New materials overcome designed-in automobile dangers

Safety would be the life-saving outcome of airbag recalls affecting 34 million cars when industry, legislators, regulators, public interest proponents and consumers embrace new materials to protect drivers and passengers.

While Takata’s airbag recall may seem unprecedented, airbag malfunctions are commonplace. Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recalled 2.12 million cars for a TRW component.  In 2014, Japanese automakers recalled 3 million cars. In 2012, an Autoliv propellant triggered side airbag investigations.

{mosads}In Takata’s recall, three convergences express systemic failure:

-design, process and manufacturing errors

-data mismanagement

-designed-in dangers

First, new materials protect drivers and passengers from shrapnel released from defective airbags due to design, process and manufacturing failures.

In 2008, process and manufacturing errors caused propellants to explode, Takata asserted.

In 2013, in BMW, Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota recalls, moisture in a Mexico plant may have degraded airbags, Takata contended. 

In 2014, heat and humidity were suspected in ruptured airbags in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands.

Subsequent explosions undid every explanation.

Automobile manufacturer “vehicle design and manufacturing variability” figure inextricably in catastrophic detonations.

Airbags blow up in temperate regions as do those manufactured outside faulty production runs and storage locations.

Second, new materials protect from industry and regulatory data failures.  

Data management is a disaster.  “Various discrepancies in Takata’s record keeping” impelled Honda to expand recalls. This January, Honda negotiated maximum $70M settlements for “failing to report deaths [and] injuries….” Honda’s saving grace: a worker in its Washington office noticed smokestack data did not relate.

NHTSA is comparably, if differently, wanting collecting and analyzing data so much so Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) blasted “blatant, incompetent mismanagement” in a Senate hearing.

At a House hearing, Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) and Joseph P. Kennedy, III (D-Mass.) demanded data management upgrades to notify used car owners of defective airbags.  Olson spoke eloquently of a constituent’s death: like seven others, the person could have had no knowledge his car would drive him to his death.  

Third, new materials protect against designed-in dangers.

Designed-in dangers are nothing new. In Unsafe at Any Speed: Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile (1965), Ralph Nader argued that Chevrolet knowingly manufactured the Corvair with rear suspensions that tipped over cars to cut costs of a $15.00 front stabilizer bar, offered as an option.  In collisions, shiny dashboards blinded drivers and rocket-tipped grills injured pedestrians, he showed, too.  

Until the late fifties to early sixties, car manufacturers treated safety largely as an option. 

By 1965, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.) was vigilant about safety as a subcommittee colloquy attests:

Kennedy: What was the profit of General Motors last year?

GM: $1,700,000,000….

Kennedy: …You made $1,700,000,000…. And you spent $1,000,000 on [safety]…If you just gave 1 percent of…profits, that is $17,000,000.

In Takata recalls, inflators became designed-in dangers to achieve weight and cost reductions. “Installation of…airbags…. as standard equipment…has intensified the search for smaller, lighter, less expensive…systems. …[S]ince the inflator…is the heaviest and most expensive component…., there is a need for a lighter and less expensive inflator,” Takata noted. Takata replaced tetrazole, which was too costly, and sodium azide, which burned occupants, with ammonium nitrate  despite concerns excess pressure would make it blow up. 

Takata curtailed safety audits to reduce costs, a Senate report contends.

Markwayne Mullin, (R-Okla.) hammered at cost in the House hearing.   

Mullin: “You guys…are willing to do anything but take ownership…. You have known about it since 2004. 

Takata:  Not to the level…we have here…

Mullin:  …[I]n 2004 you identified there was a problem… 

Takata: We thought we had a root cause at that time….

Mullin:  Did you replace them?…

Takata: We worked with the automakers…  …We can tell you…what airbag we sent, and…automakers can tell you what vehicle it is in… 

Mullin: No, it is the cost… [W]e already found the root of the problem. It is the cost. 

Takata:No, sir, I…

Mullin:  No one wants

Takata: disagree with that

Mullin: to bear the cost…. If we wanted to find the problem, you cannot convince me we couldn’t find a solution. Except…we haven’t even agreed…who is going to pay for it. I think that is the root of the problem.”

Subcommittee Chairman Michael Burgess (R-Texas) expressed lawmakers’ incredulity that temporary replacements redeploying the defective design could maim or kill constituents: “So even someone who gets it fixed, may not really have it fixed?”  

400,000 replacement airbags will require re-replacement.

NHTSA’s fresh market administration authority with its coordinated remedy program, built on Safety Act (1966) legislation following Nader’s expose, fired by Sens. Abraham Ribicoff’s and Robert F. Kennedy’s hearings and architected by House Energy and Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) this spring, enables industry to address the crisis.  Auto component suppliers and auto manufacturers  approve NHTSA leadership.

“This is a pivotal time in vehicle safety,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) observed.  

Looking forward with new materials is as important as backward to root cause, which may be as much chimera as solution. Root cause analysis could mitigate Takata and automaker liabilities without improving safety beyond clarifying defective airbag inflators that Takata will discontinue manufacturing. Takata contends that it manufactures airbags to automaker specifications. Automakers reply they blow up. Root cause findings vindicating unknown science when original specifications were issued could moot liabilities. Many causes are probable.

Amid pervasive industry and regulatory failures, new materials protect drivers and passengers, because threads are designed, fabrics are architected and textiles woven so that stress makes the energy absorbent materials phenomenally stronger, thicker and heftier. Instead of fraying or rending, new materials sheath inflators to capture and contain ballistic shrapnel to overcome process and manufacturing failures, data mismanagement and designed-in dangers. They enhance car driver and occupant safety, reduce auto supplier and maker liability and lower insurer collision and accident claims.

Donahue and Pastore are principals of Energetic Textiles, a technology originator, partnering new materials engineering and manufacturing innovators.