Welcome to NHTSA's Mad Hatter's Tea Party where reality and software defects don't exist for a regulatory body that has long since stopped protecting consumers!
The lawmakers voted to stop funding the group, but the bill has no chance of becoming law, and it was unclear if it would avert a government shutdown.
NYTIMES.COM|BY DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
When will DOJ send automakers to JAIL? TOYOTA lied! and KILLED! GM lied! and KILLED! TAKATA lied! and KILLED! Where is DOJ or NHTSA protecting consumers?
Volkswagen has torn up its profit targets after being forced to set aside $7.3 billion to cover the cost of a rapidly widening emissions cheating scandal.
MONEY.CNN.COM|BY MARK THOMPSON AND IVANA KOTTASOVA
A Kansas mathematician said this week that she had retained a lawyer and had scheduled a discovery hearing to force Secretary of State Kris Kobach to hand...
Carly Fiorina’s ex-husband, Todd Bartlem, does not think very much of his ex-wife. Speaking with Bloomberg Politics, Bartlem made it clear that he was not a fan of...
NHTSA refused to address TOYOTA SUDDEN UNINTENDED ACCELERATION.....maybe because they lack the expertise.....maybe for other reasons......NHTSA and TOYOTA have ignored complaints about TOYOTA SUDDEN UNINTENDED ACCELERATION......
Ahhhh....maybe the Jeep SUV rollaway is simple?
Think about it! Is NHTSA really doing its job? Why is NHTSA protecting TOYOTA?
U.S. probes 408,000 Jeep SUVs for rollaway incidents
David Shepardson, Detroit News Washington Bureau
August 25, 2015
Washington — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said late Monday it is opening a preliminary investigation into 408,000 new Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs for complaints that the vehicles rolled away after being shifted into park.
NHTSA said it has received 14 complaints, including five reports of crashes and three injuries. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV spokesman Eric Mayne said the automaker is cooperating. The investigation covers the 2014 and 2015 models that are equipped with an electronic gear selector or shift by wire system. The gear selection is made by pressing the shifter paddle forward or backward; the shifter does not move along a gate path as with conventional gear selectors.
Jeep Grand Cherokee sales were up 5 percent in July to 15,867 in the United States and are up 4 percent for the year to 108,947.
In June, an owner in Livonia said he put his 2015 Jeep SUV into park to go into a gas station.
“The vehicle then started to roll backwards while still in park and then collided into another parked vehicle. While the vehicle was rolling backwards, three other occupants proceeded to evacuate the vehicle before it collided with the other parked car,” the complaint said. “The evacuation of the vehicle left the doors open which, when the vehicles collided, left the doors of the rolling vehicle (the jeep) unable to be closed.”
The people who got out included two children and an adult. A child was injured exiting the vehicle as the vehicle collided with another parked vehicle and then continued on, rolling into a ditch. A bystander jumped into the vehicle to try to stop it and noticed the shift indicator was showing the vehicle was in park, the complaint said.
In another complaint filed in February, an owner in Morganton, North Carolina, said he was seriously injured when his 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee started moving after he parked it and the driver door struck him, knocking him to the ground “on my back.”
“The left front tire rolled over my pelvic area causing serious injury,” the complaint said. The SUV crashed into a fence and jack-knifed the trailer. He said Fiat Chrysler inspected the SUV but found no problems.
In one complaint filed last month, a driver in Austin, Texas, said a Jeep Grand Cherokee crashed into a metal pole after the SUV had been shifted into park. Another driver in Grand Rapids said the process to put the vehicle in park was not safe.
“The electronic shift does not have intuitive ... or positive gear positions. It requires specific, counter-intuitive movements that must be learned, carefully executed and tediously watched,” the driver said, saying twice he thought he had put the vehicle in park and in once case, the vehicle started to roll away. “I have never experienced anything as potentially dangerous in a modern vehicle.”
In a complaint filed in April 2014, an owner said his Jeep rolled 50 feet down and into a tree, causing $3,000 in damage. Fiat Chrysler conducted an inspection and found no problems. Another complaint came from a Bloomfield Hills owner in December who reported that the Jeep almost drove over his foot exiting; a Rochester Hills owner in June 2014 said he nearly hit another car when the SUV rolled, one of five separate incidents.
