By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. regulator said on Wednesday it still believes air bag inflators in 49 million U.S. vehicles assembled by 13 automakers pose serious safety risks and is considering a recall.
The issue has been linked to one U.S. fatality and seven injuries following an eight-year government investigation. If the recall goes ahead, it would be the second largest in U.S. history.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration argued at a hearing in October that inflators from two air bag manufacturers, ARC Automotive and Delphi Automotive, should be recalled because they can rupture and send metal fragments flying. After automakers raised objections in December, the agency did not immediately finalize its decision.
The agency said Wednesday it was reiterating and updating its original decision, first issued in September, giving automakers another 30 days to respond before it could formally require recalls.
“Common sense requires recognition that metal shrapnel that projects at high velocity and causes injury or death poses an unreasonable risk to safety,” NHTSA said.
Major automakers, including General Motors (NYSE:), Toyota Motor (NYSE:) and Volkswagen (ETR:) and the two airbag makers said in December they were opposing the NHTSA’s bid for recalls.
GM said Wednesday that it “does not believe the evidence at this time provides a basis for an additional recall beyond the vehicle population already included in the existing recalls.”
Reuters reported in October that at least 20 million GM vehicles could be affected, while Stellantis (NYSE:) has 4.9 million vehicles with affected inflators and has reported only one breakage, in 2009.
Stellantis said it was reviewing the NHTSA decision.
Automakers and manufacturers said the risks from this problem were extremely small, calling into question the agency’s analysis and the rationale for the recall.
The inflators in question were used in vehicles produced between 2000 and early 2018 by 13 automakers, including Jaguar Land Rover, Ford (NYSE:), Mercedes-Benz (OTC:), BMW (ETR:), Hyundai (OTC:), Kia and Porsche.
NHTSA first called for a voluntary recall in May 2023, but ARC rejected it.
GM, which recalled 1 million ARC inflators in May 2023 after a breakage resulted in a facial injury to a driver, said in December that a recall would affect “as many as 15% of the more than 300 million registered motor vehicles in the United States.”
Delphi Automotive, part of Autoliv (NYSE:), manufactured approximately 11 million of the inflators through 2004 under a licensing agreement with ARC, which produced the remaining 40 million.
