General Motors CEO Mary Barra released a video statement this week to try reassuring GM customers that the company is doing everything it can to properly handle the now controversial recall of over 1.4 million GM vehicles for defective ignition switches.

Barra, who has only been CEO for two months, made the statement in a video posted on GM's corporate blog Fast Lane.

"I want to make it clear to our customers that you are our compass," Barra said. "You are at the heart of everything we do and we intend to make this recall as smooth as possible for you so we will not let it ever happen again. We will learn from this and we will be a better company."

Affected vehicles includes: the 2005-2007 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 compact cars, 2003-2007 Saturn Ion compact cars, 2006-2007 Chevy HHR midsized cars, and 2006-2007 Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky sports cars.

Barra will testify at a hearing next month about the timeliness of the recall, which caused at least 12 deaths and 31 crashes.

Barra will appear before a U.S. House committee on April 1, according to the Associated Press.

Acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, David Friedman, was also invited to testify the same day.

"Their testimony is critical to understanding what the company and NHTSA knew about the safety problems, when they knew it and what was done about it," said Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., in a statement, according to AP. "The problems originated long before Barra and Friedman took the helms of their respective organizations, but their actions and input now, as our investigation proceeds, will be essential to getting answers about what went wrong.

Recently released documents by GM confirmed the automaker knew about the issue as early as 2001.

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