ARC Automotive Wants To Do This The Hard Way And Rejects NHTSA Probe

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ARC Automotive Wants To Do This The Hard Way And Rejects NHTSA Probe

Also Tesla just got Texas' endorsement for its charging plug and Mazda wants Panasonic to be its battery partner, all in today's Morning Shift.

By Adam Ismail
Published An hour ago

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, June 21, 2023 and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.

1st Gear: ARC Ain’t Playing Ball

At the end of May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ordered ARC Automotive to answer questions about airbag inflators that the regulatory body concluded were “tentatively defective.” ARC was supposed to respond to this request by June 14. The company, in essence, told the NHTSA to go pound sand. Courtesy Automotive News:

The company stated that it “strongly disagrees with the agency’s ‘tentative conclusion’ that a safety defect exists” in the subject driver and passenger inflators — 11 million of which were manufactured by Autoliv-acquired Delphi under a licensing agreement with ARC, which made the remainder.

At least nine incidents globally — seven in the U.S. — of ruptured airbag inflators have been identified in NHTSA’s still-open investigation of ARC. Of those, dating from 2009 to as recently as March, seven injuries and two deaths have been reported.

According to Auto News’ story, ARC’s position is that the injurious airbags in those specific accidents were defective due to welding-related “one-off manufacturing anomalies” that have long since been corrected in subsequent manufacturer recalls. Naturally, the NHTSA wanted to know how many affected units are out in the public that ARC believes could rupture. The company answered that its fix for the aforementioned “anomalies” may not be perfect, and that no production process can be:

In its response, ARC said it “did not design and manufacture its inflators with an expectation that some would occasionally experience a field rupture. ARC recognizes, however, that 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.”

Additionally, the supplier said its customers, automakers and NHTSA “have been informed that there have been unexplained field ruptures, and, as the case law recognizes and all manufacturers are aware, the risk of manufacturing anomalies cannot be completely ruled out in any mass production process.”

Fair enough; but that is, of course, what recalls are for. ARC believes it shouldn’t be subjected to those either. The company seems willing to drag this one out as long as possible, which it is able to do because the NHTSA, like so many government entities, only has authority if the negligent actor in question believes it should. We still don’t know precisely which makes and models sounded alarm bells for the NHTSA, which hampers owners’ ability to replace their potentially unsafe cars as well. It’s an awful situation all around. An NHTSA spokesperson said the company’s latest communication is currently being processed for sensitive information, and a public version will eventually be released after that’s done.

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