At the Risk of Repeating Myself:

If people are dying because of your product, you should really really do something to fix the problem.

Trust me on this: Sweeping research under the rug is not going to make the problem go away.


Less than a year ago, I asked how many people had to die before a company would wake up and start recalling their product (full post, in re GM's ignition switch defects, here).

I'm asking the question again today, as more information comes out about airbag defects at Takata.

According to an article by Hiroko Tabuchi in today's New York Times, the Japanese airbag manufacturer, "alarmed by a report a decade ago that one of its airbags had ruptured and spewed metal debris at a driver in Alabama", conducted secret tests, using airbags retrieved from junked vehicles. The results? According to former employees (anonymous "because of continuing ties to Takata"):

The steel inflaters in two of the airbags cracked during the tests, a condition that can lead to rupture, the former employees said. The result was so startling that engineers began designing possible fixes in preparation for a recall.....

But instead of alerting federal safety regulators to the possible danger, Takata executives discounted the results and ordered the lab technicians to delete the testing data from their computers and dispose of the airbag inflaters in the trash, they said.

Those secret tests were conducted a decade ago, "after normal work hours and on weekends and holidays during [the] summer". 

That was four years before Takata, in regulatory filings, says that it first tested the problematic airbags. The results from the later tests led to the first recall over airbag rupture risks in November 2008.

The current recall has grown to involve ten automakers (BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Pontiac, Subaru, and Toyota) and 14 million vehicles. A more complete list of years and models affected, compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, can be found here.

I understand the pressures that automakers and their suppliers face - to keep costs down, to meet brutal "just-in-time" manufacturing schedules, not risking penalties for late deliveries. But:

“That put a lot of pressure and incentive on us to never miss a shipment,” said one of the former managers. “I’d argue, ‘what if my daughter bought the car with the bad airbag?’ But the plant would tell us, ‘Just ship it.' ”

"Just ship it"? Really?