DETROIT (AP) — A company that makes air-bag inflators that have exploded in eight incidents involving two deaths and seven injuries argued Tuesday that it can't say for sure whether its inflators might cause further such incidents.
In a reply to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the company, ARC Automotive of Knoxville, Tennessee, said that even adhering to industry quality standards cannot fully eliminate the risk of occasional failures in which the air-bag inflators might explode and spew shrapnel.
NHTSA has demanded that ARC recall 67 million inflators in driver and passenger front air bags from at least a dozen automakers. Neither ARC nor the auto industry has released a full list of vehicle models with the kind of air bag inflators that have exploded. But at least 33 million vehicles on the road are believed to contain them.
ARC has refused to issue a full-scale recall, setting the stage for a possible court fight. The company maintains that no safety defect exists, that NHTSA’s demand is based on a hypothesis rather than technical conclusions and that the agency has no authority to order a parts manufacturer to announce recalls.
“Even with appropriate industry standards and efforts by manufacturers to minimize the risks of failures, the manufacturing processes may not completely eliminate the risk of occasional or isolated failures,” ARC wrote in its reply.
It is unclear what might happen next. Having tentatively determined that the inflators are defective, NHTSA could issue a final conclusion, then schedule a public hearing on the matter. After that, the agency could take ARC to court to force a recall.
