Ahead of Barra’s Congress date, GM recalls more cars

General Motors on Friday recalled another 971,000 vehicles for possible faulty ignition switches, raising the total number of GM-recalled cars to more than 2.5 million worldwide.

Of those recalled vehicles, 2.2 million were sold in the United States.

The fresh round of recalls comes just days ahead of recently appointed Chief Executive Mary Barra's date to testify in front of Congress. While Barra only began her tenure as CEO in January, she'll have to explain to two congressional committees why General Motors took nearly a decade to issue the recalls.

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On top of answering to Congress, Barra and GM have also been trying to smooth over the company's public image, releasing a series of videos this week featuring Barra answering questions about the recalls:

It's a nice start, but after more than a decade of quick-fix workarounds, it's probably going to take more than a couple of YouTube clips to repair GM's image.