Although, wow, that's an awful article, skimming it there's only this hint of the root cause: "After being asked by Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill whether a GM engineer had apparently lied under oath, [GM CEO] Barra confirmed that this had indeed happened (or at least seemed to)." The problem, besides GM having a procurement system that assumed people in it wouldn't lie through their teeth about lethal problems, was a single engineer who selected an out of spec switch, and then, for example, slipstreamed a better one into the system without a part number change.
You know, that's not completely insane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch...
Although, wow, that's an awful article, skimming it there's only this hint of the root cause: "After being asked by Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill whether a GM engineer had apparently lied under oath, [GM CEO] Barra confirmed that this had indeed happened (or at least seemed to)." The problem, besides GM having a procurement system that assumed people in it wouldn't lie through their teeth about lethal problems, was a single engineer who selected an out of spec switch, and then, for example, slipstreamed a better one into the system without a part number change.
(Otherwise we're in total agreement.)