NHTSA has investigated vehicles rolling away in recent years. In 2012, Honda Motor Co. recalled 870,000 SUVs and minivans because they could roll away after the safety agency opened a preliminary investigation. NHTSA also opened an investigation into120,000 2002-07 BMW 7 Series vehicles over concerns the vehicles may roll away after being parked. In 2012, BMW recalled 45,000 2005-08 7 Series vehicles with the “Comfort Access option.”
Last year, Ford Motor Co. recalled 92,000 vehicles in North America, including 2013-14 models of the Taurus, Flex, Ford Police Interceptor, Lincoln MKS and Lincoln MKT; 2012-14 Ford Edge; and 2014 Lincoln MKX.
Because of faulty assembly, Ford said the vehicles could roll away if the gearshift is placed in "park without the emergency brake being activated.” Ford said dealers will inspect the halfshaft and repair or replace as needed.
The panel's leader, former Transportation secretary Samuel Skinner, has hired former NHTSA administrators John Snow, Marion Blakey and Jeffrey Runge, along with Northwestern University engineering-school dean Julio Ottino, former auto executive Nelda Conners and health-care executive John Landgraf.
"We basically have the authority from Takata to spend whatever's necessary," Skinner told The Detroit News in an interview. "And it's going to be done thoroughly."
Amid lingering questions over defective airbag inflators, the panel has been tasked with determining the source and extent of any quality problems. The team will help the company reform its practices and structure, if deemed necessary, to help navigate the current crisis and rebuild its tarnished reputation.
The Japanese supplier currently faces criminal investigations at the federal and state level in the US, alongside numerous civil lawsuits related to the exploding airbag inflators
Another Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card ...just like TOYOTA!
Consumers can only HOPE that NTSB Mark Rosekind drives NHTSA to protect not only VEHICLE Owners and Drivers from MANUFACTURERS' FAILURES, but STOPS IGNORING COMPLAINTS.
It is widely known that only a small .... miniscule percentage of CONSUMERS ever file complaints.
What else has NHTSA ignored?
These DEFECTIVE VEHICLES are on our roads jeopardizing our safety and the safety of others.
CLEVELAND - A NewsChannel5 investigation has uncovered thousands of complaints about power steering problems involving 2004 to 2007 Saturn Ions.
Records we obtained from federal safety regulators show there have been 4,150 complaints about the vehicle's electric power steering system since 2004. Drivers criticized about "a sudden loss of steering power" that makes the "wheel difficult to turn." Many complaints said it happened "without warning."
The defect is blamed for 16 crashes and two injuries.
Kayla Braidic, a Cleveland-area resident, said she crashed into a car when her 2005 Saturn Ion suddenly lost power steering. Braidic's 3-year-old son was in the backseat.
"I tried the hardest I could to turn out of the way and it just hit anyways," Braidic said.
Federal investigators say "a buildup of oil and debris" in the electric power steering assist motor "may cause the motor to suddenly shutdown."
In 2010, General Motors issued recalls for two vehicles with the same electric power steering system. GM recalled approximately 1.05 million Pontiac G5 and Chevrolet Cobalt vehicles to "correct a defect" with the electric power steering motor, according to federal records.
GM has not issued a recall for the Saturn Ion's steering motor. Instead, GM sent 2004 to 2007 Saturn Ion owners a letter informing them about the defect and offering to fix it free of charge. The letter also instructs owners "do not take your vehicle to your GM dealer… unless you believe that your vehicle has the condition."
"This is an orphan vehicle. General Motors no longer makes it. They don't need the goodwill of the customer for a car that they're no longer selling so they're much more likely to stonewall a recall," said Clarence Ditlow, the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, an auto industry watchdog group.
"Any steering defect… is a dangerous defect," Ditlow said. "You don't want to have the loss of power steering assist happen on the road."
"GM should recall this vehicle and replace the electric power steering motor," Ditlow said.
