Honda is experiencing something similar to Toyota’s well-publicized cover-up of unintended acceleration deaths. Its defense of Takata is looking shaky. Tetsuo Iwamura, chairman of American Honda, above, has a real crisis to deal with.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, has opened an investigation into allegations that Honda knew of several airbag deaths from defective Takata inflators years before it reported the fatalities to the safety agency.
Since 2008, ten of the largest vehicle manufacturers in the world that use Takata air bags have recalled more than 10 million cars in the United States – more than 17 million globally – to replace inflators that literally send shrapnel into the interior. So far the Takata inflators are involved in at least four deaths and countless serious injuries.
Honda’s alleged cover-up involves Accord and Civic models, two of its best-selling cars. It apparently knew of the problem in 2004 from a fatal accident. But Honda and Takata took no action. In 2007 Honda and Takata were again aware of fatal accidents, but Honda did not inform NHTSA until 2008 when it issued its first, limited recall. There have been other fatalities since then.
In what appears to be a flagrant violation of the so-called Tread Act, Honda, which knew of deaths failed to file Early Warning Reports or EWRs with information on each and every incident involving death or injury, identified in a claim against the manufacturer or a notice received by the manufacturer alleging or proving that the death or injury was caused by a possible defect.
Honda has until 24 November to respond to a long series of NHTSA questions with a company office signing an affidavit under oath.
