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An Engineer's Eureka Moment With a GM Flaw
theodp (442580) writes "Hired by the family of Brooke Melton in their wrongful-death lawsuit against GM, engineer Mark Hood was at a loss to explain why the engine in Melton's 2005 Chevy Cobalt had suddenly shut off, causing her fatal accident in 2010. Hood had photographed, X-rayed and disassembled the two-inch ignition switch, focusing on the tiny plastic and metal switch that controlled the ignition, but it wasn't until he bought a replacement for $30 from a local GM dealership that the mystery quickly unraveled. Eyeing the old and new parts, Hood quickly figured out a problem now linked to 13 deaths that GM had known about for a decade. Even though the new switch had the same identification number — 10392423 — Hood found big differences — a tiny metal plunger in the switch was longer in the replacement part, the switch's spring was more compressed, and most importantly, the force needed to turn the ignition on and off was greater. 'It's satisfying to me because I'm working on behalf of the Meltons,' Hood said. 'It won't bring their daughter back, but if it goes toward a better understanding of the problem, it might save someone else.' Next week, GM CEO Mary Barra will testify before Congress about events leading up to the wide-ranging recall of 2.6 million vehicles."
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Pretty much par for the course for these companies....
Monstar L
Why was the ignition switch for the Chevy Cobalt changed from the multitude of ignition switches before it? I'm guessing cheaper manufacturing.
Those that have benefited from the marginalization of humanity have earned the reward of any apex hunter known to man.
Why should only the LGBT community be allowed to utilize an optimal solution?
All he did was notice a change in parts, ie, the outcome of an Delphi engineer's actual discovery. Not at all news or noteworthy. It would have been if Delphi hadn't already fixed it and he did the initial discovery.
Old Story, Old Solution, Bought By Old Money, The GM Way.
And they want to recall 2.6M cars??? No wonder American made stuff is so expensive...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
There's several companies that manufacture all sorts of fishing tackle and accessories. They'll be deliriously happy if you go watch their youtube videos. :)
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Selling an improved version of the same part is an admission that the original design was incorrect. A failure to recall may yield manslaughter charges as well as a rather crushing pile of law suits. One day a class action suit will take root due to cars being all too easy to steal. At the price of modern cars a buyer has some right to expect some really serious anti-theft features as well as the usual safety features. Why is it we still see ignitions that can be torn out by a simple dent puller tool?
The first few times you posted that, people informed you of your mistake. By now, you know that isn't true. Yet you still say it about once a week.
Here's a riddle:
What do you call someone who goes around saying things that they know are untrue?
Well, the point isn't priority of discovery, as it would be with a patent application. It is a question of whether Delphi engineers knew of a potentially fatal design flaw in the switch and failed to notify users whose life was endangered (including his clients' daughter, who was killed by a failure in that part, apparently).
A redesign is not necessarily a smoking gun, in my opinion. An engineer who worked on that kind of stuff could say whether a reasonable engineer would regard the original design as faulty, and make the changes seen to correct the fault.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You have to wonder how much CO2 was emitted by the building of replacement cribs, and how much CO2 will be emitted by this recall in cars going to dealers that otherwise would not have.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It also depends on the timing of the redesign. Did they redesign the part before his daughter was killed and fail to issue a recall notice, or was it done as a result of investigation into her accident?
Or done for another reason, like having fewer parts/easier to assemble/cheaper/etc; unrelated to safety.
Smells like a cover-up.
What do you call someone who goes around saying things that they know are untrue?
Sales/Marketing manager ;-)
ACK NAK RST
A politician.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I had a 95 Pontiac Grand Am (also from GM) with a leaky head gasket at 75k miles. I had it replaced and it failed again 20k miles later. It was replaced again, but the new part was different. They'd "upgraded" the part (as the mechanic said) but didn't bother to recall, and now that was the standard gasket for that engine (which had an intrinsic design flaw leading to blown gaskets and cracked heads).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
http://khohangtot.net/ Good quality!
The first few times you posted that, people informed you of your mistake. By now, you know that isn't true. Yet you still say it about once a week.
Here's a riddle:
What do you call someone who goes around saying things that they know are untrue?
President Obama
Companies will be more reluctant to improve their products in any way, because doing so will be seen as an admission of guilt in future unknown problems.
