Over the weekend, news broke of over 52 million airbag inflators that could pose serious risk of injury or death to drivers across the nation. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a massive recall rollout will likely affect upwards of 25 million vehicles. Vehicles manufactured by 12 different automakers between 2000 and 2018 may have driver or passenger airbags with defective parts. The defective part could be metal or shrapnel that would implode out of the airbag upon collision.
A list of the automakers potentially affected by this recall includes BMW, Ford, GM, Hyundai, Kia, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Tesla, Toyota and Volkswagen. This massive recall comes as a result of an eight-year long investigation in which different vehicle makes and models all reported some form of injury as a result of these defective airbag parts. One death was also reported during this investigation, a mom of ten from Michigan, Marlene Beaudoin. Marlene’s attorney alleges that she was struck and killed my metal fragments when her 2015 Chevy Traverse was involved in a minor car accident.
One news reporter stated that ARC Automotive, one of the named manufacturers of these faulty airbags, did not respond to requests for comments on this story as of Friday, September 8, 2023.[i] ARC rejected the request for a voluntary recall, claiming that the investigation lacked sufficient evidence to support a recall, and referred to the ruptures and injuries as “isolated events.”
The NHTSA put out its initial decision on September 5th and a public hearing has been scheduled for October 5th to take comments on the findings and decision. Delphi Automotive Systems LLC was the other manufacturer named in the report. Delphi manufactured approximately 11 million inflators from July 2001 until 2010, and ARC manufactured approximately 41 million inflators from 2000 until January 2018. [ii]