Takata chastised ahead of ’09 probe
DETROIT — Four months before U.S. regulators started their investigation of potentially deadly air bags, Honda executives sat down with Shigehisa Takada, the head of Takata Corp., to scold him for the way the manufacturer reacted to the crisis, according to minutes of the meeting.
One Honda engineer asked whether Takada’s company grasped the gravity of the situation, chiding the chief executive officer by saying he’d been too slow to act, the minutes show. The president of Honda’s North American manufacturing operations, Hidenobu Iwata, told Takada that he was “constantly worrying” because the airbag maker didn’t appear to have control of the situation.
The meeting, at Honda’s offices outside Los Angeles, took place in July 2009. In November 2009, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened its investigation into Takata’s product, which contained a
chemical propellant that according to regulators could explode with such force that it turned metal casings into shrapnel. Scores have been injured and eight have been killed. The U.S. earlier this year ordered a dozen automakers to replace Takata air bags in 19 million vehicles, the biggest safety recall in U.S. automotive history.
Minutes of the meeting indicate the depth of frustration within Honda, which owns a 1.2 percent stake in Takata and had been its biggest customer. Honda is a defendant in most of the cases, though other automakers have also been sued.
“Honda was doing all they could to find out the cause and at every turn they were hamstrung and lied to,” said
Ted Leopold, a lawyer representing a woman who is suing Takata in Jacksonville, Fla., blaming faulty air bags for rendering her a quadriplegic after a fender bender. Leopold provided Bloomberg News with the minutes of the July 2009 meeting, along with other documents recently unsealed in the case.
The documents show Takata’s behavior “put Honda in the position of not being able to protect their customers,” Leopold said, “and threw their customers to the wolves.”
Jared Levy, a spokesman for Takata, declined to comment on the documents or Leopold’s accusations, issuing a statement saying the company did provide data that were incomplete or inaccurate but adding that “expert analysis indicated that these testing issues are not the cause of the
field ruptures of inflators.”
The statement said the company is “committed to being part of the solution to the public safety concerns.” Tsutomu Nakamura, a spokesman for Honda, declined to comment before he could confirm the meeting took place.
Takata reportedly knew as early as 2004 about an issue with the chemical propellant in its bags’ inflators that could blow up the casing and throw shrapnel at a vehicle’s occupants. At the 2009 meeting, according to the minutes, a Honda engineer identified only as Otaka pressed Takata’s CEO, asking, “Why does it explode? I want to know the truth.”
Honda said in November of this year that it was aware of evidence suggesting Takata had manipulated air-bag inflator test data and said it wouldn’t use the inflators in future models. Nissan and Toyota have also stopped installing some Takata components.
At a news conference six months ago after Takata’s annual meeting, the CEO made his first public apology, saying, “I feel sorry our products hurt customers, despite the fact that we are a supplier of safety products.” He had earlier expressed regrets in written statements and newspaper advertisements.
Honda’s meeting with Takada came just after the automaker widened its recall for a second time. It first recalled nearly 4,000 Civics and Accords in November 2008. More cars, including some of its luxury Acura models, were added in June and July 2009. Ultimately, Honda expanded its recall five times. Other automakers also started replacing Takata air bags.