With regard to the switch, how far should the engineer take the weight of a possible key chain into account ie I have a pocket knife attached to mine. Now of course the real issue, why the fuck should important safety features built into the car be switched off when a change occurs in the switching of the ignition key when the car is in motion, seriously WTF. Airbags should always activate even when the vehicle is parked because driver and passengers might be present and if the impact is sufficient to warrant deployment it should occur. Brakes should always function even if only at reduced capacity.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
It's a 2005 Cobalt. The switch was redesigned in 2006 (without changing the part number or doing a recall) and she was killed in 2010. In a 2013 deposition the GM engineer in charge of the switches on the Cobalt said he didn't know why the switch was changed and that they never approved such a change. But oops, a GM engineer signed off on the change in 2006.
It might not even have been a safety update. The part might have been 'cheapened' at a chinese factory. It might of been produced by a different factory. It could have been a 'non-safety' change for whatever reason, IE the company didn't see it as affecting safety.
I don't read AC A human right
A politician lying? Stop the presses! This is the first occurrence in our nation's history such a grievous abuse of power! Except, you know, for every other politician in every party.
Henry Ford. No, sorry, sorry, that's not right at all. What was the question again?
the truth is out there. so are insane people.
Note that this math is done after the fact, knowing what a litigious society we live in - no company makes parts that are failure prone on purpose, they just try to make them as cheap as possible to do the job at hand. If every company had to BE SURE nobody would ever be hurt by their product, you couldn't afford it. Mostly, the financial calculation is just that. A RECALL (and admission of fault) is not worth it. What if you had to sign a EULA for your car? Would you still buy it?
They all do it! They all do it! Wah, wah, wah. Give up the defensiveness.
Someone got a bonus!
They can't do that with the airbags because the same kids that swat cars with a newspaper to set the alarms off will hit bumpers with a rubber mallet.
Ok, yes, sue evil GM. But you're still dead. Everyone reading about this: You should know how to control your car if the engine dies at speed. It should be a fundamental skill like "driving in snow" or "parallel parking"
1. If you have time, turn on your hazards
2. Put the car in neutral
3. Try the breaks, you likely have vacuum failure and they will be VERY hard. You may need to use both feet and literally stand on the peddle. But you need to at least know how they are going to react before you start your breaking procedure.
4. You have lost power steering. If you are moving at a high rate of speed this wont be noticeable yet but will become a real problem as you slow down. So get your car lined up with the shoulder, of, if you can't simply stop in your lane. If you try to make radical changes in direction that will slow you down very quickly and as I said steering will become dramatically more difficult, so try not to do that because the direction you swerve might not be a direction you particularly want to go and it may then be very difficult to alter your course any further.
5. You can use your horn continuously during this operation. In many states this is the only situation where continuous horn operation is permitted. i.e. you can lay into your horn until the car comes to a rest.
I've found myself in this situation twice in my life. I drive old cars so... anyways, if you're used to it, it's not so bad. When my father taught me how to drive one of the ways he tested me was to turn off the engine on me. Then, surprisingly, they did the same thing during my drivers test. Later in my life when those two engine stalls happened to me I was well prepared. One happened on an off-ramp in a large Buick, and that was a bit scary. But I was still able to control the car.
btw. if anyone is wondering why this is such a problem now, when not too long ago there was no power steering (and the power steering bit is most assuredly killed this woman) it's because of Rack and Pinion. It has no leverage/mechanical advantage. The ratio to the steering wheel is basically 1 to 1. They actually invented rack and pinion long before it was ever used and it had many advantages over recirculating ball steering, but they didn't think it was useful because of lack of leverage. It was later adopted after the invention of power steering... but now, of course, if you lose power steering, you have trouble turning the wheel. There's a full history of it on Wikipedia I believe.
So he identified the vulnerability by diffing the patch against the original? Seems like a pretty obvious investigative step, as in it's one of the first things you'd want to look at if GM isn't telling you what they changed in the ignition switch. Diffing software security patches to identify vulnerable code is standard practice. I guess the GM thing is maybe interesting since it's mechanical hardware, though investigators in things like fraudulent aircraft parts have been diffing hardware for years.
If you have to kill the engine for some emergency, that shouldn't disable the air bag system. Perhaps the air bag system should be powered whenever either the ignition is on or the vehicle is out of Park.
This is the part that confuses me. So your engine shuts down on the highway. You have a moment's confusion as to why your car is slowing, and safely steer to the side and stop. From my reading of the article, this driver was driving too fast for the conditions, and the moment's confusion about why the car was not still being accelerated at high speed was too much for the driver's apparently limited skill.
The engine's failure was a minor part of the many causes for this accident.
We have a KIA...
