The Tennessee company may be in the midst of a legal battle with U.S. auto safety regulators after it denied a recall request for millions of potentially dangerous airbags.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is asking Knoxville-based ARC Automotive Inc. recall 67 million inflators in the United States as they could explode and shatter. At least two people have died in the US and Canada. The agency said faulty ARC inflators injured two people in California and five others in other states.
The recall affects less than a quarter of the 284 million vehicles currently on US roads because some are equipped with ARC pumps for both the driver and front passenger.
In a letter released Friday, the agency told ARC that after an eight-year investigation, it had initially concluded that ARC’s front driver and passenger inflators had safety deficiencies.
“The airbag infusor directs metal fragments at vehicle occupants instead of properly inflating the attached airbag, thereby creating an unreasonable risk of death and injury,” Stephen Rydella, director of the NHTSA Defects Investigation Office, wrote in a letter to ARC.
Existing old-fashioned crash data collection systems grossly underestimate the magnitude of the problem and are inadequate for the digital age of distracted driving.
But ARC responded that there were no defects in the inflator and that any issues were due to individual manufacturing issues.
The next step in this process is the appointment of a public hearing by the NHTSA. The company can then apply to the court for a recall. ARC did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Also on Friday, the NHTSA released documents showing General Motors is recalling nearly 1 million vehicles equipped with ARC pumps. The recall affected some 2014-2017 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia SUVs.
The automaker said that an inflator explosion “could result in sharp metal fragments being thrown into the driver or other passengers, resulting in serious injury or death.”
Owners will be notified by letter starting June 25, but no decision has yet been made. When one letter is ready, they receive another.
Of the 90 EVs available in the US market, only 10 EVs and plug-in hybrids qualify for the full tax credit.
GM said it will offer “kindly transportation” to owners who are concerned about driving recalled vehicles on a case-by-case basis.
The company said the recall expands on previous actions “due to great care and the safety of our customers as our top priority.”
One of the two dead was the mother of a 10-year-old who died in a seemingly minor car accident on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the summer of 2021. According to the police report, a fragment of a metal inflator hit her in the neck during an accident involving a 2015 Chevrolet Traverse SUV.
The NHTSA said at least a dozen automakers are using potentially faulty pumps, including Volkswagen, Ford, BMW and General Motors, as well as some older Chrysler, Hyundai and Kia models.
The agency believes that welding waste from the manufacturing process may have blocked the “exit” of the gas released when the airbag inflated in the accident. Rydella’s letter states that any blockage will cause the inflator to pressurize, causing it to rupture and release metal fragments.
Federal regulators are forcing a recall of Tesla’s robotic car technology, but the move allows drivers to continue using it until the flaw is fixed.
But in a May 11 reply to Rydelle, ARC Vice President of Product Integrity Steve Gold wrote that NHTSA’s position was not based on any objective technical or engineering finding of the defect, but rather on a strong claim of a hypothetical “welding slag” plugging the blower port.”
Weld debris has not been proven to be the cause of seven inflator ruptures in the US, and the ARC believes that only five ruptured during use, he wrote, and “does not support the conclusion that there is a systemic and widespread defect in this population.”
Gold also wrote that manufacturers, not device manufacturers like ARC, should be recalling. He wrote that NHTSA’s request for a recall exceeded the agency’s legal authority.
In a federal lawsuit filed last year, plaintiffs allege ARC inflators use ammonium nitrate as a secondary fuel to inflate airbags. The propellant is compressed into a tablet that can swell and form tiny holes when exposed to moisture. The lawsuit alleges that the decomposed tablets had a large surface area, causing them to burn too quickly and cause too much explosion.
The explosion will blow up metal tanks of chemicals, and metal fragments will fall into the cockpit. Ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and cheap explosives, is so dangerous that it burns too quickly even without moisture, the lawsuit says.
The plaintiffs allege that ARC inflators exploded seven times on U.S. roads and twice during ARC testing. To date, there have been five limited inflator recalls affecting approximately 5,000 vehicles, including three by General Motors Co.
Post time: Jul-24-2023