NewsChannel5 investigators reached out General Motors. Spokesman Alan Adler sent us this statement:
"General Motors is conducting a Special Coverage program for owners of 2004-2007 Saturn IONs under which customers can have the power steering motor in their vehicle replaced free of charge within 150,000 miles of the vehicle going into service. The loss of power steering condition is infrequent and is accompanied by a chime and a warning on the Driver Information Center. Typically, power steering function returns the next time the vehicle is started."
Adler said General Motors investigated Braidic's crash. The company does not believe a defect in the electric power steering motor is to blame for the accident.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the Saturn Ion's steering problem in 2010.
NHTSA records say investigators believe the defect "could result in some loss of control and a crash."
We requested an interview with NHTSA. Spokesperson Jose Alberto Ucles sent us this statement:
" The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does not comment on open investigations, ordo interviews on the enforcement processes. It is a long standing agency policy."
Braidic and her son were not hurt in their crash, but she said she feels her safety was unnecessarily compromised.
"They shouldn't have even had it on the market if a problem like that could happen," she said.
Inside a Takata showroom in Tokyo on Thursday.Credit Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press
Alarmed by a report a decade ago that one of its airbags had ruptured and spewed metal debris at a driver in Alabama, the Japanese manufacturer Takata secretly conducted tests on 50 airbags it retrieved from scrapyards, according to two former employees involved in the tests, one of whom was a senior member of its testing lab.
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, the former employees said.
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.
The secret tests, which have not been previously disclosed, were performed after normal work hours and on weekends and holidays during summer 2004 at Takata’s American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., the former employees said.
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.
Today, 11 automakers have recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide because of the rupture risks. Four deaths have been tied to the defect, which can cause the airbag’s steel canister to crack and explode into pieces when the device deploys in a crash. The airbags are inflated by means of a propellant, based on a common compound used in fertilizer, that is encased in the canister, which together are known as the inflater.
Complaints received by regulators about various automakers blame Takata airbags for at least 139 injuries, including 37 people who reported airbags that ruptured or spewed metal or chemicals.
Takata is one of the world’s largest suppliers of airbags, accounting for about one-fifth of the global market.
The former Takata employees, who between them had four decades of experience at the company, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of continuing ties to Takata. They said they were speaking up because of concerns that their former employer was not being forthright about the defective airbags.
“All the testing was hush-hush,” one former employee said. “Then one day, it was, ‘Pack it all up, shut the whole thing down.’ It was not standard procedure.”
A spokesman for Takata, Alby Berman, declined to comment on the disclosure of the testing.
OPEN Graphic
Graphic: Takata Airbag Recalls: Affected Vehicles
In the past, a spokesman for Honda said it was assured by Takata in 2004 that the episode in Alabama, which involved a 2002 Honda Accord, was an anomaly.
On Thursday, a Honda spokesman, Chris Martin, said in a statement, “This is a serious allegation about actions taken by Takata. It is our intention to determine whether anyone at Honda has any evidence that these claims are credible.”
Separately, materials reviewed by The New York Times cast doubt on Takata’s claims to federal regulators that it had resolved manufacturing and quality control problems with its airbag propellant in the early 2000s. Takata has said, in regulatory filings, that by November 2002, it had ensured that there was “proper handling” of the propellants at a factory in Moses Lake, Wash., where it had traced problems with the rupturing airbags.
But as recently as April 2009, Takata engineers scrambled to repair a flaw in a machine at another factory in Monclova, Mexico, that made the airbag propellant more volatile, according to materials from a company presentation given that year.
Two former quality-control managers at the company’s main distribution center in Texas, moreover, described in interviews a series of quality problems that arose as the company raced to meet a surge in demand for its airbags.
The Times reviewed internal Takata documents, emails, photos, videos and regulatory filings. Emails show workers raising concerns that airbag units were being delivered to automakers wet or damaged because of transportation mishaps. Closed-circuit television footage shows forklifts dropping stacks of the airbag units.
Danger in the Steering Wheel
Eleven carmakers, including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Ford, Chrysler and BMW, have recalled more than 14 million cars worldwide, including more than 11 million in the United States, to fix a defect in airbags made by the Takata Corporation. Some have ruptured, sending metal fragments into the car. At least four deaths and more than 30 injuries have been linked to the problem.