I certainly agree that a redesign isn't a smoking gun. This does have the potential to also work against the public's best interest. E.g., an engineer could propose a change to improve reliability of a part or that might potentially increase safety. Management then refuses the change because someone else might later "discover" the change and use it in litigation against the company as "proof" that it was a known defect.
Here's the story as I understand it:
- There's an ignition switch. If you have a really heavy key-ring, it is possible that the weight of your keys can turn the switch "off".
- Over the course of a decade 13 People have died in car accidents that might have had something to do with this.
- GM apparently, at some point over all those years, altered the ignition switch to require more force to turn it.
So somehow the car manufacturer is evil?
This sounds a lot more like ambulance-chasing lawyers hoping to use publicity as a lever to pry out a big settlement...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Yeh, because when the tow truck driver screws up when pulling the car up on the flatbed, you want to pay to have all (it was, once, one - now it's many) airbags replaced. You might as well junk an econobox over two years old if the airbags go off as they are so expensive [unless you have access to a good chop-shop].
You oldsters might remember when a minor bump in the parking lot didn't cost $1K (in today's dollars) -- maybe $150 to have the bumper straightened and rechromed. But then requirements on bumpers came in and the minor-est bump requires replacing a lot of expensive parts (assuming you bother to take it to a body shop as opposed to being rational and accepting a paint scratch on your bumper).
None of that matters. If you redesign a part, the part number changes, an errata is filed, the BOM is updated with the new part, and life goes on.
The fact that they didn't change the part number screams to me cover up
Normal people worry me!
But here the steering still worked, the brakes still worked so it was 100% the driver that was responsible. A driver should be able to drive and that includes handling some kinds of malfunctions.
What is the difference between a computer salesman and a car salesman?
The car salesman knows he is lying.
Don't attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. Just because a design was improved does not mean that anyone involved in the redesign would be aware that a safety risk was present. Maybe other people in other parts of the chain were aware, but it could very well be that they have never been aware that an improved part was being made. The part number wasn't changed, so how would they have been made aware?
It takes more than a (too) easy to operate switch for people to crash into things. They would have to actively turn the key while driving, or the massive amount of keys on their key chain would have to dangle in such a way that the ignition switches off. Both are quite commonly known things you shouldn't do. Maybe we could save lives if we put yet another warning in the owners manual that nobody ever reads?
Once the ignition switches off, you would still be able to steer the car, albeit without power steering if you happen to be one of those people that doesn't drive stick shift. You would be able to restart the car while driving, if you have a stick shift just turn the key back and it'd drive on. If you have an automatic, you may have to fiddle with the gear selector and turn the ignition switch to the starting position. This is at least as much a problem of automatic gear boxes as it is of an ignition switch, but I don't see a hundred million cars recalled because they have an auto gear box that turns the car into an uncontrollable hurdling lump of steel if you turn off the ignition while driving. As long as the key stays in the barrel, the steering won't lock up, it just may be harder to turn the wheel and the brakes might need more force to depress the pedal and stop the car if the engine wasn't running. This is known for over fifty years and it never has been a problem. Now all of a sudden people need to get sued because it may in certain circumstances be "too easy" for a driver to make this mistake?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Is it possible that some of the deaths could be avoided if the cars had a manual transmission and the driver was alert enough to step on the clutch? If the steering did not lock as well...
In aviation part numbers often arent changed when a part is redesigned or manufactured according to new methods. As long as it adheres to the part specifications in documentation then its considered interchangable.
So, who signed off on the roadworthiness test?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
None of that matters. If you redesign a part, the part number changes, an errata is filed, the BOM is updated with the new part, and life goes on. The fact that they didn't change the part number screams to me cover up
If part number changes, how will the customer know there is now a new part? They will look at manuals that say get part x but then they can't find part x and they will go and pull it out of a junker.
A normal person.
Whoa whoa whoa what!? My aviation experience has been that the FAA demand certification for changing *serial numbers* on parts. I highly doubt said certification was designed to allow for silent changes "within spec."
