Air-bag recall’s limit challenged
No way it shouldn’t be national, regulator tells lawmakers
WASHINGTON — The top U.S. auto-safety regulator said Wednesday there is no way Takata Corp. can justify limiting an air-bag recall to only high-humidity states.
David Friedman, the deputy administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, cited data that show humidity is less of a factor than first thought in the malfunction risk for driver’s side air bags. He said the agency plans to hire within the next week an independent expert to conduct more tests on the air bags.
“It is clear to us that a regional recall is no longer appropriate,” Friedman said at a hearing Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee hearing.
Takata snubbed the agency Tuesday in refusing to expand recalls beyond about 8 million cars in high-humidity regions, where four motorists have died. The company has said that widening the safety campaigns would aggravate the shortage of replacement air bags and prolong the wait for repairs.
There is no reliable evidence that a nationwide recall is necessary, and it would be more useful to focus repairs on high-humidity areas where the potential for airbag malfunctions is higher, Takata said in a letter Tues-
day to the safety agency. It also said regulators didn’t provide enough notice and the company is already taking measures to improve safety.
“I find the letter unhelpful and extremely tendentious,” Rep. Leonard Lance, a New Jersey Republican and vice chairman of the subcommittee, said to Takata Executive Vice President Hiroshi Shimizu at the hearing. “You are dramatically and diametrically in opposition to the view of NHTSA.”
As Takata made its case, an executive from Honda Motor Co. said his company is ready to expand regional recalls on Takata inflators to national.
An expansion to areas where the risk of malfunction is lower might aggravate a shortage of replacement parts as Takata is only able to produce a little more than 300,000 kits a month now. Even with plans to increase output to as many as 450,000 in January, it would take more than a year to get dealers enough parts to repair every car affected by the recall.
“We believe a part shortage may occur,” Rick Schostek, executive vice president of Honda North America, said at the hearing.
Honda has been in discussions with Takata competitors Autoliv Inc. and Daicel Corp. about expanding supply. “Until those parts are available, we will continue to discuss with NHTSA and Takata about how to prioritize repairs,” Schostek said.
The safety agency had asked Takata to conduct a nationwide recall for driver’s side air bags in models made by Honda, Ford Motor Co., BMW, Chrysler Group LLC and Mazda Motor Corp.
Friedman said the agency is reviewing Takata’s response and deciding on its next steps. The regulator had told the company that failure to declare a recall of driver’s side air-bag inflators that was nationwide in scope may lead the agency to force a call back and impose fines of $7,000 per violation.
“If Takata continues to stonewall on this recall, NHTSA is going to take them to court and their customers are going to leave them in droves,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington research group. “I don’t see a winning scenario in this for Takata to fight a national recall.”
Two U.S. senators urged the safety agency to force Takata to comply with the nationwide recall of driver’s side air bags and expand it to include passenger-side devices as well.
“Takata is right now risking more lives by rejecting this nationwide recall, and the company must be held to account,” U.S. Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in an emailed statement.
Toyota Motor Corp. and other customers have already called for independent testing to supplement Takata’s investigation, and a Mexican regulator urged the air-bag maker to take additional safety measures at its lone factory making replacement kits for the United States.
The safety agency has said Takata’s air-bag inflators may malfunction if exposed to consistently high humidity by deploying with too much force, breaking apart metal pieces and striking passengers. After four related deaths in Honda models in the U.S., one fatal accident in Malaysia that killed a pregnant woman and reports of inflator ruptures in areas with lower humidity, the agency gave Takata an ultimatum last month.
In response, Takata said its air-bag testing has found no problems with inflators outside high-humidity areas, according to Hitoshi Sano, head of investor relations for the Tokyo-based company.
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner will run a new independent panel that will audit Takata’s production and provide recommendations for safer air-bag inflators. The company also hired two other former U.S. transportation secretaries as advisers to help overhaul operations.
Takata has identified flaws in manufacturing and quality control at its Monclova plant in Mexico and two U.S. factories that have contributed to its air-bag problems. At the Monclova facility, the chemical propellant wafers that lead its devices to deploy were exposed to moisture, raising risk of combustions that break up metal and plastic air-bag parts.
“The Takata air-bag issues are complex,” Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said at the hearing. “But complexity is not an excuse for incompetence.”
Production of air-bag replacement kits from the plant will rise to more than 450,000 a month beginning in January, from about 350,000 now, Shimizu said in his testimony for Wednesday’s hearing. The Mexico factory is supplying all of the kits for the U.S. market, he told the Senate committee hearing Nov. 20.