Barra Wants Greater Competitive Tenacity From GM

DETROIT – General Motors CEO Mary Barra promises the automaker will drop the gloves as it goes head-to-head with the competition in the coming weeks and months, saying she wants employees to take on a fiercer attitude in everything they do.

“Across the board, we need to be a fierce competitor and I think that is a positive thing,” she tells WardsAuto after an address to the Detroit Economic Club.

Barra admits there may have been times in the past when the automaker took a more moderate path in its competitive relations. No more, she says.

“Today’s GM, and what we’re working on and what we’re doing…it is a competitive industry, things are changing and we need to make sure we are doing everything within our power to win.”

Without going into detail, Barra says the company recently rolled out new strategic priorities, purposes and corporate goals. Every employee around the globe understands where they fit into those plans, she adds.

“We have work to do, clearly,” she adds. “It will take some time.”

In the U.S., for example, GM’s market share has tumbled to 17.8% from 23.7% before the Great Recession and its 2009 trip through bankruptcy, according to WardsAuto data.

Barra does not identify a single rival the automaker seeks to overtake and suggests the field includes non-traditional players.

“Not only the traditional automotive industry, but other alternative forms of transportation or other industries,” she says. “There is fierce competition already, across the board.”

Barra also reports the automaker’s record U.S. safety recall actions are slowing. Since uncovering a deadly ignition-switch defect earlier this year, GM has launched 75 campaigns to bring back an estimated 30 million North American-built light vehicles.

“I think we have very good sensing mechanisms in place,” says Barra, who this year restructured the automaker’s engineering organization in the wake of the ignition-switch scandal, and doubled down on its quality gatekeeping by appointing a safety czar and forming a new organization focused exclusively on uncovering potential problems.

“If we have an issue, we’re finding it quickly,” she says. “I think you’ve seen a change already.”

Barra says the automaker has been benchmarking the aerospace and nuclear industries to achieve a “zero-defect mentality.”

Barra’s remarks to the Detroit Economic Club include news GM will invest nearly $300 million in Southeast Michigan. The investment comes on the heels of millions of dollars already spent in the area to fund production of the next-generation Chevrolet Volt, as well as output of the battery pack and electric motors for the extended-range electric vehicle previously built in Mexico.

Barra says details on the Volt will become clearer at its introduction at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit next year, but pledges the car will represent “a significant leap forward in technology, design and refinement.” It also will also store more energy in its battery with fewer cells, travel farther on a single charge, and accelerate more quickly.

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