- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is asking ARC Automotive, which powers nearly a quarter of US vehicles, to recall 67 million airbag inflators
- They pose an unreasonable risk of death and injury, according to the federal agency
- For the time being, ARC refuses this massive recall
ARC Automotive equips almost a quarter of American vehicles with airbags. 12 manufacturers use its products, including major brands such as BMW, General Motors, Hyundai and Kia. It is therefore a major event when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) asks it to recall 67 million airbag inflators manufactured in the last 18 years before January 2018.
In detail, the NHTSA was able to observe nine incidents where drivers and passengers were injured, including eight in the United States and one outside the United States. Twice these accidents resulted in death.
Towards a long legal battle?
The American federal agency specifies as follows: “Air bag inflators that hurl metal fragments at vehicle occupants, instead of properly inflating the air bag, create an unreasonable risk of death and injury”.
For its part, the ARC company declared that it was not ” not agree at all “ with findings from NHTSA. The company’s vice president of product integrity, Steve Gold, adds: “ARC takes any potential issues with its products very seriously”. But according to him, the investigators could not identify a “systemic or generalized defect” on the inflators. It is rather “random and occasional manufacturing anomalies” which have already been resolved.
In this game of ping pong between the two organizations, the federal agency has again responded. If ARC does not proceed with the recall, it must provide a full explanation with “additional analysis of the problem beyond past presentations. »
According to our colleagues from the BBC, it is possible that we are only at the beginning of a sprawling affair. If no agreement is found between the two parties, a legal battle could well begin.
Airbag problems are recurrent in the automotive sector. To give an example from last April, NHTSA was notified by Volkswagen of the recall of 143,000 Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport vehicles.
According to the German manufacturer, the wiring could be defective in the detection systems of the front seat occupant of certain vehicles. This could therefore lead to the deactivation of the passenger’s airbag, even if the latter is seated on the seat.
