And while the carmaker continues to maintain at 13 the number of fatalities linked to the ignition-switch defect, more victims could be added to the list.
As a result of its 2009 bankruptcy, GM is not civilly liable for deaths and injuries linked to the faulty ignition switch.
Today, at least 42 people are known to have died in crashes linked to the defective ignition switch, and both G.M. and federal safety regulators have come under fire for allowing the danger to linger for more than a decade.
"You cannot afford to take an auto products case unless there is a death or serious injury," said James E. Butler Jr., a plaintiff's lawyer whose firm was involved in a case against G.M. that the company later counted as one of those linked to the faulty ignition switch.
OH*-chemiluminescence and pressure measurements indicate that the observed transition to detonation is linked to the auto-ignition of the reactants and that the auto-ignition event is coupled with the fluctuation in reactant mass flow associated with the manifold dynamics.
In their development, the combustion process starts from a rapid premixed burning phase (represented by function f1), followed by a slower mixing-controlled burning phase (represented by function f2), with both functions empirically linked to the duration of ignition delay ( τ ˜ id Open image in new window) and the duration of combustion (Δθcomb).
For Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors (pictured), these two words sum up the findings of an outside investigation into the carmaker's safety issues, in particular a problem with a faulty ignition switch linked to the deaths of at least 13 people.
Results show that summer fire ignition risk is largely a function of low soil moisture, while winter fire ignitions are linked to the mass of volatile litter and atmospheric dryness.
DETROIT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors Co in 2005 decided not to change an ignition switch eventually linked to the deaths of at least 13 people because it would have added about a dollar to the cost of each car, according to an internal GM document provided to U.S. congressional investigators.
