the time, Do 

you think you make a difference? When you go to Congress, you 

are up here a few years, do you think you are making a difference? 

And that is hard to quantify, to explain to somebody whether you 

are making a difference or not. But today this is a day I want to 

look back on and say, you know, I think I made a difference. I 

think that we got some answers to questions in the future to prevent—I don’t want to be here again and I don’t want to have them 

48 

say Ford Explorer/Firestone tire, Toyota accelerating, and you remember the GM faulty ignition switch. So that is what I would like 

to say, yes, we made a difference. 

And with that, like I say, I thank the families for being here and 

keeping it in the forefront of safety so there is not other people sitting in those same seats next time we approach an issue like this. 

Because hopefully there won’t be a next time. And the finger pointing, the old analogy, when you are pointing your finger, you got 

three fingers pointing at yourself. There is going to be a lot of finger pointing in this. 

But I would really like to drill down on and get answers to is 

how the NHTSA, or whatever they are calling it, the National 

Transportation—National Highway Transportation—or excuse me, 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and you all, as an 

automobile manufacturer, if you can work to see that this doesn’t 

happen again so that the two organizations can work together and 

drill down on these problems when we first learn them, whatever 

the next problem may be, that would be my goal for here today. 

In answer to one of Chairman Upton’s, the Chairman of full committee’s questions awhile ago, and I don’t even know what he was 

asking about exactly. But you said ‘‘I was not part of that organization at the time.’’ 

I am sure that was something within General Motors. Because 

you, like I, have a history that goes back I think to when you were 

18 years old with General Motors. So you were there at the time 

as far as the overall organization but not whatever part he asked 

your father, I believe, worked 39 years for Pontiac. So you indeed 

go way back. 

I go back to 18 years old with General Motors too. When I was 

18, my folks bought me a 1973 GM Jimmy. If you think of a big 

Suburban today, cut off two doors, and that was a Jimmy, or a 

Blazer; Chevrolet called theirs a Blazer. I was in the real estate 

and auction business for years, from 1973 to about 2005, I drove 

nothing but General Motors Suburbans. I remember times when 

the key would be in there and you would go to put your key in and 

it wouldn’t work. Why wouldn’t it work? Because I had a big key 

chain a big key ring. And it would vibrate. And it would tear the 

teeth off the keys to where the key no longer functioned. 

But never once did I have that shut off, never once did I have 

that fail to act or shut off in the middle of driving. So, to me, from 

1973 to 2005, with my experience, they made pretty good ignition 

switches. 

Can you tell me how many models GM makes today? 

Ms. BARRA. Oh, around the globe, over a hundred. 

Mr. LONG. Hundred different models. Can you tell me how many 

ignition switches they make? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, we sell over 8 million vehicles. 

Mr. LONG. No, I mean how many per—if you have a hundred 

models, how many different ignition switches would there be? 

Ms. BARRA. I can’t answer that question. I don’t know. 

Mr. LONG. To me, GM has proven in the past, and other companies have, that you can—I just don’t understand this reinventing 

the wheel, that every car has to have a different ignition switch 

49 

with a different set of circumstances made by somebody down in 

Mexico to make sure that it meets the qualifications. 

So I would recommend two things: That you work hard with us. 

Our next witness from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that a car, when it shuts off that the airbag will still 

deploy for 60 seconds. I can’t imagine being in a cash that a car 

shut off and you continue for more and 60 seconds. So that is a 

question that I am going to have for him. 

But I would ask that you reach out and work not only with your 

engineers, saying, hey, we have got some pretty good—why do we 

reinvent the wheel every time we go to invent a new ignition 

switch for all these different models? And also hope that you will 

reach out and work with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration so. 

Ms. BARRA. I would welcome the opportunity to have our technical experts look at how we can improve the way the system 

works. Because airbag deployment is part of the system, and I 

would welcome the opportunity if there are improvements that can 

be made, we would want to be in the forefront of making them. 

Mr. LONG. In communication with NHTSA. 

Ms. BARRA. And work closely with NHTSA—— 

Mr. LONG. I appreciate it. I thank the families. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Now recognize Mr. Yarmuth for 5 minutes. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I, at the outset, want to express my condolences to the family of 

the victims of this tragedy. And I know it must be frustrating to 

you to listen to this testimony. And you are looking for answers 

and so are we and so is GM right now. And I hope we do get answers because I was frustrated by the same questions that my colleague had just mentioned. I have been driving a long time, and 

this is a pretty well established technology, sticking a key into an 

ignition and turning it. Are you aware of any other ignition problems that have been discovered or—in GM or any other vehicle 

over the history of key ignition systems? 

Ms. BARRA. I have not reviewed every incident we have ever had. 

But I—we do, as we find issues, we document them and take them 

through our process. And in this particular case it took way too 

long. 

Mr. YARMUTH. And there is a new technology. I have been driving a car for 4 1⁄2 years. I confess it is a Ford product, not a GM 

product, that has a push-button ignition. I was in a GM car last 

week, very nice one, by the way, which has a push-button ignition 

system. 

How do you make the judgment as to whether a car has a pushbutton ignition system and/or a key ignition system and what are 

the differences? 

First of all, in terms of safety, we know that this particular situation wouldn’t occur with a push-button ignition system. But how 

do you make that decision as to what goes into which car? 

Ms. BARRA. We evaluate. And actually the push-button start is 

something that we are evaluating putting across the portfolio. As 

you look at the specifics of a push-button start versus the traditional ignition, I would like our experts to provide that information. 

50 

Because again—the ignition switch and how it is a component that 

operates as part of a system of the vehicle especially as it relates 

from a safety perspective. I think we would be better served to 

have our experts cover that. 

Mr. YARMUTH. But you are doing an analysis of whether a pushbutton ignition system is safer than a key ignition system? 

Ms. BARRA. We can definitely do that. I think there has been 

work done that both can be designed to be safe. But we are looking 

because of the customer, it is a function, it is a delighter, usually 

when the vehicle has a push-button start, we have them on some 

of our vehicles. We continue to roll those out across our entire portfolio, and we are looking at doing it across the board. 

Mr. YARMUTH. I have no idea if there is a difference in the safety. There may be none. But it would be worth doing that analysis. 

One of my staff members has a 2005 Malibu that was recalled 

because of a power steering issue, and she called the dealership, 

and the dealership said that they didn’t know how to fix it. So my 

question to you is, are you confident that GM knows how to fix the 

vehicles it recalls for the variety of problems that have—— 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first of all, if we find a situation that is not safe 

and we don’t know how to fix it, we are still going to recall the vehicles and we will take those actions. In this case, there may be 

a communication lag, because there is a fix, whether it is a check 

or a replacement of the product. So that does exist for that specific 

vehicle. 

Mr. YARMUTH. So she is getting bad information from her dealership or they haven’t been told yet? 

Ms. BARRA. I would assume. I can follow up if you would like. 

Mr. YARMUTH. I mean, I think the public be would want to know 

that—— 

Ms. BARRA. Right. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Because you now have—— 

Ms. BARRA. Right. That there is—— 

Mr. YARMUTH [continuing]. Millions of vehicles out there under 

recall. And she was told to go ahead and drive the vehicle if she 

felt safe. And I am not sure that every driver would know whether 

they should feel safe or not. 

I mean, some people, if the power steering goes out are strong 

people and maybe it has happened to them before and they know 

that it is going to take a little more effort to steer, other people 

might not. So, I mean, I don’t even know how the average consumer is supposed to know whether they feel safe or not after a 

vehicle has been recalled. 

Doesn’t the company have some disclosure responsibility to say 

these things, at least these things could happen? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, and we have done that, and that is a part of 

the letter that we send to the customer when we notify them of this 

issue, and then we provide information to the dealers as well. 

Mr. YARMUTH. OK. One final question. 

We talk about and we are going to have the NHTSA representative here later. One of the things that you are not required to do 

is to provide warranty data proactively to the National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration. Do you think that that is something 

that ought to be considered, that might be helpful? In this case, 

51 

maybe dots could have been connected sooner if all that data had 

been—— 

Ms. BARRA. I welcome the opportunity to look at what information that NHTSA would feel of value to submit. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, the gentleman yields back. 

I will now recognize Mr. Harper for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And to the family members that are here, our hearts indeed go 

out to you. And we will continue to get to the bottom of this. 

And Ms. Barra, I know this is not the most enjoyable experience 

to go through this. But we are in a situation that, we don’t trust 

the company right now. And we have to get to the bottom of this. 

And so we want to continue to ask some questions. 

If I can get you to refer to tab 28 in your binder. And I want to 

direct your attention to that e-mail that is found at tab 28. In September of 2005, a few months after General Motors decided that 

there was not an acceptable business case to implement changes to 

the ignition switch, an engineering group manager e-mailed Lori 

Queen and other GM personnel including Raymond DeGiorgio 

about proposed changes for model year 2008 ignition switch. 

So this engineer obviously explains that a more robust ignition 

switch will not be implemented in model year 2008 vehicles because it appears that piece cost could not be offset with warranty 

savings. In his e-mail he references ‘‘piece cost.’’ Is that just the ignition switch? 

Ms. BARRA. Generally, when people refer to piece cost, they refer 

to the part. 

Mr. HARPER. So he is just referring to that ignition switch. That 

is a yes? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I didn’t write this note. But I am just telling 

you generally when people use the term ‘‘piece cost,’’ that is what 

it means. 

Mr. HARPER. As he notes in that e-mail, an increase of 90 cents; 

is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry? 

Mr. HARPER. Does the e-mail say there would be an increase of 

90 cents? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, I see that. 

Mr. HARPER. And since the warranty offset was only 10 cents to 

15 cents, GM didn’t make the change. 

Ms. BARRA. And that is not something that I find acceptable. If 

there is a safety defect, there is not a business case, this analysis 

is inappropriate. 

Mr. HARPER. And I appreciate that you don’t find that acceptable. But that indeed is what happened here. Correct? 

Ms. BARRA. And that is—exactly. And that is one piece of data 

as we go through the investigation as we put the pieces together 

we will take action. Because this is not the type of behavior that 

we want in our company today with our engineers today. 

Mr. HARPER. And understand, we are trying to go back and figure out what happened and understand that so we can indeed 

make sure as you do that this never happens to anyone else again. 

Now Lori Queen, what was her position at the time? 

52 

Ms. BARRA. 2005, I believe she was a vehicle line executive. But 

I can go back and confirm that. 

Mr. HARPER. If you would let us know, please. 

How does cost factor into decisions about safety? 

Ms. BARRA. They don’t. 

Mr. HARPER. Has—— 

Ms. BARRA. But they—— 

Mr. HARPER. Go ahead. 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I can only speak to the way that we are running the company. And if there is a safety issue, if there is a defect 

identified, we go fix the vehicle, fix the part, fix the system. It is 

not acceptable to have a cost put on a safety issue. 

Mr. HARPER. And that is obviously your position and your goal 

and the way you want it to be now, but that is not the case of what 

we are going back and looking at. 

So you are telling us that General Motors has changed its position on how it handles costs and is safety issues. It hasn’t been this 

way before, but this is how you want it now. Am I correct? 

Ms. BARRA. This is how it is, I think we in the past had more 

of a cost culture, and we are going to a customer culture that focuses on safety and quality. 

Mr. HARPER. When we go back and look at who first authorized 

the use of an ignition switch that did not meet specifications. 

Ms. BARRA. And that is something we will learn in our investigation. 

