It’s fast becoming DEFCON 1 at Takata, which may have to quadruple its recalls of shrapnel-shooting airbag inflators.
Anonymous former Takata employees told Reuters that as many as 285 million Takata inflators with ammonium nitrate?the cheaper propellant Takata switched to in 1999 and kept using, despite repeated safety concerns by its own engineers?could be affected. Takata built roughly 260 million to 285 million inflators between 2000 and 2015, according to Reuters, with about 120 million destined for U.S. vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is allegedly debating whether Takata should recall the remainder of its ammonium-nitrate inflators, as two U.S. senators have been urging the agency to do since last summer. This could mean tens of millions of additional cars under expanded recalls. Currently, more than 24 million vehicles from 24 brands have been recalled in the United States. Due to reports of poor record keeping and quality control?particularly at its North American plants in Mexico, Georgia, and Washington?the company has no idea how to distinguish defective parts from the entire lot. High humidity in factories without air conditioning, broken pieces within the inflators, and other manufacturing red flags have been raised as culprits, but despite knowing of defects as far back as 2000, Takata so far has not identified the problem in full.
Worse, for Takata anyway, is the potential of the airbag crisis to ruin the company to the po...