General Motors says it has fixed more than half the defective ignition switches in cars still on the road and has less than a million left to repair.

According to the Detroit News, GM says that as of Nov. 24, “GM dealers have repaired 1.36 million ignition switches globally out of 2.36 million the automaker believes are still in use, or 57.8 percent.” In the United States, the percentage is 58.1 (1.14 million cars), leaving over 820,000 cars still waiting for repairs.

The 2.36 million is less than the originally estimated 2.59 million cars affected by the ignition switch defect, but GM believes that is due to a number of cars no longer on the road – either from being scrapped or no longer traceable by the registration number. The cars for this particular GM ignition switch recall include the Saturn Ion (2003-07), Saturn Sky (2007-10), Chevrolet Cobalt (2005-10), Chevrolet HHR (2006-11), Pontiac G5 (2007-10), and the Pontiac Solstice (2006-10).

General Motors’ recall efforts and results are being tracked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), with regularly scheduled meetings on GM’s outreach efforts. Regulators estimate that 25 percent of recalled vehicles go unrepaired, and that number increases for older vehicles.

Jeff Boyer, GM’s vice president of global vehicle safety, told the press that the service kits needed to repair these vehicles are now available from Delphi Automotive, GM’s parts supplier.

He added that the automaker is reaching out in as many ways possible to get cars in for repair. GM is even offering a $25 gift card promotion to the more than 700,000 car owners who have not taken action to repair their vehicles to try to move the process along.

Failure to Protect

It’s alleged that General Motors was lax in consumer protection, knowing about the problems with its ignition switch for at least 10 years before making it public. GM did not start recalling vehicles until February. From February to June, more than 2.6 million cars were recalled for ignition switch issues.

The problem with this specific recall is that the ignition switch can unintentionally turn off the vehicle, in turn disabling the power steering and the airbags in a number of GM cars. This has caused numerous injuries and deaths.

After GM began the first recall, and the delay became known, NHTSA fined the company $35 million.

Independent investigators were brought in to find the failure points and to ensure safety measures were taken. In the midst of re-examining safety issues at its factories, more GM cars were recalled. And recalls are not only for ignition switches.

Overall, there have been more than 70 global recalls on close to 30 million General Motors vehicles for various problems, including air bag defects, unsafe seatbelts, electrical complications and a host of other dangers.

The GM ignition switch injuries and deaths, and,to a lesser degree, the devaluation of owners’ vehicles, have spawned numerous individual GM lawsuits and two General Motors class action lawsuits being filed by victims of injury and their families, angry GM car owners, and investors.