Mr. HARPER. Now, one of the things that concerns us, of course, 

is when General Motors filed bankruptcy in 2009, it wasn’t an 

overnight problem with money or with the loss of profits or losing 

money each year. In 2005, I know General Motors lost 10.6 billion; 

jump to 2007, lost 38.7 billion, 2008, lost 30.9 billion, and then filed 

for bankruptcy in 2009. 

The fact that General Motors was going through many years of 

financial issues, did that impact how this was categorized and was 

not dealt with at that time as it should have been? 

Ms. BARRA. I can’t answer that question. I want to know the answer to that question, and when I do, I will take action. 

Mr. HARPER. You indicated earlier that a specific traffic death 

was not included in the count of fatalities that may have been associated with this issue, I would like to see other traffic deaths or serious injuries that were looked at but the determination was made 

that it was not part of this total. Can you get us that information? 

Ms. BARRA. Through our TREAD information, yes. 

Mr. HARPER. Will you get that for us? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentleman yields back. 

Now recognize Ms. Castor for 5 minutes. 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you. 

Natasha Weigel, age 18, was killed October 24th, 2006 while 

riding in a 2005 Chevy Cobalt. Sarah Troutwine, age, 19 was killed 

on June 12th, 2009, after losing control of her 2005 Chevy Cobalt, 

and Allen Ray Floyd, age 26, was killed on July 3rd, 2009 after losing control of his 2006 Chevy Cobalt. 

53 

I understand that Ms. Weigel’s parents and Ms. Troutwine’s family are in attendance at the hearing today. Others have been killed 

because of GM’s defective ignition switch. The fact is, we do not 

know yet the full extent of the fatalities, injuries, and accidents. 

But evidence is growing through this investigation and that in the 

press and hopefully your own investigation, that the deaths could 

have been avoided if GM had addressed this issue long ago. 

We know that GM knew about this problem as far back as 2001. 

The committee learned last week that the supplier of the faulty 

switch, Delphi, conducted tests, that year, 2001 which showed that 

the switch didn’t meet GM’s specifications. But GM used this 

switch in Cobalts and Ions and other vehicles anyway. 

Ms. Barra, the committee sent you a letter about this issue. And 

documents were received yesterday that show that these inadequate switches were approved by GM in May 2002. I have a document here and it has been placed before you and it is at tab 54 

in the binder as well. This document shows that the force required 

to turn the ignition switch was too low. That specification is clearly 

marked ‘‘not OK.’’ Ms. Barra, does this document show that GM officials were aware that the ignition switch did not meet company 

standards in 2002? 

Ms. BARRA. If this document was provided to the engineers, 

again, that is something I will learn in our investigation. 

Ms. CASTOR. Internally, GM knew there were problems. By 2004, 

they are considering ways to fix the problem by redesigning the 

faulty switch. 

This document, which is also placed before you, this is at tab 8 

in that notebook as well. From 2004, shows that GM did reject alternative designs. It mentions 1-year lead times and says, quote, 

the tooling costs and piece prices are too high. It concludes, ‘‘Thus 

none of the solutions represents an acceptable business case.’’ 

Other documents present the piece-cost increase for a potential 

solution as 57 cents per unit. Ms. Barra, do you know who at GM 

would have made the decision about whether to make this change 

in 2004? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first of all, I find that decision unacceptable, 

as I have stated. If there is a safety defect, the cost is not the issue 

that we look at. We look at what is going to take the fix the problem and make the vehicle safe. As we go through our investigation, 

we will put all the pieces together of incidents and actions that 

were taken or not taken over a more than and decade period and 

make the appropriate process changes. 

Ms. CASTOR. So, in retrospect, do you think that a repair cost of 

57 cents was too costly for GM to undertake? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, if we are making a decision on safety, we 

don’t even look at costs. We make the change. 

Ms. CASTOR. But there was a major disconnect between what GM 

told the public and what it knew in private. In private, GM approved the switch that it knew it was defective, and then the company appeared to reject other changes because of cost of 57 cents 

per fix was too high a price to pay. 

Now also in 2005, the New York Times ran a review in which 

the author wrote about his wife encountering a problem with a 

Chevy Cobalt. He, quote, said, ‘‘She was driving on a freeway when 

54 

the car just went dead. The only other thing besides a key on the 

ring was a remote control fob provided by GM. The GM spokesman 

at that time, Allen Adler, issued a statement saying, In rare cases, 

when a combination of factors is present, a Chevrolet Cobalt driver 

can cut power to the engine by inadvertently bumping the ignition 

key to the accessory or off position while the car is running. When 

this happens, the Cobalt is still controllable.’’ 

So I find it baffling that not only did GM know about this serious 

problem over a decade ago but that it was discussed on the pages 

of the New York Times. And when GM responded publicly, it essentially told drivers, no big deal. Engines cut off all the time. 

When your engine suddenly cuts off when you are driving on the 

highway, would you consider this a safety issue? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. CASTOR. And you have indicated that you were not even 

aware that GM was investigating the Cobalts until December 2013; 

is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. I was aware that there was analysis going on related 

to a Cobalt. 

Ms. CASTOR. But at the time the New York Times wrote their report in 2005, what was your position? 

Ms. BARRA. In 2005, I believe I was in the manufacturing engineering organization of the company. 

Ms. CASTOR. So you were a high-level executive at GM responsible for vehicle manufacturing? 

Ms. BARRA. The equipment that we use to build vehicles. 

Ms. CASTOR. And one of the Nation’s largest newspapers raised 

the issue in this important new vehicle launch for GM and you did 

not know about it at the time? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t have a recollection of that article. 

Ms. CASTOR. Do you recall it being a concern for GM? 

Ms. BARRA. I was not aware that this was this issue until the 

recall was introduced on January 31st. I only knew at the end of 

December that there was an issue with the Cobalt. I did not know 

it was an ignition switch issue. 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

That concludes our members, but I would like to see if Mr. Terry 

of Nebraska, who is the subcommittee chairman of Commerce, 

Manufacturing, and Trade would have an opportunity for 5 minutes. Is there any objection. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. Without objection, you may proceed Mr. Terry. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you. 

I appreciate this. And I am sorry for being late, but my plane 

was canceled for mechanical reasons, probably an ignition switch. 

USAir. 

So, getting back to NHTSA. I chair the subcommittee over jurisdiction with NHTSA and the TREAD Act. And the TREAD Act 

clearly requires manufacturers to inform NHTSA within 5 days of 

any, quote, ‘‘noncompliance or defects that create an unreasonable 

risk of safety.’’ 

Did GM at any time contact or notice NHTSA of any noncompliance or defects regarding the ignition switch? 

55 

Ms. BARRA. That is something I hope to learn as we go through 

our investigation. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. What is the difference between noncompliance 

and a defect? 

Ms. BARRA. That is a very broad question. 

Mr. TERRY. No. It is a very specific question. 

Ms. BARRA. I think it depends on the specific situation that you 

are talking about. 

Mr. TERRY. Regarding an ignition switch. 

Ms. BARRA. So your question is what is a noncompliant—— 

Mr. TERRY. Yes, a noncompliant ignition switch. 

Ms. BARRA. My understanding of when there is a noncompliance 

it is a very specific term used by NHTSA to standards. 

Mr. TERRY. Right. 

Mr. BARRA. But I can get you the specific definition of that, 

versus when we feel we have found a defect with one of our parts. 

That is my understanding. 

Mr. TERRY. And that is why it is ‘‘or.’’ So when an ignition switch 

is substandard, it is noncompliant. And a defect, then, is a higher 

level. And I think that is what we are looking for here. 

Ms. BARRA. Congressman, I think in the language that we use 

with NHTSA there are very specific definitions. And I would like 

to provide those to you as opposed too—— 

Mr. TERRY. I can get the definitions from NHTSA. I am not asking you to do that. 

Ms. BARRA. You are asking a very specific question related to 

this, and I am trying to be truthful. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. I am not trying to beat up on you here, but just 

repeating back NHTSA’s definition I am asking specifically how it 

applies to the ignition switch. And NHTSA’s going to testify there 

was no notice. 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry, I didn’t hear. NHTSA is going—— 

Mr. TERRY. My understanding is that NHTSA said GM did not 

contact them of noncompliance. 

Ms. BARRA. If I find through our investigation that we did not 

provide the appropriate information to NHTSA, that will be a very 

serious issue and we will take—— 

Mr. TERRY. OK. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. Appropriate action with the individuals 

involved. 

Mr. TERRY. All right, thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

I think there are no further questions. 

Although, Ms. DeGette, you had a clarifying question? 

Ms. DEGETTE. I just had two questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you. 

The first one is, I have been sitting here thinking about these 

new ignition switches that you are putting into the recalled cars. 

They are based on the 2006 specs. But what you are saying, Ms. 

Barra, is that they are going to meet the highest safety standards 

when they are manufactured; is that right? 

Ms. BARRA. Our engineering team is going through extensive validation testing to make sure that they meet the requirements. 

56 

Ms. DEGETTE. And, on the component technical specification, it 

is tab 53 of your notebook, which was December 6, 2012, it says, 

The minimum torque required by the switch on the return side of 

the ignition switch, from crank to the run position must be 15 N– 

CM. So would that be the standard, then, since it says it must be 

that? 

Ms. BARRA. From the position of run to accessory? 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes. 

Ms. BARRA. Fifteen is the minimum. The spec is 20 plus—— 

Ms. GEGETTE. Right. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. Or minus five. 

Ms. DEGETTE. But yes OK. 

And my final question is, I am impressed, this committee has 

had experience with Kenneth Feinberg before. Because he was appointed to help administer the fund that was set up by BP after 

Deepwater Horizon, which was this committee’s investigation. He 

was also appointed to administer the fund after the Boston Marathon terrorist attacks. 

But I want to make sure that what you are doing when you hire 

him is you are really doing something. Because he is usually hired 

to sort out the value of people’s claims. And then assign money. 

And I am assuming GM’s hiring him to help identify the size of 

claims and then help compensate the victims; is that right? Is GM 

willing to put together some kind of a compensation fund for these 

victims that Mr. Feinberg will then administer? Is that why you 

have hired him? 

Ms. BARRA. We have hired Mr. Feinberg to help us assess the situation. We understand—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. So really there is no money involved in this at this 

point? 

Ms. BARRA. We have just hired him and will begin work with 

him on Friday. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So really you hired him, you announced it today. 

But so far he has not being given any ability to compensate victims; is that what you are saying? 

Ms. BARRA. We are going to work with him to determine what 

the right course of action is. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And might that include victim compensation here? 

Ms. BARRA. We haven’t made any decisions on that yet. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. 

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Ms. Barra. We thank you for your time 

today. GM has cooperated with this investigation, and we expect 

your company will continue to cooperate. Let me make a couple requests. One is, members will have other questions for you, and we 

hope that you respond to those within a timely manner. We also 

plan to conduct further interviews with General Motors officials 

and employees involved in the recalled part and maybe requesting 

more records. Will you make sure you make those available to us? 

Ms. BARRA. We will absolutely cooperate. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

And also on behalf of Chairman Upton and I, we would also like 

to be notified when you get your internal report and would like to 

discuss with you a chance to review that report as well. 

57 

Ms. BARRA. We will notify you. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much. 

I thank you, Ms. Barra. You will be dismissed. 

But while this is taking place and waiting for Mr. Friedman to 

sit down, we are going to take a 5-minute break to allow Mr. Friedman to take his seat, and we will reconvene this hearing in 5 minutes. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. This hearing of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of Energy and Commerce will now continue with our second witness. 

