Takata airbag recall widened to whole US

Safety regulators have stepped up demands for an airbag supplier to recall vehicles with potentially dangerous airbags from the whole of the US, deepening problems facing Takata, the Japanese manufacturer.

Around 7.8m vehicles in the US have been fitted with the airbags, whose inflators can splinter when deployed, spraying shrapnel at the driver. The defect has been linked to at least four deaths in the US, all in vehicles manufactured by Honda, the biggest user of Takata products in the US.

Takata has been accused of knowing about the problems well before it started taking action to deal with them.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Tuesday it was demanding an immediate recall of vehicles throughout the US fitted with the potentially faulty airbags. It had previously made the recall mandatory only in a series of high-humidity areas including Florida, Puerto Rico and Hawaii, various areas along the US Gulf coast and some US overseas territories.

The change in policy followed injury to a driver in North Carolina in an incident similar to other failures. The previous urgent recommendations had not included North Carolina.

Carmakers have already mostly issued their own recalls for the vehicles involved but have not always agreed on the parts of the US where the recall was most urgent.

The gases and other materials in the inflators in the defective airbags appear to deteriorate particularly quickly in areas of high humidity. All five previous ruptures had happened in the highest-humidity areas that the previous announcement had mentioned.

Takata said it was investigating the airbag problem and that tests carried out on almost 1,000 passenger and driver inflations from outside the high-humidity areas had not resulted in any ruptures.

“Takata is concerned that a national recall under these circumstances could potentially divert replacement airbags from where they’re needed, putting lives at risk,” the company said.

“Takata is prepared to move forward with an appropriate expansion of the recalls should the scientific analysis and evaluation as conducted by Takata and NHTSA indicate a risk to safety beyond the current scope of the field actions,” it said.

The NHTSA’s action comes ahead of a hearing on Thursday of the US Senate Commerce Committee to examine why so many defective airbags were fitted and why the issues were not resolved more quickly. Senators had been expected to ask at the hearing why the NHTSA was limiting its urgent recall recommendation to the high-humidity areas.

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As well as Honda, nine other manufacturers – BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota – fitted vehicles sold in the US with defective Takata airbags.

Anthony Foxx, US transportation secretary, said that, by demanding the national recall, the NHTSA had demonstrated that it would “follow data and evidence to protect the lives of Americans on the road”.

David Friedman, deputy administrator of the NHTSA, said the agency now knew that millions of vehicles needed to be recalled to address the defective airbags.

“We’re pushing Takata and all affected manufacturers to issue the recall and to ensure the recalls capture the full scope of the problems,” Mr Friedman said.

Worldwide, about 17m vehicles fitted with Takata airbags have been recalled because of the potential problems. The issues have forced Takata – one of the world’s biggest airbag manufacturers – to issue a series of apologies for its handling of the issue.

Honda, which has been most heavily affected by the airbag recalls, said it had not yet received the notice from the NHTSA and was still checking into which vehicles would be affected by the latest order. “We will continue co-operating with NHTSA,” it said.