With regard to the switch, how far should the engineer take the weight of a possible key chain into account ie I have a pocket knife attached to mine.
eg, not ie. Anyway, you shouldn't do that. It's not good for the ignition switch regardless. Just get a little snap ring clip for your keychain.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Manual? What is that? Paper service manuals have gone the way of buggy whips in the auto service industry. Nobody publishes them anymore except maybe General Motors. It's all regularly-updated computer-based manuals for everybody else. Independents use Alldata, which gets updates on a regular basis from manufacturers, and dealerships use their manufacturer's computer system that does the same thing (such as Chrysler TechAuthority). For most newer cars if you are an end user who wants factory service info you go to AlldataDIY.com because paper service manuals are no longer published. For parts lists it's even simpler, you don't have to pay Alldata, the modern mechanic goes to the manufacturer's web site like Mopar.com or to some third party vendors which similarly give access to the manufacturer parts database and look up the part number there. If you pull an old part and put the part number off of it into the parts site search box, the computer will say "Superseded by" and give you the new part number. If there's no part number on the part, you drill down the assemblies list on the parts site until you see the labeled picture with your part on it, and the current part number will be in the list beneath that illustration.
And of course if you go to the dealership parts window, they put in the old part number into their computer, it says "superseded by part XYYZ", and they give you part XYYZ instead.
This is the 21st century. We have these COMPUTER thingies now. Just sayin'. There's no longer an excuse to *not* change the part number when the part has, in fact, changed. And I know for a fact that several part numbers on my Jeep have changed multiple times since it was manufactured in 2011. Which is why any modern automotive engineer has to be suspicious when GM did not change the part number on that ignition switch when, in fact, it's an entirely redesigned ignition switch...
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Fuck beta fuck beta fuck beta
Good point just the ignition failing doesn't mean you have complete lack of control but you do have diminished braking and turning capabilities in most cars. Depending on when the failure occurs and where you are, twisty mountain road or in traffic at high speed for example, you may have a difficult time controlling the vehicle. Now if the problem also say locks the steering at the same time, you're going to have a very bad day.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
IHS, DOT, NHTSA.... GM
Definitely a regression they'll need to account for in the future. "Let's see do we have the 20lb keyring test results?"
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
If you can't figure out the problem from the original part, perhaps the problem is beyond your engineering capabilities.
This guy wasn't some random engineer pullled off the street - he was their expert witness. Someone who should know quite a bit about what it is he's going to testify about in court. And yet he was unable to identify a flaw that resulted in the deaths of 13 people. If I were defense I'd be discrediting him pretty quickly.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"and most importantly, the force needed to turn the ignition on and off was greater."
What? What does the force required to start the engine have to do with the engine inexplicably turning off after it's already started? Sounds like a red herring to me.
I have a Ford truck which likes to die when it gets cold (well, it did - I got it fixed this year). Could be on the freeway at 75MPH, could be as I'm slowing down to turn. Happened entirely randomly (except for the common factor that it could happen below 30F, but usu only once every 3-4000 operating miles).
The brakes work sufficiently to stop the vehicle, the steering is !@#$ heavy - but only "unmanageable" at very low speed. Aside from being annoying, losing the engine is rarely a "dangerous" situation. The situation of Ms. Melton's death appear to have potentially been aggravated by the ignition switch failure (which prevented the airbag from deploying), but according to TFA the ignition failure happened "during the crash" rather than just prior to her losing control. It seems rather odd that this would cause her to lose control.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The executives should be forced to apologize to the face of the relatives of the dead that they are sorry their family member died because of their personal greed.
Then the executives should personally pay out of their pockets for the settlement. It was their decision to hide the fact, it was intentional by making the part number identical, they knew there was a problem and they intentionally hid it to keep their profits higher so their bonus would be higher.
GM has been a horrible company making low grade dog food for a while now. the bailout only made them more of a crap company.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In particular, corporate officers, by virtue of the fact that they call the shots on day-to-day operations and when/how money is spent, are legally responsible for the behavior of a company. With legal responsibility comes greater exposure in a civil dispute. Boards may help them out in covering their legal expenses but corporate officers will eventually need to write a personal check if a judgment is made against them.
This is what happens when you outsource and don't care. Remember when "Made in Japan" meant it was crap?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Middle management.
As inflation increases, producers cut costs everywhere they can to maintain profitability.
You see it in products themselves; Less product per container, smaller containers, cheaper components and ingredients. These changes in products mask the real level of inflation in the official figures somewhat and if you see this happening in many products you buy then levels of inflation are increasing beyond what the official figures imply.
If you take a look at the inflation stats you'll see a peak prior to the production of the product, in the case of a car it takes years to design and produce. The ford escort itself (produced in 1981) is designed to be a cheap piece of crap due to the impoverishment of the customer base by inflationary pressures of the late 1970s.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/
This inflation in turn is caused by government deficit spending on things like the Vietnam war and the resulting bankruptcy of the United States with the abandonment of the gold standard in 1971. It's worth noting that governments are now much better at hiding inflation in the official figures than they were in the late 1970s.