Mr. David Friedman has served as the acting administrator of 

the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since January 

18th, 2014. He was sworn in as deputy administrator on May 15th, 

2013. Before becoming NHTSA’s, which is the National Highway 

Traffic Administration’s, deputy administrator, Mr. Friedman 

worked for 12 years at the Union of Concerned Scientists as a Senior Engineer, Research Director, and as the Deputy Director of the 

Clean Vehicles Program. 

I’ll now swear in the witness. 

Mr. Friedman, you are aware that the committee is holding an 

investigative hearing, and when doing so, has the practice of taking 

testimony under oath. Do you have any objections to testifying 

under oath? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I do not. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

The chair then advises you under that under the rules of the 

House and the rules of the committee, you are entitled to be advised by counsel. Do you desire to be advised by counsel during 

your testimony today? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I do not. 

Mr. MURPHY. In that case, would you please rise and raise your 

right hand. 

[Witness sworn.] 

Mr. MURPHY. Let the record show the witness is now under oath 

and subject to the penalties set forth on Title 18, Section 1001 of 

the United States Code. 

Mr. Friedman, you may now give a 5-minute summary of your 

written statement. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID FRIEDMAN, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, 

NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Chairman Murphy, Ranking Member DeGette, 

and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to 

testify before you today. 

To begin, I would like to say that on behalf of everyone at 

NHTSA, we are deeply saddened by the lives lost in crashes involving the General Motors’ ignition switch defect. The victims’ families 

and friends some of whom I believe are here today, have suffered 

greatly, and I am deeply sorry for their loss. 

Safety is NHTSA’s top priority, and our employees go to work 

every day trying to prevent tragedies just like these. Our work reducing dangerous behaviors behind the wheel, improving the safety 

58 

of vehicles, and addressing safety defects has helped reduce highway fatalities to historic lows not seen since 1950. 

In the case of the recently recalled General Motors vehicles, we 

are first, focused on ensuring that General Motors identifies all vehicles with a defective ignition switch, fixes the vehicles quickly, 

and is doing all it can to inform consumers on how to keep themselves safe. 

We are also investigating whether General Motors met its responsibilities to report and address this defect as required under 

federal law. If it failed to do so, we will hold General Motors accountable, as we have in other cases over the last 5 years, which 

have led to record fines on automakers. 

Internally at NHTSA and the department, we have already 

begun a review of our actions and assumptions in this case to further our ability to address potential defects. Today I will share 

what I have learned so far. 

NHTSA used consumer complaints and early warning data, three 

special crash investigations on the Cobalt, industry Web sites, and 

agency expertise on airbag technology. Some of that information 

did raise concerns about airbag non-deployments. So in 2007, we 

convened an expert panel to review the data. Our consumer complaint data on injury crashes with airbag non-deployments showed 

that neither the Cobalt nor the Ion stood out when compared to 

other vehicles. 

The two special crash investigation reports we reviewed at the 

time were inconclusive on the cause of non-deployment. The reports 

noted that the airbags did not deploy and the power mode was in 

accessory. But these crashes involved unbelted occupants and offroad conditions that began with relatively small collisions where, 

by design, airbags are less likely to deploy in order to avoid doing 

more harm than good. Further, power loss is not uncommon in 

crashes where airbags deploy and did not stand out as a reason for 

non-deployment. In light of these factors, NHTSA did not launch 

a formal investigation. 

We continued monitoring the data and in 2010 found that the related consumer complaint rate for the Cobalt had decreased by 

nearly half since the 2007 review. Based on our engineering expertise and our process, the data available to NHTSA at the time was 

not sufficient to warrant a formal investigation. 

So what does all this mean? It means that NHTSA was concerned and engaged on this issue. This was a difficult case where 

we used tools and expertise that over the last decade have successfully resulted in 1,299 recalls, including 35 recalls on airbag nondeployments. These tools and expertise have served us well, and we 

will continue to rely on and improve them. For example, we have 

already invested in advanced computer tools to improve our ability 

to spot defects and trends, and we are planning to expand that effort. But what we know now, also means that we need to challenge 

our assumptions, we need to look at how we handle difficult cases 

like this going forward. 

So we are looking to better understand how manufacturers deal 

with power loss and airbags. We are also considering ways to improve the use of crash investigations in identifying defects. We are 

reviewing ways to address what appear to be remote defect possiVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:33 Jun 03, 2015 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 113\113-131 CHRIS
59 

bilities. And we are evaluating our approach to engaging manufacturers in all stages of our defects process. Between these efforts 

and those of the department’s inspector general, I know that we 

will continue to improve our ability to identify vehicle defects and 

ensure that they are fixed. 

But I want to close on one last important note. Our ability to find 

defects also requires automakers to act in good faith and to provide 

information on time. General Motors has now provided new information definitively linking airbag non-deployment to faulty ignition 

switches. Identifying the parts change and indicating potentially 

critical supplier conversations on airbags. Had this information 

been available earlier, it would have likely changed NHTSA’s approach to this issue. But let me be clear, both NHTSA and the auto 

industry as a whole must look to improve. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member DeGette, I greatly appreciate 

the opportunity to testify before you today. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Friedman follows:] 

60 


89888.034
61 


89888.035
62 


89888.036
63 


89888.037
64 


89888.038
65 


89888.039
66 


89888.040
67 


89888.041
68 


89888.042
69 


89888.043
70 


89888.044
71 


89888.045
72 


89888.046
73 


89888.047
74 


89888.048
75 


89888.049
76 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Now recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

Now Mr. Friedman, with the understanding you just got in this 

position of acting administrator just a couple months ago. And for 

the last 12 years, you were involved in other groups that focused 

on green energy and fuel cell technology. We understand if you are 

unable or uncomfortable answering specific questions about automobile engineering and safety, you are more than welcome to ask 

someone else, some of your support staff behind you. 

So, I wanted to find out how NHTSA is communicating to the 

public about this recall. And I believe I have a slide available, or 

I have a poster here. I went to your Web site to see what I could 

learn. 

And do we have that image available about this? And what it 

shows—this is all. This is all I could find on your Web site about 

the recall notice. No information about the broader recalls, about 

parts replacement, investigation, or anything. I can’t even click on 

this. It simply says, get rid of your car key fobs. But there is nothing else a person could do. 

Can you fix the Web site so people could use to it get more useful 

information, please? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, if there is added information that 

should be on there to make sure that people can get to the information available on our Web site, we will take those steps. Right now, 

consumers can go to our Web site and get all of the details associated with this recall. If they go to that ‘‘search’’ button and select 

the 2005 Cobalt. 

Mr. MURPHY. Just to make it easier, because no one trusts government Web sites—— 

Mr. FRIEDMAN [continuing]. Links right there, sir, absolutely. 

Mr. MURPHY. In 2007, the chief of NHTSA’s Defect Assessment 

Division proposed opening an investigation of airbag non-deployment to the Chevy Cobalts. Am I correct about that date? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. Now, if you turn to tab 19 in your binder, it is labeled as the DAD Panel for November 15, 2007. 

This is the PowerPoint presentation made to the Defect Assessment Panel on November 15th. At Bates stamp 4474, those little 

numbers at the bottom of the page, the presentation states that 

there have been 29 complaints about the Cobalt airbags, four fatal 

crashes, and 14 field reports; is that correct? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That sounds correct. 

Mr. MURPHY. At Bates stamp 4480, there is a chart of airbag 

warranty claims for Cobalt airbags as compared to other comparable vehicles. Do you agree that the number of warranty claims 

for Cobalt airbags is much higher than other cars? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, Mr. Chairman, that is one of the 

issues that did raise concerns on our part. What that chart shows 

is warranty claims, some of which are likely associated with airbag 

non-deployments, some of which may also and are very likely to be 

associated with warning lights on airbags or other potential problems. 

This is a gross look at the data, and important look at the data 

that is provided by our early warning data system that we use to 

77 

decide whether or not we need to look further into one of these 

issues, which is what we did do in this case. 

Mr. MURPHY. But still NHTSA panel decided there was not a 

trend here and decided not to investigate, despite the number of 

complaints, the fatal crashes, and the warranty claims. Why was 

NHTSA convinced that an investigation was not warranted? I believe this happened on two occasions. 

NHTSA decided twice, don’t move forward with an investigation. 

What specific information did you have that said don’t go forward? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Mr. Chairman, when we look at these cases and 

when they looked at this case at the time, they look at the whole 

body of information. You can’t just rely necessarily on one piece of 

information. The core pieces of information that they relied on in 

the determination there wasn’t sufficient enough information. 

First was an analysis of the complaints, the injury crash complaints associated with airbag non-deployment and the exposure, 

the number of those divided by the number of vehicles that were 

on the road and the number of years they were on the road. That 

gives you a sense of how large the problem is in comparison to 

other vehicles. 

When the team did that comparison, the Cobalt did not stand 

out. It was a little bit above average, but there were several vehicles that were significantly higher, there were some vehicles 

that—— 

Mr. MURPHY. I understand. But twice, employees of NHTSA, 

raised a red flag on this. It wasn’t just once. A second time too they 

said something is not right here. 

So I am wondering if you did something different when that occurred the second time in reviewing it. 

And such as, did anybody ask questions of why an airbag doesn’t 

deploy? I mean, I looked at the statements there and had a number 

of things about power losses or how much longer battery power 

would be involved on an airbag deployment in case of an accident. 

But did anybody ask a question, was there anything else, any 

other reason why an airbag wouldn’t deploy, within NHTSA? Did 

anybody ask those questions. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Mr. Chairman, my understanding is folks were 

trying to understand why the airbags did not deploy. When they 

looked at the special crash investigations in 2007, as well as the 

data available, those special crash investigations were inconclusive. 

Why? Because they indicated that these crashes were happening in 

off-road conditions with unbelted occupants. 

Mr. MURPHY. I understand. I am looking at reasons why airbags 

wouldn’t deploy. And so you were talking among yourselves, according to what we understand, the PowerPoints. 

What specifically did NHTSA ask GM? For example, and this is 

very important: Did NHTSA raise a question with GM, tell us the 

reasons why an airbag would not deploy in one of your cars? Did 

you ask GM that question? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I don’t have a record of that. I know our team 

did bring up concerns over this case to General Motors in a meeting, but I don’t have records of us asking that specific question. 

Mr. MURPHY. I mean, it is important, because you are saying GM 

didn’t provide you information. But you are also saying you don’t 

78 

know if you asked them for the information. I mean, it is important 

for the families to know what happened and if this key government 

agency which is tasked with protecting the safety of the public. I 

just want to know if those kinds of questions get asked? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Mr. Chairman, those questions typically do get 

asked of the car companies when we move into the investigation 

phase. 

What this phase and where this was, was a phase where concerns are raised and it is discussed whether or not there is sufficient information to move to the point of asking those questions of 

automakers. Roughly in these defects panels, roughly half of the 

cases that are brought up are brought into investigations, roughly 

half are not. 

One of the things that we are looking at relative to this process 

going forward is, do we need to make any changes when it comes 

to how we present this information and when we present our concerns to automakers. I do believe that there are some changes that 

we can make to engage automakers earlier in the process to put 

them in the position of letting us know if our concerns are shared 

by them and if they—— 

Mr. MURPHY. Certainly I know the family members would want 

to know in retrospect what would you change in this whole process. 

But I am out of time. 

I now recognize Ms. DeGette for 5 minutes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Friedman, NHTSA investigated airbag non-deployment. But 

as you talked about, it was never able to connect the dots between 

that problem and the defective ignition switch. 

So what I want to know is, if NHTSA had the relevant information it needed to make a fully informed determination and what 

the agency believed about the connection between the ignition 

switch position and airbag non-deployment during the time of its 

special crash investigations? 