INFLATER/CANISTER
PROPELLANT
Cutaway view
INFLATER/CANISTER
STEERING WHEEL
AIRBAG
HOW IT WORKS:
Inside the canister, pellets of a propellant based on ammonia nitrate, a common compound used in fertilizer, are ignited and generate the nitrogen gas that inflates the airbag in a fraction of a second.
THE PROBLEM:
Takata has said manufacturing problems, together with exposure to moisture in cars in humid regions, can cause the propellant to degrade. This can make the propellant burn too strongly when the airbag is deployed, rupturing the inflater and sending metal fragments into the car’s interior and injuring the driver or passengers.
The dropped airbags were not always properly inspected for damage, especially in the early 2000s, according to the former quality-control managers who said they later pushed for stricter controls at the facility. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.
Takata is facing renewed scrutiny for its handling of the defective airbags, which The Times reported in September had been the subject of a short-lived investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that was closed in 2010 without any enforcement action. The federal agency has now reopened its investigation into Takata, a House committee has asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct its own investigation, and federal prosecutors in Manhattan have also taken an interest.
“Claims such as these have raised additional concerns about Takata’s handling of airbag issues and are one of the reasons we’re compelling them to produce documents and answer questions, under oath,” the highway safety agency said.
The Takata spokesman, Mr. Berman, said, "Takata will continue to fully cooperate with the government investigation as we also support the needs of our customers.”
In Tokyo on Thursday, the company’s chief financial officer apologized broadly for the problems caused by the defective airbags, while the company announced that legal uncertainty and rising recall costs would result in a larger-than-expected quarterly loss.
“We don’t know at this point how things will play out,” said Yoichiro Nomura, the chief financial officer.
Photo
A Takata distribution center in Texas. Former employees say quality problems arose as the company tried to fill demand for airbags.
The most recent death linked to the airbags involved an accident in a suburban Los Angeles parking lot last year. Hai Ming Xu, 47, was killed by an airbag that deployed explosively in his 2002 Acura TL.
The police in Alhambra, Calif., initially treated the case as a homicide because of the nature of his injuries, before an autopsy suggested the wounds were caused by the airbag, according to a Los Angeles County Coroner’s report. The report concluded that extensive lacerations on Mr. Xu’s face came from “a metallic portion” of the airbag inflater that “hit the deceased on the face as it deployed.” The report also said tears had been discovered in the airbag.
The first known rupture of a Takata airbag occurred in Alabama in 2004, according to Honda. The inflater that ruptured in the Accord and injured the car’s driver that year “looked like it had exploded, and had a hole punched out of the side of the canister,” said one of the former Takata lab employees who examined the airbag.
Takata and Honda have declined to disclose further details of that accident, which ended in a settlement between the automaker and the driver, according to Honda.
Behind the scenes, however, the former Takata lab employees said, the manufacturer wanted to know more. The tests on the 50 airbags were supervised by Al Bernat, then Takata’s vice president for engineering, they said, and were unknown to all but a small group of people, that included lab technicians, fabricators and engineers. The employees said that they did not know under whose authority Mr. Bernat was operating.
The tests’ results worried the technicians: Two of the airbag inflaters Takata had retrieved from the junkyards showed cracks and the start of “rapid disassembly” during the tests, Takata’s preferred term for explosion, according to the two people. They said Takata engineers at the time theorized that a problem with the welding of the inflater’s canister, intended to hold the airbag’s explosives, made its structure vulnerable to splitting and rupturing. The two people said engineers designed prototypes for possible fixes, including a second canister to strengthen the unit.
But after three months, they said, the testing was ordered halted. The lab employees were also instructed that all data, including video and computer backups, be destroyed. Inflaters and prototypes of fixes were also to be disassembled and disposed of in a scrap-metal Dumpster, the senior lab employee said. No explanation was offered, the employee said, though the order was not considered surprising given the secret nature of the testing.
As for the two problematic airbag inflaters, Mr. Bernat, the supervisor, told people at the time that they were not significant because they had been retrieved from cars with cracked windshields and were likely “corrupted by weather,” according to the two former employees.