Why can't lawsuits touch CxOs?
They can but you have to first establish that the CxO was specifically at fault for something. Explain to me exactly what criminal action Mary Barra, the current CEO of GM, or one of her predecessors engaged in that failed in their duty of care. Exactly what action did they knowingly take given the information available to them at the time of the decision that resulted in people's deaths. Remember that just because they were in charge at the time isn't adequate proof of anything. A CEO relies on the technical expertise and advice of the people that work for him/her. Remember that the NTSB also had access to this information years ago and did not think it sufficiently serious to force a recall either.
I assure you that the CEO isn't pouring over technical data so if the problem was never presented to the CEO as a serious problem then how can we reasonably blame the CEO personally? Do you really think the CEO of McDonalds should be personally liable for every instance of food poisoning that occurs even if they have instructed their organization to take every reasonable precaution available to them consistent with accepted safety standards? Would you think it appropriate for you to be held liable for the actions of your coworkers even if you had nothing to do with them?
then why can't individuals at the top be held civilly liable for decisions that they make that kill people, especially when they kill in multiple discrete instances?
They can be but the standard of proof is necessarily high. The general reason is that perfect safety is impossible and just because someone is in charge does not automatically mean they were negligent. We don't sue the CEO of Boeing personally because of an engineering failure in a Boeing jet that he had nothing to do with because that is not reasonable or fair. The question is whether they met their duty of care. 30,000 people each year die in car accidents in the US alone. If we held the officers of the companies that made those products liable for each of those deaths then there would be no cars because no one would be willing to run the company. We have the corporate veil for a very good reason and the standard of proof is high for good reason. You have to establish that there was clear evidence of a serious safety issue, that the information was known to the person (or should have been known) you were suing, that they made a knowing decision to disregard that information and that it was specifically their actions that were a proximal cause of the injuries that occurred.
If a dock worker can be criminally prosecuted to serve almost two decades in prison because he set what he intended to be a small fire in a submarine compartment to get off work early
That is a criminal and negligent action that can clearly be tied to the actions of that person. I assure you that no CEO of any major car company is poring over engineering data from faulty switches. They are actually quite removed from the process until such time as it is brought to their attention.
It looks like it should be a fairly simple matter.
I assure you it is not at all simple. Not At All.
Sue them for the entire quantity of bonus that they made working for the company as a punitive action.
Ok, so then companies don't award bonuses and they compensate in other ways. What's your next move?
BTW there are going to be PLENTY of lawsuits over this and there is a very good change Delphi (the Tier 1 supplier that sold the switches to GM) may go bankrupt again over the matter. There is going to be plenty of fallout without us pointlessly making a scapegoat out of a CEO and probably the wrong CEO at that since GM doesn't actually make the switches.
Generally, incorporation should protect from financial and business incompetence and bad luck to encourage people to take risks and create an active marketplace, driving the economy and innovation. It should never protect from actions breaking criminal or civil laws, because you don't want to build an incentive for that.
That's exactly what incorporation does. However just because something unfortunate happened doesn't mean any criminal or civil laws were broken. In this instance we had literally millions of these switches sold, most of which performed exactly as expected. There were a small number of (serious) failures with an unusual and hard to diagnose failure mode. Given the information available it is entirely feasible that GM and its employees were showing a good faith effort to exercise their duty of care. There is no legal or ethical requirement for them to be perfect because that is impossible.
Sometimes unfortunate things happen even with the best of intentions. First we need to find out what happened and why. Then we can worry about whether someone should be personally blamed for what in all likelihood was a system failure rather than a personal one. Until then put away the pitchforks and torches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Recall_Enhancement,_Accountability_and_Documentation_Act
Cut/paste from Wiki
The Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (or TREAD) Act is a United States federal law enacted in the fall of 2000. This law intends to increase consumer safety through mandates assigned to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It was drafted in response to fatalities related to Ford Explorers fitted with Firestone tires, and was influenced by automobile and tire manufacturers as well as consumer safety advocates. After congressional hearings were held in September 2000, Congress in only an 18 hour span passed the TREAD Act in October 2000. The Act was signed into law by President Clinton on November 1, 2000, and has been incorporated into the existing National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, codified at 49 U.S.C. 30101-30170.
