The saga of Toyota’s Takata airbag recalls is not over. On Wednesday, the automaker announced that it was recalling an additional 5.8 million vehicles in Japan, China, and Europe, Reuters said early this morning.
The problems with Takata Corp.’s airbag inflators started in 2008, with reports that the bags can explode when left in high heat. The ammonium nitrate compound used in the bags can become unstable. In addition, the replacement bags did not include a drying agent, which could contribute to the likelihood of an explosion.
Some of the airbag inflators included in the new recall are those which were given out as replacements after an earlier recall in 2010. Vehicles affected by the newest recall include the Corolla, Vitz, Hilux, Etios and Yaris produced between May 2000 and November 2001, and between April 2006 and December 2014. About 1.16 million vehicles in Japan, 820,000 cars in China, and 1.47 million cars in Europe are said to be affected.
So far, the airbag explosions have been determined to be the cause of at least 16 deaths and hundreds of injuries worldwide. The latest, in Malaysia, occurred in a car for which the driver had received a recall notice, but the repair had never been done. In total, over 100 million Takata air bag inflators across many different carmakers have been determined to be defective.
United States regulators cracked down on Takata after an investigation into the ammonium nitrate in the inflators. Now, Reuters says, the company is working on finding a financial investor to help bail them out of the liabilities incurred over the course of the long recall.