For many people, Takata airbags are old hat. Their dangerous defects and subsequent recall —the largest in automotive history—were all over the news cycle in the mid-2010's, but a lot has happened since then. Besides, people generally don't think much about airbags except in those crucial moments when they need one.
Fresh topic or not, though, Takata airbags still sit in millions of vehicles all over the world—and auto companies are still trying to deal with them before they cause harm. For example, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. just issued a recall of over 100,000 vehicles believed to have suspect Takata airbag inflators.
A Refresher on Takata Airbags
For those who don't know or forgot, "Takata" has been something of a four-letter word since around this time in 2015. That's when the National Highway Transport and Safety Administration (NHTSA) forced Takata Corporation to issue a massive recall on airbags they made, which were put in tens of millions of passenger vehicles. However, before the feds weighed in various manufacturers issued recalls of their own ranging all the way back to 2001.
What's Wrong with the Airbags?
Airbags, including ones made by Takata, generally work by a sensor picking up a collision, then relaying a signal to the airbag's inflator module. A propellant ignites in the module, rapidly creating gas which is expelled outward and inflates the airbag in milliseconds.
The problem with Takata airbags is that the inflator assembly may degrade over time, or after exposure to temperature and humidity fluctuations. In those conditions, the propellant canister has increased chances of breaking apart during the expulsion of gas in an airbag deployment. The ruptured canister then becomes a spray of metal shrapnel flying toward drivers and passengers, causing serious—and in some cases deadly—injuries. To date, these malfunctions have been linked to 27 deaths and over 400 injuries in the United States.
Volkswagen is Just the Latest of Many Takata Recalls
Though passenger-side airbags are mentioned in many other recalls, Volkswagen's recall 24V-834 is wholly about driver's-side front airbag inflators. Submitted to the NHTSA October 30, the recall covers an estimated 114,478 Beetles and Passats produced in certain runs from 2005 through 2018. That's plenty concerning, of course, but the grand total of recalled airbags is an estimated 67 million units, housed in 34 different vehicle brands made by 19 different auto manufacturers.
Companies have issued their own recalls about this issue since 2001, Isuzu being the first after a Takata airbag explosion. That was soon followed by Honda in 2002, and from 2008 onward recalls popped up almost annually as more and more incidents were discovered and/or reported. The NHTSA finally demanded that Takata issue an industry-wide recall in late 2015, and we're still seeing the ripples of that today as demonstrated by the VW alert.
These Problems Don't Go Away
The NHTSA estimates that as of April 2024, 88% of recalled airbags have been repaired or swapped out. Assuming that estimate is more or less accurate, a little math (67,000,000 * .12, or 12%) shows that at least 8 million potentially-hazardous airbags still lurk in steering wheels and dashboards out there. That's not to suggest that every single one of them will some day explode and hurt someone, but any that do represent a breach of the promise Takata implicitly made that their product was safe for ordinary use.
As I said at the top, I know the general public and most news cycles moved on from this topic long ago. Just because it's not shouted from the rooftops anymore, though, doesn't mean it went away. Companies still warning their customers about the hazards of this product is clear evidence of that. Takata continues to rear its ugly head as the biggest auto-defect recall in history, which is a grim reminder that manufacturers' mistakes and cut corners may affect whole generations of consumers. Hopefully VW's renewed attention to this ongoing problem will prevent further injuries, but the devastating damage a car defect accident can do is more than enough reason to keep spreading the word until there's no longer a reason to.