There are three major components of the TREAD Act. First, it requires that vehicle manufacturers report to the National Highway & Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) when it conducts a safety recall or other safety campaign in a foreign country. Second, vehicle manufacturers need to report information related to defects, reports of injury or death related to its products, as well as other relevant data in order to comply with "Early Warning" requirements. Third, there is criminal liability where a vehicle manufacturer intentionally violates the new reporting requirements when a safety-related defect has subsequently caused death or serious bodily injury. There are a number of other smaller provisions which mostly address manufacturers of vehicle tires and guidance to the NHTSA on reporting data. The "Early Warning" requirement is the heart of the TREAD Act, enabling the NHTSA to collect data, notice trends, and warn consumers of potential defects in vehicles.
I believe that this is a violation of the TREAD Act...
The trouble is not losing control of the vehicle. The difficulty comes during an accident. The car hits something, ignition turns off.... and the airbags don't deploy. Now try steps 1-4.
It also depends on the timing of the redesign. Did they redesign the part before his daughter was killed and fail to issue a recall notice, or was it done as a result of investigation into her accident?
Boss to engineer: "We have no actual evidence what caused the accident, and whether we are at fault. But we made a list of parts might possibly have been at fault, so have a look at the first item on the list and make a redesign that is as safe as possible, even though you can't see any problem with the original design". Engineer does it and produces a different part. Lawyer takes it as evidence of fault and sues.
Yes, I said it. GM should have been left to die in bankruptcy. Bringing GM back from the dead at tax payer's expense absolutely changed nothing in the quality. I always said there is a reason why Ford never went bankrupt.
Agreed. I might just go along with the corporations-as-people idea just as soon as the first corporation is executed for having policies tantamount to murder, or gross negligence with lethal consequences, such as seems to be the case here.
Oh BULLSHIT. "Murder"? Really? You think GM has policies that are "tantamount to murder"? Put away the damn pitchfork. People die every single day due to engineering failures and that does not make them criminal failures. GM (probably) screwed up here but there is NO evidence whatsoever that they have "policies tantamount to murder". Bad things happen sometimes and that does not make them murder. In all likelihood this was simply a design flaw in the safety analysis system at GM and its suppliers. The problem was rare, unusual and apparently hard to diagnose. Furthermore the NTSB knew of the problem and didn't think GM needed to act either for a period of years.
For all you self-righteous engineers out there, are you willing to be held personally liable for the products you design? Are you willing to risk your personal property and jail time because of an unintentional design flaw? For those of you rooting for a corporate death penalty for GM, are you really willing to throw hundreds of thousands of people out of work over this? That is what you are suggesting. If you kill GM then you kill the livelihood of the people that work for GM as well as most of their supply base and probably cause another recession because GM is that big of a deal.
They have weight sensors in the seats for that very reason (or at least should).
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
What do you call someone who goes around saying things that they know are untrue?
A foe.
Thanks for the head's up.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm sorry, I got you confused with someone else. I shouldn't have insulted you, but rather provided you with a bit of information.
Remember that story on Slashdot about two weeks ago about Apple choosing to "waste" money on solar?
One small group of investors proposed that Apple should skip the expensive solar panels and instead use the less expensive utility power. It went to vote and 97% of Apple stockholders voted to put "be good to humanity" ahead of profit.
What a CEO or other officer isn't allowed to do is enrich THEMSELVES at the EXPENSE of the shareholders. That is, the CEO isn't supposed to spend $100,000 of shareholder money "buying" a pencil from the CEO's wife. Rather, the board and executives work for the shareholders, so they are supposed to represent the interests of the shareholders. Interests, plural.
The Apple shareholders decided that one of their interests was to be environmentally responsible, or at least make themselves feel like they were being green. I've been involved with corporations that represent all kinds of shareholder interests. I've been on the board of one corporation that specifically avoids making any profit, their mission is to be of service, a "charitable" mission. For another corporation where I was on the board, the #1 interest of the shareholders was providing a good place to work. (The employees were all shareholders).
I compared two thing and found the difference.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I've ordered replacement parts for my gas grill a few times. Generally, I plug in "11111111" (or what the manual says I need) into the Sears website, and it comes up with "SKU 12345678: Manufacturer recommended replacement for discontinued part 11111111". It's not rocket science.
I am somewhat surprised GM didn't change the part number, There are numerous reasons they could have given for replacing the part that do not involve safety (such as "easier to manufacture", etc) and certainly it makes it look worse that they didn't, even though there actually may have been entirely innocent reasons for the change.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If the part was changed for whatever reason, the part number should have been changed.
