GM CEO Mary Barra still goes grocery shopping

Mary Barra said she still has moments of anonymity after her first year as General Motors CEO, but admitted her life has substantially changed, comments she made in a wide-ranging conversation Wednesday night.

In response to a question about what it's like to live in a fishbowl, Barra said she still cherishes simple routine chores such as grocery shopping, although they are rarer in her new job.

"The great thing about the change is when people come up to me in Target when I'm wearing a ballcap hoping not to be recognized and say 'Hey I'm really excited about that new vehicle,'" she said. "There's still time when I'm by myself. When I'm at the grocery store it's just me and my cart."

Asked if she's having fun, Barra responded that "anyone who would describe last year as fun would be wrong."

She chose not to deliver a speech, but sat for a nearly hour-long conversation with Automotive News publisher Keith Crain at the publication's World Congress at a Detroit hotel.

Asked what her favorite job was during her 34-year career at GM, she listed three: working as an executive assistant to past CEO Jack Smith and Vice Chairman Harry Pearce about 20 years ago, plant manager of the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, and a two-year stint as head of human resources after the company emerged from bankruptcy in July 2009.

In the HR job "I could drive some of the change we needed," she said.

Was her family mad because of the unending demands of her job?

"My family's proud of me, but Mom is the job they're evaluating on," Barra said. Earlier she conceded she was missing her son's hockey game because of her appearance at the conference.

In one of his harder questions Crain asked whether she had ever heard rumors earlier in her career about problems with the now infamous ignition switches that created the crisis that consumed her first year as CEO.

"When you go back to 2002, '03 or '04 people had a different view of stalling. There was a vehicle without power steering that could still be steered, but the sad fact is there wasn't a good understanding of the connections between the circuits and the air bags," she said. "A series of mistakes were made that led to a tragic outcome."

But the crisis invigorated the team to change the way it tracked problems so it can respond quicker and find ways to prevent similar defects from happening again, she said.

She said the creation of a national or global Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) database "would be incredibly helpful" in tracking cars that in some cases are now in the hands of their second or third owner.

"When you think of the capability we have with computing and IT, this isn't that hard," she said.

She said getting to drive all the company's vehicles is one of the best things about her job, but Crain narrowed the question to what vehicles she owns.

"A 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe, a newer Camaro SS, a GMC Sierra Crew Cab (that her son drives) and we're about to get a Cadillac SRX," she said.

Finally, Crain asked whether, after a grueling first year, she was tougher or meaner.

"Tougher, not meaner. Mean isn't the same as tough," she said.