US carmaker General Motors said it would release the results of an internal investigation on Thursday into an ignition switch problem that has been linked to numerous fatal crashes.

Chief executive Mary Barra will hold a news conference early Thursday and a conference-call with Wall Street analysts later in the day, the company said.

The investigation is expected to shed light on how and why the automaker for years did not recall millions vehicles with the defect.

Barra testified before Congress, and relatives of the people who died in accidents in cars with the defect demanded action from the automaker.

GM had agreed in May to pay a record civil penalty of $35 million over its failure to report the safety defect, which kept airbags from deploying during collisions.

GM announced the first recall related to the ignition problem in February, applying to 1.6 million vehicles worldwide. It subsequently expanded its recall three times to involve even more models, including all model years of the Chevrolet Cobalt and HHR.

The recall also takes in some Pontiac G5 and Solstice model years, some Saturn Ion, Aura and Sky cars and some Chevrolet Malibu models.

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