NHTSA to Extend Airbag Probe Rather Than Require Vehicle Recall

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Wednesday it will not seek an immediate recall of airbag inflators in about 50 million U.S. vehicles assembled by 13 automakers and instead will conduct further investigation.

The agency said in July it thought the vehicles posed serious safety risks and was considering requiring a recall. The issue has been linked to one U.S. fatality and seven injuries following an eight-year government investigation.

“NHTSA is specifically looking to gather more information on the technical and engineering differences between the inflators as installed into the manufacturers’ respective vehicles, as well as differences in processes among the relevant factories and manufacturing lines,” the agency said on Wednesday.

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NHTSA had argued at a hearing in October 2023 that inflators produced by two airbag manufacturers, ARC Automotive and Delphi Automotive, should be recalled because they may rupture and send metal fragments flying. After automakers raised objections in December 2023, the agency did not immediately finalize its decision.

“Common sense demands acknowledging that metal shrapnel projecting at high speeds and causing injury or death presents an unreasonable risk to safety,” NHTSA said in July.

Major automakers including General Motors, Toyota Motor and Volkswagen and the two airbag makers said in December 2023 that they opposed the NHTSA’s bid to seek recalls.

Reuters reported in October 2023 that at least 20 million GM vehicles could be affected, while Stellantis had 4.9 million vehicles with inflators at issue and had reported just one rupture, in 2009.

Automakers and manufacturers said the risks from the issue were exceedingly small, questioning the agency’s analysis and rationale for seeking a recall.

The inflators in question had been used in vehicles produced from 2000 through early 2018 by 13 automakers including Jaguar Land Rover, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai, Kia and Porsche.

NHTSA first called for a voluntary recall in May 2023, but ARC rejected it.

GM, which in May 2023 recalled 1 million ARC inflators after a rupture resulted in facial injuries to a driver, said last December that a recall would affect “as much as 15% of the over 300 million registered motor vehicles in the United States.”

Delphi Automotive, part of Autoliv, manufactured approximately 11 million of the inflators through 2004 under a licensing agreement with ARC, which manufactured the remaining 40 million.