Report: Carmakers Continue To Equip Vehicles With Defective Takata Airbags

Fourteen automakers have recalled nearly 40 million vehicles equipped with more than 80 million defective Takata airbags that can deploy with enough force to shoot pieces of shrapnel at drivers and passengers, leading to 10 deaths in the U.S. and hundreds of injuries. While the Japanese parts maker, federal regulators, and carmakers have worked to replace these dangerous safety devices, a new report reveals that at least four carmakers continue to equip new vehicles with affected airbags. 

Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Mitsubishi confirmed in a new report [PDF] from Florida Senator Bill Nelson that they are selling some new vehicles with defective airbags that must be recalled by 2018.

There currently is no law prohibiting the carmakers from using the Takata airbags in the vehicles and then selling them, as the recall isn’t technically effective for two more years.

However, Sen. Nelson and others are raising concerns that consumers may not be aware they are purchasing a vehicle that could contain a dangerous defect.

“What’s troubling here is that consumers are buying new cars not realizing they’re going to be recalled,” Nelson said in a statement. “These cars shouldn’t be sold until they’re fixed.”

According to the report, the four carmakers’ vehicle models contain Takata’s ammonium nitrate-based propellant in driver and passenger frontal airbag inflators without a chemical drying agent, also known as a desiccant.

Investigators’ previous determination that the root cause of the violent ruptures was a combination of three factors: time, environmental moisture, and fluctuating high temperatures contribute to the degradation of the ammonium nitrate propellant in the inflators.

Only two of the four automakers provided a list of new vehicles that contain the defective airbags. Those models are: 2016 Mitsubishi i-MiEV; 2017 Mitsubishi i-MiEV; 2016 Volkswagen CC; 2016 Audi TT; and 2017 Audi R8.

Toyota said it expects to produce approximately 175,000 unspecified vehicles with the defective Takata inflators between March 2016 and July 2017, while Fiat Chrysler stated that at least one of its current models contains a frontal passenger-side airbag that uses the non-desiccated ammonium-nitrate inflators. Neither carmaker specified the models affected.

Honda, which previously said it could produce as many as 17,000 new vehicles with the airbags tells Nelson’s office that no new models are or will be equipped with the inflators.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration previously ordered Takata and automakers to recall these airbags in phases. The airbags currently being used in new the Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Mitsubishi models are earmarked to be recalled by 2018.