Even if you don't *think* there is a functional change, any change in the part should result in a different part number. The computer databases will all have part number equivalencies in them, so anyone looking for the old part number will get redirected to the new part.
In that way, if a problem shows up later (like in this case) it's much simpler to determine that a part was changed.
Companies did the same thing in other industries. One of the Linksys 10/100 ethernet NICs (lne100tx maybe) had about 4 different ethernet controllers over time but kept the same part number. They needed totally different drivers under Linux.
It's that GM didn't actually admit that anything *had* changed (the part number was the same), so he had no reason to suspect that there had been a change in the ignition switch.
I wouldn't say that what they did was "evil", but it does smack of trying for profit at the expense of their customers' safety. And public perception is important...this is why Toyota got into so much hot water over their throttle issue--they were perceived to be a very safe vehicle so it was a shock to discover that they were hiding safety issues.
What GM should have done was to change the part number and notify the owners of vehicles with the old ignition switch to come in to a dealer to get them swapped out for a good one.
Look at Tesla...very good safety record but they're raising the ride height a bit and adding a titanium shield just to improve the safety that much more.
The fact that GM didn't change part numbers would certainly make it harder to figure out what was going on, because there would be no indication of problems in current vehicles.
Had the part number changed it would have been an obvious thing to check--what's different between the old part and the new one?
I worked for a major automotive component supplier who designs and builds parts for most of the major automakers. I wanted to make a few of relevant observations from my experience.
First, all parts were extensively tested for function and safety. Designing a good test that is representative of years of field use is very difficult, but none of the automakers seemed lax in their testing requirements. Some were pretty quick to dump performance for a cost savings, but I don't know any who were, these days, willing to sacrifice on reliability. There weren't many arguments with customers about the cost of testing, and it was generally thought that some tests demanded by OEMs were needless, but we'd gladly take their money anyway.
Second, parts were regularly improved based on analysis of returned parts. The best source of these were fleet vehicles, which provided lots of high mileage parts back to the OEM--each and every one of these returns was examined, graded (often by some poor intern), then archived for future reference should a problem develop. I remember one incident where some tiny steel spring clip broke--this had never been seen before, so the entire engineering department was re-directed to determine the cause. Thousands of old parts were pulled out of storage and re-examined. I don't think we found another broken clip, but it was a big deal.
Lastly, parts were frequently revised for better performance, lower cost, or better reliability. Little bits and bobs, like switches, valves, fasteners, connectors, etc., were often used on numerous vehicles by a number of manufacturers. Each part had at least two sets of drawings and part numbers. One set was for our use, as the supplier, and had every detail labeled. Another drawing was prepared for the automaker, with only the details relevant to them called out explicitly. It was, in a sense, an engineering contract--we'd agreed to provide everything as described on that drawing as the same part number, but were free to change things not called out. Once I pulled up about thirty drawings produced for the same part, a tiny thing used in many of our products, to see whether we could change the part to an improved steel that was cheaper and tougher for this application. In all of the automaker drawings, the material spec was loose enough for us to change without asking for a change in the drawing. Our internal part number did change, but as far as they automakers were concerned, they were still using the same part.
Anyway, it's quite possible that someone might make a fix to the ignition switch without GM even knowing, and certainly without requiring a change in part number. In my experience, all of the majors are actually pretty good about testing everything and they all really do want to sell people reliable cars, as even the US big three have come to realize that each lemon they put out there can sour a family of customers on their cars for life. Management can be boneheaded about a lot of things, but I really don't think this is one of them. 100% safety isn't possible, no matter how much is spent--but they all get pretty close. Just look at how the fatality rate has plummeted over the last few decades, despite more traffic and more collisions.
Browsing wiki on Part Number, I can't help but think of the number of times I've looked up a part number and seen 'actual design may vary'. It's guaranteed to fit and work, but not to look identical to others of it's kind. For users of parts, sometimes they're more concerned with functionality than identical design.
I don't read AC A human right
Perhaps, but we as voters/citizens should never feel that it is acceptable for politicians to lie, scheme or deceive. They should be called out on it every time and hopefully have their political careers ruined by its discovery.
SOME cars will and do lock the steering wheel with the key still in the ignition but at the "off" position. This is especially true of older cars, and I know this from personal experience with numerous vehicles. Do not count on being safe just because the key is still present unless you have personally tested it on that exact car before.
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Thats a great way to get your neck broken, which is EXACTLY WHY they DON'T work that way.
