Japanese auto-parts manufacturer Takata has agreed to the largest car and truck recall in U.S. history to address complaints that its airbags sometimes explode and shoot shrapnel when inflating, a defect linked to at least six deaths and 100 injuries around the world, the Department of Transportation said Tuesday.
The expanded recall, which will affect 34 million vehicles, is a humbling about-face from Takata’s initial defiant response to criticism from regulators and members of Congress. The company long insisted that a nationwide recall was unnecessary, and it hired three former U.S. Transportation secretaries from the Clinton administration and both Bush administrations to assist with its handling of the crisis.
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Tuesday’s announcement amounts to a roughly doubling of the approximately 17 million vehicles that have already been recalled in the United States because of Takata airbag inflators. The Takata furor has come while the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has fallen under lawmakers’ scrutiny for its oversight of other deadly automobile defects, such as faulty GM ignition switches that have been linked to scores of deaths.
Tuesday’s agreement “is a major step forward for public safety,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement, pledging that the department “will not stop our work until every air bag is replaced.”
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But an attorney for seven people suing over airbag injuries called the agreement “too little, too late for people injured and their families.”
“Lawmakers and manufacturers still need to enact serious and lasting changes to our nation’s recall procedures to prevent crises like this one from occurring again,” added attorney Rich Newsome, whose clients include a Florida man who says he was blinded in one eye by shrapnel flying from one of Takata’s airbags following a fender-bender in his Honda Civic.
And Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) urged NHTSA to make sure the recall has teeth — by ensuring that the necessary parts are manufactured more quickly and that consumers are alerted immediately if the new parts turn out to be defective. “The largest auto recall in history demands the strongest response possible to ensure our families and friends are protected from deadly airbags,” the two senators said in a statement.
Takata said in a statement that it is committed to “restoring the trust of automakers and the driving public” — but it’s also still pushing its past arguments that the greater danger exists for cars and trucks in humid U.S. states.
The Detroit News reported the recall before Tuesday’s announcement.
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Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) and ranking member Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) chided Takata earlier this year for what they called its “painfully slow” response to federal investigators and committee inquiries into the problem. DOT said in February that it would hit the company with daily $14,000 fines for its lack of compliance. NHTSA has agreed not to seek any penalties under that order that might apply after this past Monday, the company said in a statement.
Takata said that under its new consent order with NHTSA, it has filed four “defect information reports” that “contemplate” expanded recalls of cars and trucks equipped with its faulty airbag inflators. In two of the reports, the recalls would take place nationwide, starting first with older vehicles and those that were sold or have been registered in states with high humidity. In the other two reports, the recalls would start with high-humidity states but could be expanded nationwide if NHTSA deems it necessary.
“The expanded recalls encompass all of the older generation of phase-stabilized ammonium nitrate driver inflators manufactured by Takata, from the start of production to the end of production,” the company said in a statement. “These are the inflators that have been involved in most of the field incidents where inflators have ruptured.”
CEO Shigehisa Takada said the agreement “presents a clear path forward to advancing safety and restoring the trust of automakers and the driving public.”
The company’s statement referred to the airbags’ defect as “a complex issue which takes time to fully evaluate.”
Takata’s earlier response to the defects included hiring a crisis public relations firm along with former Transportation Secretaries Rodney Slater, Norm Mineta and Samuel Skinner to help it deal with mounting inquiries from regulators and lawmakers. Slater, who served under Bill Clinton, and Mineta, who served under George W. Bush, have extensive lobbying experience, while Skinner was also White House chief of staff for George H.W. Bush.
