DETROIT — General Motors Corp. is recalling 1.5 million vehicles because of potential cranial impalings.

Although no one has yet died from the impalings, sudden stops at high speeds can send a heavy metal rod piercing through a driver’s skull, according to a GM press release. “We’re not sure where this piece of metal comes from,” said a spokesperson for the struggling automotive giant, “but we’re doing everything we can to identify the part and lock it down.”

That “piece of metal,” measuring about 15 inches in length, 1/2″ in diameter and made from high-grade, low alloy steel with ends sharpened to a fine point, has GM executives puzzled, including Chief Engineer, Gregory T. McNelafar. “There are lots of parts in these cars,” said McNelafar. “It’s not humanly possible to know exactly what all of them do.”

Fritz Henderson, General Motors’ new acting CEO, said his company is dedicated to making vehicles that don’t “bludgeon, slash, squash, or impale” their drivers. To support his claim, he said that incidences of GM owners ending up in emergency rooms with auto parts embedded in their heads have decreased by 5% over the last decade.

“Although this current glitch has our engineers working overtime,” he said, “the American consumer should have confidence that we’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

The recall comes on the tails of a previous recall due to the random bursting of hot engine oil into the cabins of their Yukon line of SUVs. GM claimed the defect was equivalent to “no more than a small pot of hot coffee being poured onto your genitalia.”

“That was blown way out of proportion in the media,” said Henderson. “No driver received more than a third degree burn.”