Reached at his home in Rochester Hills, Mich., Mr. Bernat declined to comment and referred questions to his former employer. Takata also declined to comment.
As automakers have recalled the airbags in recent years, Takata has suggested that weather plays a significant role in making its airbags prone to rupture. Takata said humidity could hurt the stability of the airbag’s explosives.
In explaining the defect, the company has also pointed to manufacturing flaws involving the airbags’ explosive, or propellant, including improper exposure to moisture, and problems with a machine that presses propellant powder into tablets. Takata has said both troubles were corrected in the early 2000s.
But the internal documents suggest Takata engineers scrambled as late as 2009 to repair a machine at its Monclova plant that pressed explosive propellant powder into pellets after “inflaters tested from multiple propellant lots showed aggressive ballistics,” according to the internal presentation in June 2009.
Two former quality-control managers at the company’s main distribution center in Texas, moreover, described in interviews a series of quality problems that arose as the company raced to meet a surge in demand for its airbags.
The Times reviewed internal Takata documents, emails, photos, videos and regulatory filings. Emails show workers raising concerns that airbag units were being delivered to automakers wet or damaged because of transportation mishaps. Closed-circuit television footage shows forklifts dropping stacks of the airbag units.
Eleven carmakers, including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Ford, Chrysler and BMW, have recalled more than 14 million cars worldwide, including more than 11 million in the United States, to fix a defect in airbags made by the Takata Corporation. Some have ruptured, sending metal fragments into the car. At least four deaths and more than 30 injuries have been linked to the problem.
INFLATER/CANISTER
PROPELLANT
Cutaway view
INFLATER/CANISTER
STEERING WHEEL
AIRBAG
HOW IT WORKS:
Inside the canister, pellets of a propellant based on ammonia nitrate, a common compound used in fertilizer, are ignited and generate the nitrogen gas that inflates the airbag in a fraction of a second.
THE PROBLEM:
Takata has said manufacturing problems, together with exposure to moisture in cars in humid regions, can cause the propellant to degrade. This can make the propellant burn too strongly when the airbag is deployed, rupturing the inflater and sending metal fragments into the car’s interior and injuring the driver or passengers.
The dropped airbags were not always properly inspected for damage, especially in the early 2000s, according to the former quality-control managers who said they later pushed for stricter controls at the facility. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.
Takata is facing renewed scrutiny for its handling of the defective airbags, which The Times reported in September had been the subject of a short-lived investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that was closed in 2010 without any enforcement action. The federal agency has now reopened its investigation into Takata, a House committee has asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct its own investigation, and federal prosecutors in Manhattan have also taken an interest.
“Claims such as these have raised additional concerns about Takata’s handling of airbag issues and are one of the reasons we’re compelling them to produce documents and answer questions, under oath,” the highway safety agency said.
The Takata spokesman, Mr. Berman, said, "Takata will continue to fully cooperate with the government investigation as we also support the needs of our customers.”
In Tokyo on Thursday, the company’s chief financial officer apologized broadly for the problems caused by the defective airbags, while the company announced that legal uncertainty and rising recall costs would result in a larger-than-expected quarterly loss.
“We don’t know at this point how things will play out,” said Yoichiro Nomura, the chief financial officer.
Photo
A Takata distribution center in Texas. Former employees say quality problems arose as the company tried to fill demand for airbags.
The most recent death linked to the airbags involved an accident in a suburban Los Angeles parking lot last year. Hai Ming Xu, 47, was killed by an airbag that deployed explosively in his 2002 Acura TL.
The police in Alhambra, Calif., initially treated the case as a homicide because of the nature of his injuries, before an autopsy suggested the wounds were caused by the airbag, according to a Los Angeles County Coroner’s report. The report concluded that extensive lacerations on Mr. Xu’s face came from “a metallic portion” of the airbag inflater that “hit the deceased on the face as it deployed.” The report also said tears had been discovered in the airbag.