In your written testimony, you know that when NHTSA was investigating the airbag non-deployment issue, the agency mistakenly believed based on GM’s service literature that the airbags 

would function up to 60 seconds after the power cut off. 

Why did NHTSA think that? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Thank you, Ranking Member. 

That knowledge was actually based on years of experience and 

previous experience with earlier airbags where there was actually 

a problem, where airbags would go off long after the vehicle was 

turned off. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And—— 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Airbag systems have capacitors in them, and 

those capacitors are designed to store energy, so that if power is 

lost, the airbag can still deploy. Because power is often lost in some 

of these kinds of crashes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. But that is based on the GM service literature or 

the agency’s experience or both? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That is a very important question. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Right. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. My understanding is that was based on the agency’s experience. My understanding is—and I apologize if I was not 

79 

clear enough in my testimony. We have since, after General Motors 

made this recall, found that service information that confirmed our 

understanding at the time, which was that airbags are designed to 

be powered when the power is lost. So a power loss would not typically stand out—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. So OK. So you were base—so NHTSA was base— 

you weren’t there—but NHTSA was basing its determination on its 

experience. How is that, then, that it failed to connect the dots between the airbag non-deployment problem and the ignition switch 

problem? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I believe there are two situations here. 

First of all, the information we had at the time indicated that, 

you know, there were two possibilities put in front us in one of the 

special crash investigation reports. One of them was that the ignition being off could have been a cause. Another one was that the 

circumstances of the crash could have been the cause. 

In those two cases, the more likely scenario was that the circumstances of the crash were more likely to yield to the airbags not 

deploying. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So you also said that GM had critical information 

that would have helped identify this defect that NHTSA didn’t 

have. What information could GM have given you that the agency—that would have helped identify the real problem? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, I made that statement based on looking at 

the chronology that General Motors provided with this recall. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. And there were at least a few things, in that 

chronology that raised serious concerns for me. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And what were those things? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. The first was that there was a change in part 

number relative to the ignition switch, and we were never informed 

of that change. 

The second is that there were some conversations with suppliers 

about their control algorithm, the control systems for airbags. We 

were never informed of that conversation, to my knowledge. And 

we did not have the details on how those algorithms worked. 

Third, and most importantly, General Motors created a direct 

connection in their recall between the airbag non-deployment and 

the ignition switch. If we had any of those pieces of information, 

I truly believe it would have changed the way NHTSA would have 

approached this. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, if GM is changing a part, are they legally 

required to inform NHTSA of that change? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. It is not clear to me that that is a legal requirement. But I can get back to you to make sure. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I would appreciate it. Because it seems to me that 

is critical. 

Now, in your opening statement, you said that in order for 

NHTSA to be able to make a correct determination, you need all 

of the information, as you just said. And you need the company to 

be acting in good faith. 

Based on what you know now, do you think that at the time that 

all of this was happening GM was acting in good faith towards the 

agency? 

80 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congresswoman, we have an open investigation 

to answer that exact question. And if we find out that they were 

not, we will hold them accountable. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And I would hope that you would inform this committee, irrespective of your determination, whether they did or 

didn’t. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Absolutely. 

Ms. DEGETTE. When do you expect to finish that investigation? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I can’t put an exact timeline on it. We are getting 

hundreds of thousands of documents from General Motors. The 

deadline is April 3rd for them to provide those documents. It is not 

clear that they will be able to provide all the documents at the 

time. 

But we have been making sure that they are continuously producing documents so that we can understand. As soon as my team 

is able to find information in those documents that indicate that 

General Motors had information that they should have acted on 

sooner, we will determine how to move forward to hold General 

Motors accountable; or, if we don’t find that information, then we 

will also let you know. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentlelady yields back. 

With regard to Ms. DeGette’s question about if there is a change 

in a part, do they need to notify you. Will you also let us know if 

they make a change in a part, do they also have to have a different 

part number? I don’t know what NHTSA’s requirements are on 

that. That is an issue. Just you can submit that for the record. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I will go back to you to be clear. 

Mr. MURPHY. We also need to know what information you were 

reviewing with regard to these airbags, GM cars or specific to the 

Cobalt. And would you please provide that information to the committee. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Mr. Chairman, I believe we provided a significant 

amount of documentation, but we will continue to do so. 

Mr. MURPHY. On this, we would like to know what you are viewing. 

We would like to know what you are reviewing. 

I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Upton, 

5 minutes. 

Mr. UPTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I just want to— 

I know you are, as well as our committee, is literally, we are looking through boxes of information, thousands and thousands of 

pages. And that continues and looks like we will be getting some 

more down the road. 

Well, as you know, I wrote the TREAD Act, which passed unanimously in the Congress. President Clinton signed it into law, and 

the whole point or a major point of that law was that NHTSA 

would in fact get the information that it needed to detect a trend 

as quickly as they could. So when NHTSA considered whether to 

investigate the Cobalt for an air bag defect back in 2007, the early 

warning data was one of the factors that was cited in the Defect 

Assessment Division’s recommendation to investigate it, correct? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That is correct. 

81 

Mr. UPTON. So looking back, what is the problem? Did GM not 

report the information that the law required? Or was NHTSA unable to sort through the information that it had to find the problem 

or both? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, we have an open investigation to 

determine whether or not General Motors failed in their responsibility to provide information, and we will definitely report to this 

committee the results of that effort. 

In terms of what our team did. Our team looked at all the available information using the approach that we have used successfully 

to lead to over 1,299 recalls influenced by NHTSA over the last 10 

years. We use that process to look into the early warning data, to 

look at the consumer complaint data, to look at special crash investigations, and a variety of other information. 

We dug into that data. We analyzed it. We tried to see if there 

was a defect trend that stood out. The data didn’t support that. It 

showed that the Cobalt did not stand out when it came to air bag 

nondeployments. 

We looked at the special crash investigations. Those available at 

the time were inconclusive. This was a case where the team 

worked very hard to try to understand what was happening and 

wasn’t able to see a significant enough trend or a clear enough defect. 

What I am learning from this and where we have to go in the 

future is we need to look more carefully at remote defect possibilities. We need to reconsider the way we are using special crash investigations. We need to continue to invest in tools. We are already 

investing in computer tools basically grown out of the Watson IBM 

software to be able to more effectively, more efficiently use our resources to spot trends. We’ve got to put all these tools forward, and 

we’ve got to look for opportunities to make changes, look in better 

spots that—— 

Mr. UPTON. So, as you look to embark on an investigation, do you 

consider the number of deaths? I mean, is there some trigger that 

you use to warrrant further exploration, whether it is 1 death, 4 

deaths, 10 deaths, 20, 100, I mean, is there some type of standard 

equation that you put into place? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, there is not. Our goal, what I 

would love to be able to do is to find each and every one of these 

defects before there’s a single death. It is the manufacturer’s responsibility to be reporting all of these defects and getting them 

fixed. When they do not, it is our job to try to find them. We don’t 

have a simple rule-of-thumb because each case is different. In some 

cases, we have opened investigations after one incident where it 

was clear that it was a defect. In other cases, we have had to rely 

on the trend data that indicates that this stands out. I can’t give 

you a specific—— 

Mr. UPTON. So let’s play Monday morning quarterback. So, today 

is April 1st, 2014. These problems arose over the last 10 years. 

What would you have liked to have had on your platter from GM 

specifically in terms of information today that you didn’t have in 

the last 8 or 10 years? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, at a minimum, what I can tell you, based 

on their chronology, I would have liked to have had information 

82 

that they had changed the parts on the ignition switch. I would 

have liked to have had information that they were talking to their 

suppliers, because they appear to have had concerns about the algorithm associated with air bag nondeployments. I would have certainly liked to have any information they had directly linking the 

ignition switch defect to air bag nondeployments. As we go through 

our investigation, I should be able to come back to you and let you 

know if there is additional information they should have had—— 

Mr. UPTON. And are you pretty certain that today that they did 

not provide that information to you? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. It is my understanding that none of that information was available. We are continuing our efforts to try to make 

sure that we understand what happened, so I can’t say that I can 

give you a comprehensive and definitive answer, but my understanding at this point is that, no, we did not have that information. 

Mr. UPTON. I know Mr. Long wanted my last 15 seconds, so I— 

that is now gone. 

I yield back. 

Mr. LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I will have my friend Mr. Terry here assist me, and the chairman 

of the subcommittee showed you this picture a while ago and said 

he couldn’t navigate past this page, and you said that if any new 

information became available to you, that you would get that on 

the Web site. 

Something we learned in the first hearing that I think is very 

germane is that if you will take your car to General Motors, they 

will give you a loaner at no cost or a rental car at no cost. I would 

call that very germane. I would call it critical, and if somebody has 

got an 2005, 2006, 2007, I think it would be enticing to drive a 

2014 for a little while they repair your car, so that would be a suggestion to put on there. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

I might note to the gentleman, I received a call from one of my 

constituents who said he has tried to get a loaner car, and the dealer told him he couldn’t have one, too. 

Ms. DEGETTE. One more thing, too, you could put on there is 

take all your keys off the key ring except for the ignition key. That 

is the other thing Ms. Barra said. Is that on there? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I believe that is very clearly on there. In fact, just 

to be clear, the reason why we did that is because safety is our top 

priority. We are all focused on investigating this case, but safety, 

safety is our top priority, which is why the first thing I wanted people to see when they came to that Web site was how to keep themselves safe. So I do just want to be clear, that is why we have that 

limited information there because I didn’t want anyone out there 

who came to our Web site not to understand the steps how to keep 

themselves safe. I agree it is a good idea to put on there—I will 

have to see if we can fit it in the space we’ve got, or if there is another way to point people to it, but I agree it is a good idea to let 

them know that—— 

Mr. MURPHY. People need to know if it is safe to drive their current cars. 

Mr. Dingell, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

83 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank you. 

Mr. Friedman, let’s look at NHTSA’s internal decisionmaking 

processes. These questions will require a yes or no answer. 

Is it correct that contractors for NHTSA’s special crash investigations program conducted three separate investigations of Chevy Cobalt in 2005, 2006, and 2009 related to air bag nondeployment? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, is it correct that NHTSA’s Office of Defects 

Investigation reviews early warning reporting data and consumer 

complaints in deciding whether to open a formal defect investigation? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes, those are parts of the process. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, is it correct that GM submitted EWR data to 

NHTSA concerning Chevrolet Cobalts, subject to NHTSA’s 2005 

and 2006 special crash investigations? Yes, or no. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I’m sorry, sir. Could you repeat that, please? 

Mr. DINGELL. I’ll give it to you again. Is it correct that GM submitted EWR data to NHTSA concerning Chevrolet Cobalts, subject 

to NHTSA’s 2005 and 2006 special crash investigations? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes, that’s correct. Those are important bits of 

our investigation. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, is it correct that the Office of Defects Investigation, ODI, follows a multistep process in order to determine 

whether a defect exists in the vehicle? Yes or no. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, and that process includes an initial evaluation, a preliminary evaluation, and an engineering analysis. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes, that is the standard process, but we will act 

earlier in that stage if we have compelling information that there’s 

a defect. We do not wait necessarily to go through that whole process if we have sufficient information to act on. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. Now, let’s clarify something. NHTSA’s 

Special Crash Investigation program is something separate and 

distinct from the formal ODI investigations process. Is that correct? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That is correct 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, is it correct that the Office of Defects Investigation convened an initial evaluation panel in 2007 to investigate 

the nondeployment of air bags in the 2003, 2006 Chevy Cobalts and 

Ions, yes or no? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That is correct 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, is it correct that the review was prompted by 

29 consumer complaints, 4 fatal crashes, and 14 field reports? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That was one of the reasons for the review. The 

additional—— 

Mr. DINGELL. What were the other reasons? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. In addition, we were looking at consumer complaints. Those complaints raised concerns as well, and I can get 

back to you on the record with each of the pieces of information 

that were involved, but we do have a memo that was provided 

when it was proposed to potentially move this to a defect that lays 

out early warning data, consumer complaint data concerns on the 

record, special crash investigation—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Would you submit that for the record, please? 

