The United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ordered Takata Corporation to extend its regional recall of vehicles due to the faults of driver-side air bag inflators to the entire United States, Reuters reports. The recall will affect vehicles delivered by Ford Motor, Honda Motor, Chrysler Group (a unit of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), Mazda Motor Corporation and BMW AG, all of them fitted with air bag inflators delivered by Takata Corporation.
The NHTSA have given the Japanese company time until Tuesday to issue a nationwide recall, otherwise there will be consequences – the regulator might even fine Takata Corporation with an amount of up to $7,000 for every vehicle that the company fails to recall as instructed. Due to limitations imposed by current legislation the Administration can only fine Takata up to $35 million. The US Department of Transportation – which includes the NHTSA – has asked Congress to raise the limit to $300 million, as a $35 million limit is far from being prohibitive. The Administration has not made an evaluation of the number of vehicles the nationwide recall might involve, but given that the regional recalls have affected over 4 million of them, we are talking about huge numbers.
The issue with the driver-side air bag inflaters that would explode when deployed, causing the driver to be injured, was first discovered in April 2013, leading to the recall of six makes of especially Japanese cars in the US. Later the manufacturer has recognized that the extent of the problem might be much bigger, and that it has concealed information about the fault. The recall was extended to a series of Japanese and European cars, including brands like Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chrysler and others. A report by The New York Times has reported a number of 139 injuries caused by the faulty inflators in all affected models, with 30 of them involving Honda models alone. The recall, that started out as a small regional action involving a few thousand vehicles, has spawned a massive worldwide action affecting at least 14 million vehicles.