The ONLY (I REPEAT, ONLY) time airbags are even remotely 'safe' is when the alternative is a high speed impact with the dashboard, and then they are only helpful IF you are properly restrained by your seat belt. At no other time do you want an airbag going off because instead of having a 5mph impact with the dash, you'll have a 305 mph impact with an inflating airbag that smashes your face and breaks your neck because your kid accidentally put the car in neutral and you tried to stop before it rolled into your fence post.
Airbags are EXTREMELY dangerous devices and misfires DO kill people which is why they have so many safety interlocks to keep them from deploying.
Airbags are a safety feature of absolute last resort. They are there for when the alternative is 'certain death', in which case you have nothing to lose by an airbag hitting your face.
And yes, they do deploy at well over 300mph.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Only some airbag systems include a weight sensor. But as I think of it, I wonder what the power requirements are for the air bag system? Perhaps enough to be a drain on the battery for a car that isn't driven daily.
Maybe they saw a way to improve the car by upgrading the switch to make it a bit better.
The change seemed insignificant so no part number change.
A lawyer would be making an honest attempt at making a better product seem like a evil act requiring compensation.
Lawyers have been known to do such things.
Nothing is perfect. There are always low probability failure modes.
Maybe GM didn't think this was a serious issue but fixed it just to have a better product.
Then got the no good deed goes unpunished treatment.
The lesson to GM is to let sleeping dogs lie instead of trying to improve your product.
This is a bad lesson.
Unless they found a smoking E-mail that shows otherwise, this may be a case of case of evil triumphs over good?
There is a reason airbags are a requirement. You have your accident and they give you a much bigger chance to survive. Here they did not engage.
As point of fact your statement is a lie. My own personal neck was just mostly broken and was saved from being completely broken by an airbag. If the impact is sufficient to deploy the airbag, then it should deploy ie safety issue of last resort especially as it is likely you will not be wearing a seat belt. Equal affect two cars going 50 kmh an hour versus one stationary vehicle and the other vehicle doing 100 kmh.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Oh poor AC, do you really think 3D Printing will go away? 3D Printing will get even better than it is today; and here's the best part, its cost will go down even further.
This is hardly a "Eureka" moment. He compared two parts and found the difference. I've had enough of these misleading headlines from /. Been on this site 5 days a week for the past 10+ years. Cancelling my email subscription and really don't care if I ever come back to this site again. I'm sure you don't care either. Farewell.
There's several companies that manufacture all sorts of fishing tackle and accessories. They'll be deliriously happy if you go watch their youtube videos. :)
Corporations consider deliriously happy entities to be fools and not appropriate material for Corporate Club.
Second rule of Corpoarate Club: Buy and sell-off companies that break the first rule of Corporate Club.
If part number changes, how will the customer know there is now a new part?
Every online part retailer worth their salt has some indirect access to car vendor's part database that, surprise surprise, includes part substitutions. Had you ordered any car parts online, especially ones that fail due to bad design and get redesigns/upgrades, you'd have seen it. This ignition switch part is rather unusual in this respect - a redesign was done without retiring the old P/N and having a "new and improved" P/N as a designated replacement.
On some cars, I've seen parts go through 2 or 3 rounds of such upgrade cycles. When I eventually pulled the failed part off the car and went to buy a replacement, there was a substitute part #1. That substitute was substituted with #2. Eventually, that one had substitute #3, which was orderable.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Yeah, sure, ha ha. Airbags often deploy so fast that by the time they are deployed, you are usually nowhere near the airbag. Even in fairly high-speed crashes you often impact an already deflating airbag. Never mind that modern cars have multi-stage airbags that inflate sufficiently for the severity of the crash.
Oh, and never mind that modern cars have many airbags that are nowhere near your front. I've personally checked out a side curtain, and it was quite nice. The T-bone felt like being pushed onto a bed by a rowdy kid jumping on you :) I didn't even get a headache.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
It is rather too easy to sue a CEO or a CFO, provided that you can establish that they contributed to the damage. However, driving a car entails a certain risk. It's not the same as buying a toothbrush or an insurance policy. Anyone who buys a car does so assuming a certain level of risk. The only question is: what is an ACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF RISK.
If that level of risk is zero, nothing will get manufactured. Everything real can fail somehow.
If a CEO or CFO has a business that requires a certain level of safety, so that the ignition does not shut off at 65 MPH on the highway and kill someone, and they fail or obstruct that mission, they are not only liable under Sorbanes Oxley to their shareholders and the SEC compliance people, they may be subject to criminal penalties under plain old tort law.