84 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, were there other things that triggered this 

review? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. My understanding is that it was all of the items 

in that memo that triggered this review. 

Mr. DINGELL. So there weren’t other things. 

Now, is it correct that ODI decided not to elevate that review to 

a more formal investigation because there was a lack of discernible 

trend, yes or no? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes, that was one of the reasons. 

Mr. DINGELL. What were the other reasons? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. The other reason is that the crash investigation 

information we had was inconclusive and did not—was not able to 

point to a specific defect. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. Now, to be clear, at the time of the 2000 

initial evaluation, NHTSA had concluded that the Chevy Cobalt 

was not over representated compared to other peer vehicles with 

respect to injury crash incident rates. Is that correct? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That’s correct. 

Mr. DINGELL. Is there any other reason? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Was there any—the other—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Was there any other reason that you came to that 

conclusion? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. In 2007. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, also to be clear, NHTSA did not have information at the time of the 2007 investigation that, for example, 

linked air bag nondeployment to ignition switch position. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. We do not have any specific information that provided a direct link. 

Mr. DINGELL. So you are agreeing? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I believe so. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. Now, Mr. Chairman, I am troubled here. It appears that we have a flaw in NHTSA’s decisionmaking process 

which is related to defects and their inquiries into defects. I fully 

recognize, and I am like most of the members of this committee, 

I think, critical of the fact that NHTSA is short staffed and underfunded. At the same time, I am compelled to agree with Acting Administrator Friedman that Congress may need to examine the use 

of special crash investigations in the defect screening process, how 

best to get NHTSA the information it needs for that process, and 

how best to engage manufacturers around issue evaluations. In so 

doing, I think we will help to better ensure the safety of American 

motorists and their families. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

Now recognize Dr. Gingrey from Georgia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Mr. Friedman, in your written testimony, you suggested that 

NHTSA, your agency, did not pursue investigations into the issues 

with Cobalts and Ions because they were unaware of information 

developed by General Motors. In the years leading up to this recall, 

has NHTSA had any concerns with General Motors’ responsiveness 

or lack thereof to safety defects and concerns? 

85 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, I would like to get back to you on 

the record with that just to defer. 

Mr. GINGREY. Let me do this. You may not have to do that. Just 

look at tab 34. It is right there in front of you. In July 2013, the 

head of ODI e-mailed General Motors with a number of concerns. 

It is the second page, bottom of the second page, sent to Carmen. 

You see where I am—you with me? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I have not seen this before, but yes, I see it. 

Mr. GINGREY. OK. You want to read that first paragraph and 

then look up and I will know that you have read it? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes. 

Mr. GINGREY. He stated, The general perception is that General 

Motors is slow to communicate, slow to act and, at times, requires 

additional efforts of ODI that we do not feel is necessary with some 

of your peers. You read that, didn’t you? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes. 

Mr. GINGREY. Were you aware of the concerns raised by ODI, 

and I guess that was July 2013? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I was not aware of this specific e-mail, but I have 

been in at least one meeting where we sat down with General Motors and made clear to them that they needed to make sure that 

they were following an effective process when it came to their recalls. 

Mr. GINGREY. So there was definitely some concern. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, with each and every automaker, we need to 

make sure that they have a good and effective process to quickly 

deal with this. This e-mail clearly indicates some very specific concerns. 

Mr. GINGREY. Did the agency have similar concerns in 2007, 

2010, when it declined to advance any investigations into nondeployment of air bags in these GM vehicles? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I don’t know 

Mr. GINGREY. You weren’t with NHTSA at the time? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. No. I joined NHTSA back last year, I have been 

there for almost a year now. 

Mr. GINGREY. Do you think NHTSA did enough to get the information that it needed? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I believe in this case that the team looked very 

clearly and very carefully at the data. I believe that the reason why 

we didn’t move forward was because the data indicated that the 

Cobalts didn’t stand out and that we didn’t have conclusive information as to a very specific intent. 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, in 2005, GM issued this technical services 

bulletin—and that’s tab 12, if you want to flip quickly to tab 12 of 

your document binder—this technical service bulletin to its dealers, 

and it recommended a solution for complaints of this inadvertent 

key turn due to the low torque, particularly by these Chevrolet Cobalts. The technical service bulletin instructed the dealers exactly 

what to do to provide an insert that converted a key from a slot 

design to a hold design. I don’t know exactly what that means, but 

they do. General Motors believed that this would help reduce the 

force exerted on the ignition while driving from maybe shaking of 

the keys or bumping it with your knee. 

86 

In 2006, the technical services bulletin was expanded to include 

additional make and model years. Unfortunately, in the case of this 

young girl, 29-year old Brooke Melton, a nurse from my congressional district that was killed the day after she took her car in, saying, Hey, this engine is cutting off for no reason. And, you know, 

I know they must have gotten the technical service bulletin about 

this issue, but all they did was clean out a fuel line, gave her the 

car the next day, and led her to her death. 

Administrator Friedman, yes or no, was NHTSA aware of General Motors’ 2005, 2006 technical service bulletins related to low ignition key cylinder torque effect? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Mr. Gingrey, first, if I may, Brooke’s death was 

a tragedy. And it’s a tragedy that we work each and every day to 

avoid. I do believe we were aware, as part of our efforts and as part 

of the special crash investigation, that we were aware of that technical service bulletin. At the time, that technical service bulletin 

would not have been seen as being associated with air bag nondeployment. 

Mr. GINGREY. Yes. Listen, I believe you, Mr. Friedman, I believe 

you, and obviously, when people are driving impaired or texting or 

e-mailing or whatever, they don’t change the oil when they should 

and their tires are low and the brakes are worn out, there’s some 

responsibility, some personal responsibility. But when they’re doing 

everything the right way and they take their car in, and they trust 

the service department of the local dealership and they get a situation like this, you can understand why she’s gone, but her parents, 

obviously—and all these parents, these families are just irate because the expectation, if they’re doing the right thing, they ought 

to be safe. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, I completely understand, and I 

would actually argue that consumers should expect that their cars 

should function as they’re designed no matter the cause of the 

crash. 

Mr. GINGREY. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Friedman. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. I venture to say that they would assume the car 

keys don’t have to be monitored—— 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Correct. 

Mr. MURPHY [continuing]. And checked. 

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Green, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Friedman, thank you for appearing today. NHTSA has a central role for consumer safety, and I would like to understand better 

how long it took for NHTSA to identify this fault. In your opinion, 

how did NHTSA not identify the deadly trend. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, when our team looked at the data, 

the trend did not—there was not a trend that stuck out. In fact, 

when it came to air bag nondeployments, the Cobalt was not an 

outlier. 

Mr. GREEN. Was GM forthcoming with their data? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, that’s the exact question and that’s the 

exact reason why we have an open investigation to them. I do have 

concerns about the parts change, about conversations they had 

with suppliers, and any of their information they may have had, 

87 

which is exactly why we opened up an investigation to them, and 

if they did not follow the law in their requirements to get information to us and to respond quickly, we’re going to hold them accountable as we have with many other automakers. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported on NHTSA’s response to the consumer complaints over the 

years about ignition switch issues used for the recalled vehicles. 

According to the Times, many of the complaints detailed frightening scenes which moving cars suddenly stalled at high speeds on 

highways, in the middle of city traffic and while crossing railroad 

tracks. A number of the complaints warned of catastrophic consequences if something was not done. NHTSA received more than 

260 of these consumer complaints over the past 11 years about GM 

vehicles suddenly turning off while driving, but it never once 

opened an effective investigation with the ignition switch issue. If 

consumers submitted these complaints to NHTSA, many were met 

with a quote of just silence. 

Mr. Friedman, Mary Ruddy’s daughter died in a crash involving 

a 2005 Cobalt. Ms. Ruddy has repeatedly tried to contact NHTSA 

for information but has only received form letters. She told the 

New York Times that, quote, I just want someone to hear from me. 

We’ve had no closure. We still have no answers. Ms. Ruddy was— 

I don’t know if she’s still here today, but she was in the audience. 

Has NHTSA been in contact with Ms. Ruddy? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Mr. Congressman, my understanding of what 

happened with Ms. Ruddy—well, first of all, Ms. Ruddy deserves 

answers, and that is exactly why we are looking into what GM did. 

That is exactly why we are making sure we understand what happened. What she has been through, it is a tragedy, and we’ve got 

to work to make sure that those don’t happen again. 

In terms of my understanding of Ms. Ruddy’s contacts with 

NHTSA, those contacts were made through our complaint system. 

In those complaint systems, as we do note on the Web site, we do 

not necessarily respond to all of those complaints because what we 

are doing with those complaints is we are looking for potential 

problems, and if those complaints don’t contain sufficient information, if we have questions about them, we do follow up with consumers. But if they have the information we need, we do not, because the goal of those complaint databases is to try to find problems. 

In this case, my understanding is Ms. Ruddy provided those complaints after being notified of a recall that NHTSA did influence. 

We got the Cobalt recalled. 

Mr. GREEN. I only have 5 minutes, but did NHTSA really receive 

260 consumer complaints over 11 years about this automatic shutdown of your engines? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I don’t have that exact number, but what I do 

know is that at NHTSA, human eyes look at every single one of 

these complaints to try to find out if there is something that stands 

out. My understanding of the complaints you are referencing are 

that they were for stalls and that only a very small number of 

them were related to air bag nondeployments. What we were looking for—— 

Mr. GREEN. I know but 260 complaints on the car stopping. 

88 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Right. 

Mr. GREEN. On the freeway or wherever it’s at. I don’t know if 

that is a high number or a low number over 11 years, but you 

might need to have somebody or who actually looks at complaints, 

and I assume they come from different parts of the country, so 

somebody identifies and said, Hey, we need to focus on these 260 

complaints. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, in this case, a human eye looked 

at each and every one of those, and whether that’s a large or a 

small number based on the analysis that I’ve seen relative to the 

number of Cobalts that were out on the road, that was not a very 

large number compared to a lot of the other stall complaints that 

do happen for a variety of other vehicles that are out there. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, you told me about how NHTSA responds to 

consumer complaints, but it seems like in this case, NHTSA might 

look at how they respond to consumer complaints much better because I know as a Member of Congress, believe me, if we don’t respond to e-mails and letters, we will hear about it, and if I get a 

number of e-mails on a certain subject, we obviously respond to it. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I know I’m almost out of time, and thank you 

for your courtesy. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Scalise, for 

5 minutes 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And Mr. Friedman, thank you for being with us and participating in this investigative hearing as well. I know earlier you had 

talked about the decision back in 2007 when the chief of Defect Assessment Division at your agency had suggested opening an investigation and then ultimately, some time after, it was decided not 

to open that investigation. When was the decision made not to open 

the investigation? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That was also made in 2007, and basically what 

the chief of the defect investment—sorry, Defects Assessment Division was doing was exactly what his job requires him to do. He is 

supposed to look for potential defect cases and bring those up to 

a panel where those are considered, where a broad set of evidence 

is considered. 

