Nissan, along with other carmakers such as Toyota and Honda, will stop using the airbag inflators from Takata on its future models.
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Toyota is also one of the many major vehicle companies that did business with Takata but in light of recent events it has also chose to drop Takata as an airbag supplier. More than 30 million cars have been recalled worldwide since 2008 over the Takata inflators. These liabilities would overwhelm companies far bigger than Takata, which had assets of just 485 billion yen ($4 billion) at the end of June.
Automakers have been attempting to distance themselves from the Japanese autoparts maker, whose airbags have been the subject to recalls of tens of millions of vehicles due to the ammonium nitrate propellant that can destabilize and cause the inflators to explode and send metal fragments into the vehicle, possibly injuring drivers, according to The New York Times. The issue has been linked to eight deaths and over 100 injuries.
The spate of bad news prompted heavy selling of Takata’s shares, which fell 6.2 per cent on Friday and lost almost 40 per cent for the week. Its Chief Executive Shigehisa Takada said the air bag company has decided not to use ammonium nitrate after NHTSA’s order. It also agreed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to a schedule for replacing numerous devices already in use over the next two years.
Toyota said, however, it might still use Takata air bags that do not contain parts that are associated with accidents.
“We will continue to put our customers’ safety first and work to replace the inflators in vehicles under recall as quickly as possible”, he added.
Repairs have been slowed by the magnitude and complexity of the recalls and by limits to the number of replacement parts that are available.
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Subaru and Mitsubishi are also involved in internal discussions regarding the future use of Takata components, with both expected to announce a similar suspension of supply contracts in the near future.
