Volkswagen, the specter of defective Takata airbags returns
The recall of the German automaker concerns a new tranche of models in which the technology of the Japanese manufacturer Takata is installed
A long bow of apology from Shigehisa Takada , number 1 of the company of the same name and grandson of the founder: "I apologize from the bottom of my heart for causing so many problems to people and creditors". Thus ended, in July 2017, the story of the Japanese manufacturer Takata.
The company, which employs 46,000 people worldwide, had been engulfed in scandals over its faulty airbags that had led to a record number of recalls and lawsuits and 8 billion euros in debt, the largest insolvency ever recorded for a Japanese company.
Before that Takata was synonymous with safety in the automotive sector: a multinational that controlled 20% of the seat belt and airbag market. In July 2017, it had about fifty thousand employees in 56 plants in 20 countries, with a turnover of 663 billion yen in 2016-17, 90% of which was generated abroad.
With the bankruptcy receivership, the label seemed to have disappeared forever from the radar and, above all, from the news reports. Or not? No, because Volkswagen 's maxi recall of 270,000 units right now brings the calendar pages back to 2017.
THE RECALL OF VOLKSWAGEN
The recall of the German automaker concerns a new tranche of models in which the technology of the Japanese manufacturer Takata is installed. The script seems to be from years ago.
According to data from the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, "faults in the gas generator of the front airbags" could lead to an "uncontrolled deployment and release of metal fragments that could injure the occupants".
No affected car would have been produced for the German market, but that doesn't mean that risky models aren't circulating on the streets of the Old Continent. "In order to rule out safety risks, the affected airbags will be replaced based on availability," Volkswagen said in a statement. The current recalls mostly affect cars delivered to hot spots, such as South America. However, we cannot rule out that individual vehicles have also managed to enter Europe."
THE TAKATA AIRBAGS AGAIN
Thus the nightmare of defective airbags produced by the Japanese manufacturer Takata is back in the news, which, as anticipated, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2017 precisely because of the continuous malfunctions of its devices.
A closing with aftermath even in much more recent times, if we consider that Ford communicated at the end of last week to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it is recalling just under 100,000 old Ranger pickups to give its technicians the opportunity to correctly replace the Takata airbags.
And earlier, in September 2021 the German newspaper Der Spiegel had reported that the US federal transport agency NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) had opened a further investigation into more than 30 million cars built between 2001 and 2019 equipped with the infamous airbags at risk. These were vehicles of luxury brands, as well as generalist manufacturers, which had no direct responsibility in the matter, such as Porsche, Jaguar Land Rover, Ferrari, Tesla, Bmw, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, GM, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru and Toyota.
In January 2020, shortly before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic (which is why the news went unnoticed) it was discovered that the ammonium nitrate used as an explosive for air cushion expansion was undergoing changes due to humidity and high temperatures, effectively causing a much stronger explosion to the point of "shooting" metal components into the passenger compartment and injuring the passengers. That is why the German brand is currently favoring recalls of vehicles delivered in “hot countries, such as South America for example”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/volkswagen-takata-richiamo-270mila-auro/ on Tue, 07 Mar 2023 11:55:40 +0000.