Mr. SCALISE. Is that the trend in relation to peers, I think that’s 

the language that you all were using when you’re looking at, I 

guess, similar cars that were having similar problems with air 

bags? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That’s one of the pieces of information that’s used 

as well as crash investigations and other EWR data that is involved. About half of those that are brought up do not end up going 

to investigation, but we have designed our system to make sure 

that we have at least two teams always looking for potential problems. The Defects Assessment Division is always looking for potential problems and raising that question. That’s what—— 

Mr. SCALISE. And then I’d be curious to get the information that 

you got within NHTSA that helped make that decision not to move 

forward with the investigation between September 2007, when the 

Defect Assessment Division decided—that suggested to go forward, 

and then when you subsequently, your agency subsequently decide 

89 

not to because when you look at this chart we got from 2007, the 

Cobalt versus Peer crash rate, there is a chart, and you’ve got the 

other peers and you’ve got some fairly static numbers and then 

you’ve got the spike here in what’s called exposure rate per population that seems to spike with the Cobalt, and so if the internal 

decision making was that they were similar to their peers, it 

doesn’t seem to mesh from this chart from 2007. So if you can get 

me or get the committee whatever information you have on what 

decision making went into NHTSA’s final call to reject what was 

a warning or so from the Defect Assessment Division, and can you 

get us that information? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, I believe we provided that information to 

the committee already, but if there is additional information, I’ll 

make sure committee has—— 

Mr. SCALISE. And were you all—— 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I’m sorry, sir 

Mr. SCALISE. You had something else you wanted to add to that? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Thank you, yes, I apologize. I just wanted to 

make clear about what the data shows. I believe you’re referring 

to this chart. The bars here represent the defect, the potential defect, or really the complaint rate, and what you’ll see with these 

bars is they’re not spiking, they’re not standing out in comparison 

to these others. The average is here, and they’re just above average. 

Mr. SCALISE. The blue line there on your chart. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Right. And that’s what I was wondering if you 

were pointing to. The blue line is the volume of—I believe that’s 

the volume of reports. No, that’s the volume of sales, so that indicates how many vehicles were sold, but the complaint rate that’s 

the important data that we’re looking at are the bars. 

Mr. SCALISE. OK. Did you take action on any of those other cars 

that are identified in that chart? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. In some cases, we took action. In some cases, we 

did not. 

Mr. SCALISE. So in some, you did. If you can get the committee 

the list of those cars where you did take action because clearly you 

made the choice not to take action in the case of the Cobalt, so we 

appreciate if you can get us that. 

I do want to ask a few other questions because in your testimony, you’d made a few, I don’t know if you’d call them accusations, but I guess you could call them that. I mean, here you’re saying we’re pursuing an investigation of whether GM met its timeliness responsibilities to report and address this defect under Federal law. I know you addressed this a little bit earlier, but if you’ve 

got any specifics that you’re referring to when you make that statement, can you get that to the committee? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes. Well, the specifics, I believe, are in my testimony that there are three things that I am concerned about based 

on their chronology. First and foremost is that they have identified 

that there’s a link between the ignition switch and air bag nondeployment. Second is that they changed a part. And third is they 

appear to have had conversations with their suppliers about the air 

bag algorithm in relationship to the key—— 

90 

Mr. SCALISE. Final question, and I know I am out time, GM 

had—this is your statement: GM had critical information that 

would have helped identify this defect. Have you gotten our staff 

that critical information already that you feel GM had that would 

have helped identify this defect? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. So that information is the information that was 

referred to in General Motors’ chronology. I believe the committee 

has asked for all that information. 

Mr. SCALISE. So we don’t yet have that, as far as you know? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I am not aware of exactly what documents you 

do or don’t have, but if you don’t have that information—— 

Mr. SCALISE. If you can make sure we get that information if you 

have it. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I also just wanted to clarify. We don’t only look 

for trends. If there is a clear defect, we move forward into the investigation as well, I don’t know the answer but on some of these 

cases, there may have not been as large of a trend, but if there was 

a clear defect, we would have investigated this—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Thanks for your testimony. 

And I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. I just want to make sure, so we’re very clear on 

this, when he’s referring to the information given this committee, 

if you could highlight very specifically the information you did not 

have that GM later gave you that would have changed your decision, you make sure the committee has that. I know you said it was 

a parts switch, and that’s what we have. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, so, what I’m referring to, and I can highlight it in GM’s chronology, is I’m referring to specific items that 

are identified in General Motors’ chronology that brought concerns. 

We are getting that information from General Motors. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

I now recognize the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Castor, for 

5 minutes. 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Administrator Friedman, GM has confirmed that it knew as 

early as 2001 that its ignition switches contained defects. And by 

2004, GM had a body of consumer complaints that raised enough 

questions for them to open an internal engineering inquiry of the 

switches. Meanwhile, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, your agency, was beginning to receive its own body of 

consumer complaints of cars stalling and ignition switch failures, 

and in 2005, as your agency was monitoring air bag nondeployment 

issues, its special crash investigation of a 2005 Cobalt found that 

the ignition switch was in the accessory position when the air bags 

did not deploy. You said, At this point, it was not clear to the Highway Traffic Safety Administration what was happening. 

But then information came out subsequently that you can tell us, 

should this have pointed NHTSA in the right direction, in 2007 

agency investigated a second crash of a 2005 Cobalt where the air 

bags did not deploy, I think you said, At this point, still, it did not 

stick out. And you’ve testified that you didn’t see trends. 

The crash report found that the nondeployment could be the result of, quote, ‘‘power loss due to movement of the ignition switch 

just prior to impact.’’ But at this point, GM was also providing your 

91 

agency with early warning reports in the third quarter of 2005, the 

fourth quarter of 2006, in addition to the special crash investigation, so we’re all trying to figure out how it took so long for these 

defective ignition switches to trigger a recall at GM and then raise 

red flags at NHTSA and how the Highway Traffic Safety Administration could have noticed this issue sooner if GM had been more 

forthcoming. 

So the committee’s investigation has revealed that GM approved 

switches for these cars that did not meet the company specifications in 2002 and again in 2006. Did GM ever inform the Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration of this fact? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Of which specific fact? I apologize. 

Ms. CASTOR. That the ignition switches did not meet the company specifications? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. It’s my understanding that we did not have that 

information. 

Ms. CASTOR. OK. The supplemental memo released this morning 

by the committee staff also reveals that GM had over 130 warranty 

claims on the recalled vehicles that specifically referred to problems with the ignition switch turning the car off when going over 

bumps or when drivers accidentally hit the key with their knee or 

leg. Is it true that GM provided early warning reports aggregate 

data of the warranty information but not the specific warranty 

claims listed one by one in the comments from consumers? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. What all car companies provide are aggregate 

numbers associated with warranties, and so we don’t know when 

we get those counts what the reason for those warranties could be. 

For example, on the air bag side, I believe I mentioned before, the 

complaints could be because the air bag light was going off when 

they thought it shouldn’t or because the passenger sensor was not 

working. So, when we have that count, we do not have the information as to the detail of exactly what each and every one of those 

warranty claims is. 

Ms. CASTOR. So if GM had shared the specific warranty claims, 

would that have been helpful to your agency? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. The specific warranty claims I believe you’re 

speaking of are related to the ignition switch itself? 

Ms. CASTOR. Yes, the 130 that have now come out due to the 

committee investigation. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. And my honest answer is I don’t know, and that 

is in part because at the time, we did not have the information we 

now have for General Motors directly connecting the ignition 

switch to the air bag recalls. 

Ms. CASTOR. So the state of the law currently is that in early 

warning reports on any type of vehicle problem, the car companies 

do not have to provide you the specific warranty claims? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I believe that’s the case. 

Ms. CASTOR. They can give you a summary in general? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes, I believe that’s the case. 

Ms. CASTOR. And that’s true whether it is a warranty problem 

with the radio or a warranty problem that could be a serious safety 

defect? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I believe that’s correct. 

92 

Ms. CASTOR. Do you think it’s time to look at the law if a car 

company has so many, here, 130 warranty claims that are specific 

and they relate to a serious safety defect, do you think that would 

be helpful to your agency, maybe change the law and say when a 

car company becomes aware that they have so many of these serious safety defects, they have to provide you the specific warranty 

complaints from the consumer? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congresswoman, I have to look at the exact data 

before I would be able to tell you whether or not it would be valuable, but what I will—— 

Ms. CASTOR. But certainly if a company had gathered a critical 

mass of serious safety defect complaints, that would be helpful—— 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well—— 

Ms. CASTOR [continuing]. Correct? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN [continuing]. If they have information regarding a 

defect, I believe that information they would, without a doubt, have 

to provide to us. I believe the information—— 

Ms. CASTOR. But the law does not require that currently? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, if they have information about a defect, I 

believe the law does. I believe what you’re referring to are warranty claims, which may or may not be associated with a defect. 

Ms. CASTOR. OK. Well, I think this is an important issue for the 

committee to look at. There might be some new line drawing or directions on what these early warning reports and if there is serious 

safety information that a car company has gleaned through their 

own internal investigation, it really needs to be provided to the 

agency. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. And Congressman—Chairman—— 

Mr. MURPHY. Now recognize Dr. Burgess for 5 minutes. Thank 

you. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Friedman, for being here with us. It’s been a 

long afternoon. Now, your testimony, I think you stated that, in 

2007 and 2010, there was not enough evidence to conduct a formal 

investigation into General Motors’ Chevrolet Cobalt, despite the 

number of complaints and four fatal crashes that had already 

shown up, but in 2012, your agency, the National Highway Traffic 

Safety Administration opened an investigation into an air bag 

problem that some Hyundai models—my understanding is this was 

based on a single complaint, and that is OK. I think the air bag 

nondeployment is a serious issue, but why wasn’t it a serious issue 

when the complaints were coming in about the Cobalt? Given the 

fact that you initiated the investigation with much less evidence in 

the case of Hyundai, how can you assert that there was not enough 

evidence to proceed with General Motors’ case? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, safety is our priority, and air bag 

nondeployments is a serious issue and we treat them very, very seriously. I would have to get back to you on specifics of the Hyundai 

case, but it goes back to one of the points I made before, which is 

we are looking for two potential things. The best thing and the 

easiest ability—the best thing to be able to find and the clearest 

thing to be able find is when there’s an obvious indication of a defect. All it takes is one if that’s clear. 

93 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes. And I agree completely, and I don’t know— 

you were not here when the CEO testified when we posed questions. One of questions I posed was for the accident that occurred 

in Maryland in July of 2005 where a Chevy Cobalt went down a 

street that ended in a cul-de-sac, maybe was driving too fast, a lot 

of problems that night, but the air bag didn’t deploy when the car 

impacted some trees. And it was a pretty serious impact. In fact, 

it was so serious that the driver was then pushed up, compressed 

against the steering wheel with such force, I mean, she only 

weighed 106 pounds, and she broke the rim off the steering wheel, 

and that’s a massive amount of force for a little 106-pound body to 

exhibit. So the air bag didn’t deploy, I got your report here that it 

was in fact investigated in December of 2006, but that’s a big deal 

that that air bag didn’t deploy. 

Different from all of the other accidents that we were given information about, because of the nature of this person’s injuries, because of the cause of her demise, I can’t tell you that the air bag 

would have saved her life, but I know, without the air bag, there 

was no chance at all, and of course, that was proven that night. 

But an air bag might have made a difference because the steering 

wheel that she broke off actually compressed against the upper 

dome, just below the diaphragm, below the rib cage, and lacerated 

the liver, and over the course of the next hour and 45 minutes, 

small woman, small blood volume, she bled out. I mean, an air bag 

might have made a big difference that night. 

