Faulty Takata air bags in cars across the globe have wreaked havoc since over a year now with initial estimates putting the number of defective air bag inflators to over 34 million in 30 million cars.
However, there has been a revision of this estimate with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now stating that 19.2 million vehicles in the United States still have defective Takata Corp air bag inflators. The official also revealed that out of these, 4 million cars have defective air inflator in both their driver side and passenger side air bags.
The official clarified that previous estimates of 30 million cars was because of double counting and as this issue has been rectified, the number of defective air bag inflators now stand corrected as being fitted in 19.2 million vehicles.
The automotive recall has been one of the biggest in the history of US and one of the most complex as well. According to official reports, as many as 8 people have lost their lives due to this defect and over 100 have been injured in accidents globally.
According to The NHTSA, 4.4 million inflators have already been replaced. A few cars have had an interim fix and these may required permanent replacement again.
As it stands, NHTSA officials are involved in a comprehensive public outreach program informing car owners about the safety problem with the inflators.
“NHTSA has released the full list of vehicles (by model year, make and model) affected by the Takata airbag recalls. Consumers can also use NHTSA’s VIN look-up tool to see if their Vehicle Identification Number matches one of the estimated 32 million vehicles from 11 auto manufacturers involved in the recall,” notes safer.gov.
