A logo of Takata Corp is seen through a car window outside the company's headquarter building in Tokyo. (Photo : Reuters)
A recently published report claim that the Takata Air Bag recall is hitting its slowest pace over the past few months. On the other hand, another report from United States safety regulators claim that a new investigation could lead to yet another millions of recalls in the future.
The Japanese air bag maker Takata was relieved after several news surfaced that the recall linked to the company's malfunctioning airbag will be smaller than initially anticipated. However, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have also started a separate investigation that could potentially add more vehicles into the recall list due to the malfunctioning airbag.
According to NBC News, the future recall will include not only old vehicles but also millions of newer models. The latest investigation launched by the NHTSA will cover a wider range of air bags that will include not only frontal air bags but also side-impact restraints.
The recent investigation was instigated by several reports that the faulty air bag claimed the lives of at least eight people and injured at least 100 individuals.
An NHTSA official told Reuters that 19.2 million vehicles, containing a total of 23.4 million airbag inflators, from 11 car manufacturers were part of the recent recall. The official added that the air bag inflator figure is higher compared to the number of cars because some vehicles have defective airbag on both the driver and passenger sides.
The original estimate released several months ago claim that at least 30 million defective air bags are installed in vehicles within U.S. alone. The figure was reduced after investigations reveal that the original estimate double counted the number of air bags and affected vehicles.
