NHTSA takes charge; Takata plays second fiddle

By Ryan Beene, Crain News Service

WASHINGTON (June 8, 2015) — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has taken firm control of one of the largest and most complex recall actions in U.S. history — orchestrating its many moving parts and setting a rapid pace.

And Takata Corp., the airbag supplier whose defective inflators are at the center of the recall action, is now playing second fiddle.

That power balance appeared to reassure members of a U.S. House subcommittee who heard testimony from NHTSA's administrator and a top Takata executive last week on the course of the recall.

That course changed markedly after May 19, when NHTSA announced a consent decree reached with Takata and exacted an acknowledgment of a defect in the airbag inflators. Before that, Takata insisted it needed to find the root cause of the problem, fretted over replacement parts and steadfastly rebuffed a nationwide recall.

By last week, Takata also had acknowledged for the first time what safety and airbag experts and NHTSA have long suspected: The use of ammonium nitrate as a propellant — along with heat and humidity — is a factor in the airbag inflator ruptures that have turned the safety devices into deadly explosives, killing at least six people and injuring more than 100.

 

“Before May 19, there was denial of a defect; there was mostly a focus on root cause; there was concern about the supply chain, whether the remedy even worked or not,” NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind told the House panel on June 2.

“Now, NHTSA is in the driver seat.”

And it's stomping on the gas. According to an outline of its recall plan published June 5 in the Federal Register, NHTSA is considering an order to speed the recalls by enlisting more suppliers to make replacement parts. The actions underscore Mr. Rosekind's emphasis on getting recalled inflators replaced quickly, even as the search for a root cause continues.

As the agency sees it, replacing a defective Takata airbag with a newer one, even if it must be replaced again, would do more to improve the safety of the U.S. vehicle fleet immediately than waiting to determine a root cause and a long-term solution.

(Crain News Service photo)

NHTSA chief Mark Rosekind is making auto makers toe the line on safety.

NHTSA's recall plan seeks to send parts first to the hottest, most-humid areas of the country, where risk of rupture is seen as greatest, and it has the authority to oversee testing of replacement parts to ensure they will be safe long term, agency officials have said.

“The actions we have taken in the last several days are designed to allow us to act regardless of the uncertainty about the root cause,” said NHTSA spokesman Gordon Trowbridge.

Takata's shift on ammonium nitrate should sharpen the focus of the root-cause investigation, which is under way at Takata and among a consortium of auto makers.

At last week's House hearing, Kevin Kennedy, executive vice president of Takata's North American affiliate, was grilled for more than an hour over the company's continued use of ammonium nitrate as the primary propellant in its inflators, including in some of the replacement airbags it's supplying now.

Chemical experts have said that when exposed to moisture and high heat, ammonium nitrate is inherently vulnerable to degradation that can lead to violent explosions.

Mr. Kennedy said the propellant is safe when manufactured and packaged properly. But he acknowledged that the chemical is a factor in the rupture of the older airbags. He said the company plans to “transition” from ammonium nitrate and is ramping up production of airbags that use guanidine nitrate, an explosive compound used as a propellant by competitors such as TRW Automotive and Autoliv Inc.

Takata said it also will discontinue one of the propellant packaging designs that had a high rate of ruptures.

None of Takata's competitors uses ammonium nitrate. And NHTSA will be leaning on them heavily as it seeks to swap out defective airbags.

In its outline, NHTSA said it expects to consult with airbag makers including ARC Automotive Inc., Autoliv Americas, Key Safety Systems, Toyoda Gosei North America, TRW and Daicel Group to see whether and how quickly they can add production capacity for replacement parts.

Mr. Kennedy testified that rival suppliers, including TRW and Daicel, already supplied roughly half of the replacement Takata inflators shipped in May.

He said that rivals' share of those part shipments should increase to 70 percent by year-end.

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This report appeared on the website of Automotive News, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.

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