Probe shows current GM VP Parks aware of ignition problem in 2005

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General Motors Investigation

New documents have revealed that a current General Motors vice president, Doug Parks, was aware of the ignition switch problems on the Chevrolet Cobalt as early as 2005. At the time, Parks, whom Bloomberg called a "confidante" of CEO Mary Barra and an integral part of GM’s product development team, was the chief engineer on the Cobalt and Saturn Ion. Congressional investigators uncovered the documents, which include an email from Parks and meeting attendance lists for the ignition switch problems.

This new evidence sheds some doubt on GM’s own internal investigation, which found that none of the company’s current executives knew of the ignition switch problems on the Cobalt and Ion. This news is also curious, following GM’s large-scale dismissal of employees found to be responsible for the problem, such as Ray DeGiorgio.

"As Ms. Barra has said repeatedly we have taken all of the personnel actions that we feel are appropriate at this time," GM spokesman Greg Martin told Bloomberg via email.

More troubling, though, is what this revelation could do to GM’s legal proceedings. The discovery of Parks’ knowledge of the issue could cause potentially serious damage to GM’s bankruptcy argument, in which it claims that "New GM" isn’t responsible for the actions of "Old GM." According to Consumerist, lawyers could now argue that the lack of a recall, particularly when a former chief engineer and current vice president knew of the issue, could lend credence to arguments that the company was attempting to cover up the problem.

Probe shows current GM VP Parks aware of ignition problem in 2005 originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RC Plane Drawn With A 3-D Printing Pen Really Flies

photo of the 3-D printed toy airplane

3Doodler Plane

If you can draw an airplane on paper, you could be well on your way to making a (toy) plane in real life. Just check out this project from maker and blogger Matt Butchard. He created a remote controlled toy plane using a 3Doodler, a $99, pen-like, hand-held 3-D printer.

Butchard created the plane’s frame with the 3Doodler, then covered the wings with this specialized tissue. So far, he’s posted one solid powered test flight to YouTube. The plane definitely goes for a few seconds before stalling and crashing, which damaged it enough so that he couldn’t fly it again. But the silver lining is that the 3Doodler makes the damage easy to fix.

Popular Science has covered the 3Doodler before. We even took a quick video of an early version of the pen at work, making tiny 3-D springs:

Since 3Doodler began selling its pen, users have made some pretty cool things with it. Butchard made this adorable Johnny Five, using a variety of colors that would be difficult to achieve with a desktop 3-D printer. And the store of the Museum of Modern Art recently displayed some sophisticated 3Doodler art.

[Make]




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