Barra Looks to China for GM’s Electric Rebirth
Having navigated one crisis, the CEO must steer the largest U.S. car company through a period of profound industry upheaval.
She'll need to do better than "no more crappy cars” this time.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
In April 2014, Mary Barra sat on Capitol Hill listening to accounts of families who’d lost a member while driving in a General Motors Co. Chevrolet Cobalt that malfunctioned. Months earlier, she’d been handed the reins of the largest U.S. car company.
Defects that the company had failed to disclose for more than a decade led to the recall of almost 3 million small vehicles. The crisis shattered trust in GM, five years after it had emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and a $50 billion government bailout. Barra vowed “no more crappy cars.”