Now, contrasting that with another accident that occurred in 

Pennsylvania in 2009, where there was a head-on collision between 

a Hyundai and a Cobalt, and as I pointed out to the GM CEO, the 

Cobalt was not at fault, and that is, the driver of the Cobalt was 

not at fault. The Hyundai came over the center line, and there was 

a head-on collision. Closing speed was probably close to 100 miles 

an hour when you add the two speeds of the automobiles together. 

Everyone who was in the front seat of those vehicles died, but the 

Cobalt air bag did not deploy. The Hyundai did. Now, unfortunately, it didn’t make any difference as to the overall fatality of 

that accident, but here you’ve got a side-by-side, identical speeds 

with which the impact occurred, the deceleration forces were identical in both automobiles. Hyundai deploys, Cobalt doesn’t, this is 

a problem. Don’t you agree? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, when air bags don’t deploy, that’s 

a serious issue. There’s also a serious issue sometimes when air 

bags do deploy. Over 200 people died because air bags, earlier air 

bags, deployed when they shouldn’t have or deployed too strongly 

when they shouldn’t have. Part of the challenge with all this, part 

of the reason why this information ended up not being conclusive 

for us is because air bags are designed, even in some difficult 

crashes, to not go off because that’s the safest thing, that’s the best 

way to avoid potential harm. 

Mr. BURGESS. Sir, in all due respect, I cannot imagine—and I’m 

not an engineer, and I’m not a lawyer, but I cannot imagine any 

circumstance where impacting an oak tree at 70 miles an hour or 

a head-on collision at 45 miles per hour per vehicle would not be 

a situation where you did not want the deployment of the air bag. 

94 

I can’t think of a single reason why the air bag deploying would 

add to the lethality of that accident sequence. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, I completely understand why— 

why you have—why you feel that and why you have that impression. In the case of the 2005 crash and in general with these air 

bags, if you have an unbelted occupant and a small strike first, the 

risk at play here is that the occupant may be moving forward during that crash. If you’re moving forward during that crash and the 

air bag is opening, yes, it actually could cause more harm than 

good. When the air bag system is trying to decide whether or not 

to deploy—— 

Mr. BURGESS. It couldn’t have possibly done more harm that 

night. I would just submit that first impact was with a 5-inch pine 

tree, and although the pine tree yielded to the Cobalt, it was still 

a pretty significant impact when that happened. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

I will now recognize Mr. Barton for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you. And I want to apologize to the other 

members that are still here. I have been watching the hearing as 

I’ve been doing meetings, but I apologize for not being here physically to go ahead of some of you folks, and having said that, I’m 

going to go ahead. 

I have listened to most of what you said today on the television, 

and I think it’s obvious that GM has some real questions that 

they’ve not done a very good answering today, but I also think, as 

the Federal regulator on the block, there are some valid questions 

for your agency to answer. My first question is, at what level of accidents or deaths or incidents of malfunction triggers more than 

normal NHTSA review, not necessarily a full fledged investigation, 

but in this case, we, in hindsight, have got 13 deaths that we feel 

are attributable to this ignition problem over a 10-year period. I 

don’t know how many accidents, how many injuries, but when 

would NHTSA really start looking at something and say, there’s an 

anomaly here, we need to check it out? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, first, I appreciate your question, 

and part of what you started with is there are important questions 

that NHTSA has to answer in addition to General Motors, and I 

think this is an incredibly important process because we have questions, you have questions. What my focus is in addition to the recall is making sure NHTSA does everything we can to improve the 

way we deal with these cases. 

When it comes to your question about, is there a specific level? 

Each case ends up being different. Ideally, what I would like to 

have happen, is that we find first, that automakers find and fix 

these defects right away. If they don’t, ideally, I want to find and 

fix these defects—— 

Mr. BARTON. But there is some internal reporting system or monitoring system and like if a specific model started showing up, 100 

accidents a month that were unexplainable, that would be a big 

enough blip that somebody at NHTSA would say, well, what’s going 

on there. I mean, if you had a steering problem, if you had a brake 

problem, if you had a gasoline tank problem that kept exploding 

over and over again, not once every decade, but I mean, enough 

95 

that you could see in your reporting, somebody at NHTSA would 

say, Hey, we need to check that out. 

Now, I am told that at the staff level, there were some internal 

NHTSA employees, some employees at NHTSA said, you know, before GM admitted that there was a problem, there were some 

NHTSA midlevel people that said we need to look at it and a decision was made within NHTSA that it wasn’t at a level that was 

worthy of further investigation. Is that true? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, we have a process to do exactly 

what you just said. We have people who are reading every single 

one of the more than 45,000 complaints that come in. We have a 

team dedicated to do that. We have a team dedicated to looking at 

all the early warning data that comes in. In this case, redflags 

were raised. Concerns were raised, and it was proposed, because of 

that exact process, the exact process that you’re talking about that 

we do have, concerns were raised. And this was brought to a panel. 

The job of that panel is to consider all of the evidence, the initial 

evidence as well as more detailed look at the data, whether or not 

there’s a clear trend, whether or not there’s enough information to 

have concern over a specific defect. The panel did that in this case. 

What I’m learning, what I’m seeing from all this is that we need 

to reconsider and look at, how do we deal with cases where there 

may be something that’s considered a remote explanation? Should 

we change the way we follow up on it? Should we change the way 

we follow up on that with the car company? These are things that 

I think we’re learning, lessons that—— 

Mr. BARTON. My time is just about out. I want to make one general comment and then one final question. You know, we pointed 

out to the GM executive that was here that their part didn’t meet 

their own specifications, and it didn’t just almost not meet them; 

it didn’t meet them by a long way. I mean, like a third, it was like 

two-thirds off. It was way below, not just a little bit, and that’s not 

NHTSA’s problem, and the NHTSA people aren’t expected to know 

things at that level. But on the general point that Dr. Burgess was 

asking about, when the air bag doesn’t deploy when it runs into a 

tree at 40 or 50 miles an hour and the general response from 

NHTSA is that we didn’t know how that particular air bag system 

was supposed to work, I don’t think that’s a very good answer. Isn’t 

NHTSA supposed to know how the air bag systems work, and if 

they are not, if NHTSA doesn’t know, aren’t you, in your agency, 

supposed to find out? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, the circumstances of these crashes 

were much more complicated than that. We applied expertise, we 

applied our understanding, we applied a process that has worked 

to generate over 1,299 recalls over the last decade. Are there improvements that we need to make to that process based on what 

we’ve learned today? Yes, absolutely. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. And I’m committed to making sure that that happens, but I wish these crashes were as simple as they appear to 

be. I wish the connection was as direct as we now know it is. At 

the time and with the information that we had—— 

Mr. BARTON. Hindsight is always easier than current sight. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. As before, hindsight is 20/20, and ideally, we—— 

96 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

I’ll recognize Mr. Griffith of Virginia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I appreciate 

you being here today, and I would ask several questions following 

up, you know, on why didn’t NHTSA know, and it is true that 

hindsight is 20/20, but it appears that some of your folks were at 

least sent enough warning signals. 

I am looking at what I believe is tab 18, and the DAD, which is 

the Defects Assessment Division, and I know you know that, but 

not everybody watching on TV knows that, and so I want to make 

sure they know because I had to look it up, sent out and said in 

one of their e-mails in 2007, said, Notwithstanding GM’s indications that they see no specific problem pattern, DAD perceives a 

pattern of nondeployments in these vehicles that does not exist in 

their peers and that their circumstances are such that in our engineering judgment merited a deployment and that such a deployment would have reduced injury level or saved lives. 

When you combine that flag with the flag I think you mentioned 

earlier in your testimony that you were getting a number, if I remember correctly, was about 200-and-some complaints on this particular Cobalt vehicle, that they were stalling out in the road or the 

engine was cutting off, and you start adding those together along 

with the fact that I believe you all knew that there were at least, 

I think it was three where the air bag didn’t deploy and the ignition was in the accessory mode, it would seem that somebody ought 

to start an investigation that those coincidences might have been 

more than coincidences. And I would ask, I know you’re trying to 

do things better, but apparently, the person who put all this together was an investigator for a one-man law firm. He did have 

somebody of counsel, but basically you’ve got a one man law firm 

with an engineering investigator who figures this out. So I would 

say to you, what can you do better and have you called on that investigator to come in and maybe train some of your folks to look 

at some of these coincidences because when you start seeing a series of negative things happen, that might be where you ought to 

be looking. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, our team was looking at this issue. 

The Defects Assessment Division was doing exactly their job. We 

have a system that is designed to raise those red flags. About half 

of the time, the recommendations of those Defects Assessment Division end up moving on to investigations. What I see in this case 

is one of the things I mentioned before, which is one of the things 

we need to look at is, how do we make connections between remote 

defect possibilities? 

In this case, you had one theory that was put forth, which was 

that the key being in the accessory position could have caused air 

bag nondeployments. In the crashes that we looked at, the circumstances of those crashes led the investigators to believe that it 

was much more likely that the air bags didn’t go off because of the 

circumstances of that crash. I completely understand why it looks 

like—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Well, but let me—— 

97 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. It should have been clear, but it’s clear now in 

part because we have that clear connection from General Motors. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Well, but let me raise this concern. This memo indicates that there’s a reliance, and I’m implying this from the 

wording, notwithstanding GM’s indication that they see no specific 

pattern problem. That statement shows a reliance on GM. Likewise, in your testimony, you state that this understanding was 

verified—talking about the power loss situation—by GM service literature during our due diligence effort. 

Now, if you’ve got a company that’s got a car that is not functioning the way it is supposed to, I would like to think that with 

51 employees versus that one-man law firm out of Georgia, that 

you would look at something other than the service literature and 

not necessarily rely on GM indications that they see no specific pattern or problem pattern. So, I am concerned that there may have 

been too much reliance on theinformation from GM, including their 

service—let me make sure I get the wording right—their service 

literature and what they saw as problem patterns when in fact I 

think that you all are supposed to be finding the problem patterns. 

Now, I understand it is easy, in hindsight, sitting up here to say 

that, but these are warning signs that go off to me as a legislator 

that maybe you all need to take a look at that, and you know, 

when you see problems, maybe the service literature of the company that you’re looking at is not the best place to get your information. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Congressman, just to be clear, we did not rely on 

General Motors when it came to defects, whether or not there was 

a defect trend. We did our own analysis of the data, and our own 

analysis indicated that the Cobalt did stand out. I also wonder if 

I haven’t been clear enough relative to that service bulletin. We did 

not rely on that service bulletin at the time. We did not rely on 

that information from General Motors. We relied on our expert’s 

understanding of air bag systems. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. But their understanding of the air bag system in 

the Cobalt was based on the service literature for the Cobalt, according to your written testimony. Am I not correct? Is that not 

what you said? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. My testimony sounds like it was not clear 

enough. What happened was once we found out about this defect, 

we looked into the service literature to confirm our understanding 

at the time, and the service literature that we looked at this year 

for that vehicle confirmed our understanding at the time, which 

was that—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Your understanding at the time and the service 

literature were both wrong. Isn’t that correct, yes or no? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Yes, that’s correct. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

Now recognize Mr. Long for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member and all 

of the members on both sides that have been here today. We originally weren’t scheduled to be in this soon, and so a lot of us had 

98 

to change our travel plans to get in today, and a lot of us have been 

sitting here through the entire hearing today because it is a very, 

very important issue, of course, that we’re discussing. 

