Automakers Are Trying To Prevent The Second-Largest Recall In History

Several automakers including General Motors, Toyota, Ford and Volkswagen as well as two airbag makers said they are against the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s bid to recall 52 million airbag inflators. Officials for the safety regulator argued that the inflators produced by ARC Automotive and Delphi Automotive should be recalled because they could rupture and send metal fragments flying, according to Reuters

Following an eight-year investigation, NHTSA says the defect has been linked to one fatality in the U.S. and seven injuries. If this recall goes through, it will end up being the second largest in U.S. history, Reuters reports. Despite the, you know, death and injuries, automakers and the airbag manufacturers maintain that the risk from the issue is “exceedingly small” and they questioned the agency’s analysis and rationale for asking for a recall.

ARC said NHTSA’s estimated failure rate came out to less than one new rupture over the next 33 years. Those inflators have been used in vehicles produced from 2000 to early 2018 by 12 different automakers, according to Reuters. BMW, Ford, Hyundai/Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche have all filed statements of opposition under NHTSA’s formal comment process.

General Motors has already been hit by an ARC inflator recall. Back in May of this year, it recalled 1 million ARC inflators after one ruptured in March and injured a driver’s face. However, GM — which could have more than 20 million impacted vehicles — said NHTSA didn’t demonstrate a need for “a massive unprecedented expansion of the existing ARC inflators recalls.” The automaker added that the big recall could impact “as much as 15 percent of the over 300 million registered motor vehicles in the United States,” according to Reuters.

Tagging along for the ride, Stellantis — which could have nearly 5 million impacted vehicles — also called the regulator’s decision “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.” That’s very serious, but if you imagine Johnnie Cochran saying it, it gets a lot funnier.

Delphi manufactured about 11 million of these possibly faulty inflators through 2004 under a licensing agreement with ARC. Those folks built the remaining 41 million.

All of these messages read like that Lord Farquaad quote, “Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” I understand that it be a very small amount of people being maimed or killed by these airbag inflators, but shouldn’t the ideal number of people you’re killing be, I don’t know, zero?