The first known rupture of a Takata airbag occurred in Alabama in 2004, according to Honda. The inflater that ruptured in the Accord and injured the car’s driver that year “looked like it had exploded, and had a hole punched out of the side of the canister,” said one of the former Takata lab employees who examined the airbag.
Takata and Honda have declined to disclose further details of that accident, which ended in a settlement between the automaker and the driver, according to Honda.
Behind the scenes, however, the former Takata lab employees said, the manufacturer wanted to know more. The tests on the 50 airbags were supervised by Al Bernat, then Takata’s vice president for engineering, they said, and were unknown to all but a small group of people, that included lab technicians, fabricators and engineers. The employees said that they did not know under whose authority Mr. Bernat was operating.
The tests’ results worried the technicians: Two of the airbag inflaters Takata had retrieved from the junkyards showed cracks and the start of “rapid disassembly” during the tests, Takata’s preferred term for explosion, according to the two people. They said Takata engineers at the time theorized that a problem with the welding of the inflater’s canister, intended to hold the airbag’s explosives, made its structure vulnerable to splitting and rupturing. The two people said engineers designed prototypes for possible fixes, including a second canister to strengthen the unit.
But after three months, they said, the testing was ordered halted. The lab employees were also instructed that all data, including video and computer backups, be destroyed. Inflaters and prototypes of fixes were also to be disassembled and disposed of in a scrap-metal Dumpster, the senior lab employee said. No explanation was offered, the employee said, though the order was not considered surprising given the secret nature of the testing.
As for the two problematic airbag inflaters, Mr. Bernat, the supervisor, told people at the time that they were not significant because they had been retrieved from cars with cracked windshields and were likely “corrupted by weather,” according to the two former employees.
Reached at his home in Rochester Hills, Mich., Mr. Bernat declined to comment and referred questions to his former employer. Takata also declined to comment.
As automakers have recalled the airbags in recent years, Takata has suggested that weather plays a significant role in making its airbags prone to rupture. Takata said humidity could hurt the stability of the airbag’s explosives.
In explaining the defect, the company has also pointed to manufacturing flaws involving the airbags’ explosive, or propellant, including improper exposure to moisture, and problems with a machine that presses propellant powder into tablets. Takata has said both troubles were corrected in the early 2000s.
But the internal documents suggest Takata engineers scrambled as late as 2009 to repair a machine at its Monclova plant that pressed explosive propellant powder into pellets after “inflaters tested from multiple propellant lots showed aggressive ballistics,” according to the internal presentation in June 2009.
Photo
Yoichiro Nomura, Takata’s chief financial officer, apologized on Thursday for the problems caused by the defective airbags.Credit Thomas Peter/Reuters
The internal materials and interviews with the former quality-control managers also suggest that quality control problems at......
PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AND VIEW THE VIDEO ON THIS LINK:
This undated photo provided by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows a crash test of a 2002 Honda CR-V, one of the models subject to a recall to repair faulty air bags. (via The Associated Press)
The New York Times, in a story posted online Thursday evening, reports that the manufacturer in the middle of a massive recall of dangerous airbags secretly conducted tests that revealed the problem 10 years ago, according to two former employees involved in the tests. The airbags have ruptured in some cases, sending shrapnel into the passenger compartments of cars. The 2004 tests revealed cracking of the steel inflaters, which could lead to rupture, the former employees told the Times. But instead of alerting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, executives of the manufacturer, Takata Corp., ordered the testing data deleted, the Times reports the former employees said. The Times says:
The secret tests, which have not been previously disclosed, were undertaken after normal work hours and on weekends and holidays during summer 2004 at Takata's American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., the former employees said. 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 problems with the airbags have led to the recall of nearly 8 million airbags in the United States, involving more than a dozen manufacturers. Takata makes about 22 percent of the airbags used in U.S. cars.
U.S. safety regulators are ordering Japanese auto supplier Takata Corp. to provide more information about air bags that can explode and shoot shrapnel toward drivers and passengers. The order sent Thursday makes 36 separate requests for information on production mistakes, lawsuit settlements and reports of deaths or injuries that the Tokyo-based company has received. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also wants to know how many replacement parts Takata can make each day and what it has discussed with automakers and competitors.