And thank you, Mr. Friedman, for being here with us today with 

your testimony. When I think of NHTSA, I think of Number 66 for 

the Green Bay Packer’s linebacker Ray Nitschke, and all day we’ve 

been talking about NHTSA, NHTSA. Tell me what NHTSA is. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. NHTSA is the National Highway Traffic Safety 

Administration. It’s an organization of nearly 600 people, whose 

mission is to save lives and reduce injuries by addressing issues 

like drunk driving, unbelted occupants, vehicle safety, and the subject we’re talking about today, which is finding vehicle defects 

when automakers don’t find them themselves, which is their first 

and foremost responsibility. 

Mr. LONG. I just wanted to get that out there on the record. I, 

of course, know what it is, but I think a lot of people when they 

hear that NHTSA, NHTSA, NHTSA all day, they’re thinking, what 

exactly is this? So the next question I would have would be do you 

have any way to track consumer complaints to auto dealers short 

of waiting for them to reach out to you, not the dealers, but the 

consumers that are having a problem? Do you have any way to 

track people coming in and my car stopped, it died, it did this, it 

did that, do you have any way to track that, or do you have to wait 

for someone to contact you all? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. We have early warning data which tracks the 

cases where warranty services are provided on vehicles 

Mr. LONG. So anytime a warranty service is provided, you will 

be notified of that? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. We’re notified of a count. We have a total number—a count of the number of those and the part that that’s associated with. 

Mr. LONG. And how often—— 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Not the reason for the complaint. 

Mr. LONG. Do you get that annually, semi-annually, quarterly, 

how often? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Once a quarter—— 

Mr. LONG. Once a quarter. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN [continuing]. Have the information we need, it’s 

required once a quarter. 

Mr. LONG. What kind of marketing do you do? How would a consumer learn about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration? What kind of marketing do you do? If I took my car in, 

had a problem, it wouldn’t pop into my head to call you, so how 

do you market yourself? How can we let the American public know 

if they do have an issue and they’re not satisfied with their dealer, 

how can they contact you or what can we do to better augment 

that, I guess? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, some of the things that we’re already looking at doing and we’re already making sure that happens is on 

every single recall letter that goes out, both NHTSA’s name is on 

that letter, even though it’s sent from the automaker, and it’s in 

clear red letters that this is important safety recall information. 

We also have apps that are available online that we try to make 

sure the consumers download. These apps allow people to lodge 

99 

complaints directly to us. They allow them to track their recalls. 

We’re also moving forward later on this year with a tool that will 

allow all consumers to come to our Web site, put in their VIN number to find out if there is a recall associated with their very specific 

vehicle that has yet to be addressed. 

We have additional efforts where we try to make sure that people are aware of who NHTSA is, but yes, I have seen the same 

data, and one of the things I’ve talked to any staff about is that 

I’m concerned that we are not at the top of the list when people 

have complaints, and we’ve been talking about ways to make sure 

that we have campaigns to make people aware that if you’ve got 

a complaint, if you’ve got a concern, come to NHTSA. We need that 

information. Consumer complaint data is one of the vital tools that 

we have to try to find these defects, and I would appreciate any 

help anyone can provide to make sure that people are aware, that 

people go to SaferCar.gov to report these defects. 

Mr. LONG. Where tomorrow you’re going to be able to see on 

there that you could take your car in and get a free loaner or a 

free rental, right? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. LONG. Very good. My last question. At what point is a consumer supposed to reach out to you? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. At any point they have a concern. I mean, you 

know—— 

Mr. LONG. At what point is that, though? If I go home this 

evening, in the mail I get a recall on my vehicle, and they want 

me to bring it in and fix this switch or that doodad there or whatever, do I run to the phone or call you and say, Hey, I’ve got a recall? Or do I wait until I’m not satisfied with the dealer? At what 

point should consumers reach out to you? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, in that case, if you get a recall letter, the 

first thing you should do, without a doubt, is contact your dealer 

and get your vehicle fixed as soon as possible. These are—— 

Mr. LONG. Yes, but I’m talking about contacting you. At what 

point do I—if it’s just a standard thing, I don’t need to contact you 

on that? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. If it’s a standard recall and you’re concerned and 

you want to reach out to us, absolutely, but typically, when we 

want people to contact us is well before there’s a recall. We rely 

on and look at over 45,000 consumer complaints every single year 

to try to spot these trends, so I want someone to reach out to 

NHTSA the instant they have a serious concern about their vehicle 

and they feel that their safety is at risk so that we can have that 

information. Right now, we’ve got 45,000 complaints. I’d like to see 

that number get up to 50,000; 60,000; 75,000 complaints relative 

to safety issues so that we can have more information to be able 

to track down these problems. 

Mr. LONG. OK. Mr. Chairman, I don’t have any time left, but if 

I did, I’d sure yield back. 

Mr. GRIFFITH [presiding]. Thank you. 

I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Terry, 5 minutes. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Acting Chair. 

100 

You had testified, Mr. Friedman, or in your testimony, you 

showed or testified that there were two SCI reports that showed 

indications of power loss and identified the vehicle power mode as 

accessory. I think one of these has been highlighted in several 

newspaper articles that the SCI noted during air bag investigation 

a problem with the accessory. 

So the question I have is, did these reports merely report the vehicle power mode as a fact, or did it report this and identify it as 

a potential contributing factor? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, the two reports handled the case differently. My understanding and my memory is that in one of the 

reports, it simply had an entry in the EDR data, in the event data 

recorder data, that indicated that the vehicle power mode was accessory. That’s typically not reported. In the other case, it was included in the special crash investigation that there were two possible reasons why the air bag did not deploy. One possible reason 

was because of the ignition switch. The other possible reason was 

because the yielding nature of the trees wasn’t sufficient. 

Mr. TERRY. You mean, they’re hard when they’re hit? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I’m sorry? 

Mr. TERRY. I’m being sarcastic. You said the yielding nature of 

the tree is kind of—they’re hard and objects hit them and—— 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, different trees have different sizes. In this 

case—— 

Mr. TERRY. Well anyway, I don’t want to get bogged down into 

the force of the impact of a tree, but the point is that they were 

noted in two SCI reports but not acted upon what is the communication process between the SCI and the ODI? Someone has got 

to take that up and say, Gee, there’s a problem with an ignition 

switch that’s been noted; maybe we should follow up on that. 

What’s the process? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. So the process, it depends on the circumstance. 

In some cases, our Office of Defects Investigation will actually ask 

the special crash investigators to go out and look at a crash so that 

they can seek new information. In other cases, when the special 

crash investigators follow up on a crash, they will bring it to the 

attention of the Office of Defects Investigation. So we try to make 

sure that both teams are talking to each other and sharing critical 

information. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. So in these two SCI reports that were filed, did 

the SCI, the special crash investigator, communicate that there 

was a problem, other than noting it in those reports on those two 

occasions to the ODI? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I don’t know if SCI specifically communicated the 

accessory issue, but when the team did look at especially the investigation that indicated that there were two possible reasons for 

that. 

Mr. TERRY. Yes. So the ODI knew that there may have been, 

that the switch may have been part of the problem, let’s say? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. ODI would have been aware of exactly? 

Mr. TERRY. So ODI was aware? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. I believe so because my understanding is 

that—— 

101 

1The information has been retained in committee files and is also available at http:// 

docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=102033. 

Mr. TERRY. Because it looks like you have one group of people 

that’s not talking to another group of people. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Our teams do talk to each other, but as you’ll notice in my testimony, one of the things I do think we need to discuss is, are there ways that we can change the way these crash investigations are used in our defective products? 

But in this case, I do want to note that the draft version of this 

report that the team had at the time, at that moment, indicated 

that the crash investigators thought the more likely reason that 

the air bags did not go off was because of the circumstances. 

Mr. TERRY. I would think if you note that there was a problem 

with the switch automatically turning to accessory, that that would 

be significant enough to just follow up on, whether or not it was 

deemed to be a contributing factor or the sole factor. I need to ask, 

though, on the early warning reports, you were receiving early 

warning reports from GM. Correct? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. That’s correct. 

Mr. TERRY. In my question to the president of GM, she said that 

they were submitting those. Were they required, when they know 

or feel that there is a problem with a specific item in that car like 

the ignition, to report that? Or is that just one of the many items 

to be submitted within the EWR? 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, my understanding is that if they’re aware 

of a problem that relates to a safety defect, that that actually is 

not reported within EWR. That needs to be directly reported—— 

Mr. TERRY. Under the TREAD Act, they have to support that 

separately. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Well, under the TREAD Act, they’re required to 

report warranty claims and a variety of other pieces of information 

to us. But if they saw a defect, then they needed to report that to 

us completely separate from, that’s simply—— 

Mr. TERRY. What’s noncompliance? I’m over my time, but I do 

need to get on the record, what is noncompliance versus defect? 

And you have 2 seconds. 

Mr. FRIEDMAN. Sure. Really quickly, noncompliance means you 

did not meet the standards that we have. A safety defect means 

that you may have met the standards, but there’s something wrong 

with the vehicle that poses an unreasonable risk to safety. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I thank the gentleman. 

I would ask for unanimous consent that the members’ written 

opening statements be introduced into the record. 

Without objection, the documents will be entered into the record. 

Hearing none. 

I will ask unanimous consent that the contents of the document 

binder be introduced into the record and to authorize staff to make 

appropriate redaction. 

Without objection, the documents will be entered into the record 

with any redactions that staff determines are appropriate. Hearing 

no objections. 1

Mr. GRIFFITH. In conclusion, I would like to thank all the witnesses. 

102 

Thank you, Mr. Friedman, and members that participated in today’s hearing. I remind members that they have 10 business days 

to submit questions for the record, and I ask that the witnesses all 

agree to respond promptly to the questions. 

Anything else? Thank you very much. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 6:07 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 

103 


89888.001
104 


89888.002
105 


89888.003
106 


89888.004
107 


89888.005
108 


89888.006
109 


89888.007
110 


89888.008
111 


89888.009
112 


89888.010
113 


89888.011
114 


89888.012
115 


89888.013
116 


89888.014
117 


89888.015
118 


89888.016
119 


89888.017
120 


89888.018
121 


89888.019
122 


89888.020
123 


89888.021
124 


89888.022
125 


89888.023
126 


89888.024
127 


89888.025
128 


89888.026
129 


89888.027
130 


89888.028
131 


89888.029
132 


89888.030
133 


89888.050
134 


89888.051
135 


89888.052
136 


89888.053
137 


89888.054
138 


89888.055
139 


89888.056
140 


89888.057
141 


89888.058
142 


89888.059
143 


89888.060
144 


89888.061
145 


89888.062
146 


89888.063
147 


89888.064
148 


89888.065
149 


89888.066
150 


89888.067
151 


89888.068
152 


89888.069
153 


89888.070
154 


89888.071
155 


89888.072
156 


89888.073
157 


89888.074
158 


89888.075
159 


89888.076
160 


89888.077
161 


89888.078
162 


89888.079
163 


89888.080
164 


89888.081
165 


89888.082
166 


89888.083
167 


89888.084
168 


89888.085
169 


89888.086
170 


89888.087
171 


89888.088
172 


89888.089
173 


89888.090
174 


89888.091
175 


89888.092
176 


89888.093
177 


89888.094
178 


89888.095
179 


89888.096
180 


89888.097
181 


89888.098
182 


89888.099
183 


89888.100
184 


89888.101
185 


89888.102
186 


89888.103
187 


89888.104
188 


89888.105
189 


89888.106
190 


89888.107
191 


89888.108
192 


89888.109
193 


89888.110
194 


89888.111
195 


89888.112
196 


89888.113
197 

Æ 


89888.114