The Ministry of Transport ordered the immobilization of 800,000 additional cars equipped with Takata Airbags, two weeks after the equipment was again questioned in a deadly road accident. A judicial source said to Reuters who autopsy of the driver who died on June 11 in Reims (Marne) confirmed the responsibility of the Airbag in serious injuries that resulted in her death. After a collision, the protective cushion was ejected from the vehicle and found on the road, projecting a metal part in the victim’s larynx.
The hardening of the so-called “stop drive” procedure is the continuation of the most important product recall campaign that the automotive industry has ever known, eight years after the Japanese equipment supplier Takata, at the heart of the scandal, has filed for bankruptcy in the United States and Japan.
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“This decision aims to send a clear and firm message to the manufacturers, while encouraging the owners of the vehicles concerned to have their vehicle checked as soon as possible,” Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said in a press release. He asked for a reminder with a ban on circulating for all vehicles equipped with Takata airbags of the same technology as those who caused accidents, present in Corsica and in the overseas departments and territories, whatever their age, and does the same injunction for mainland France, for vehicles produced until 2011.
The government has already indicated on its website that a large part of the vehicles of 30 brands manufactured between 1998 and 2019 were potentially at risk. According to an estimate of the ministry, on the basis of the data provided by the manufacturers, the recall is now extended in France to 2.5 million vehicles, including a volume doubled at 1.7 million in “stop drive”.
So far the most affected through its Citroën and DS brands, Stellantis announced last week to spend 82,000 additional cars in “stop drive”. All 6,90,000 models produced between 2014 and 2019 and marketed in France are now the subject of this procedure. Of this total, 481,000 have already been repaired.
Takata, whose assets were mainly taken over by a company with Chinese capital based in the United States, had estimated at the time of its bankruptcy that it had recalled or would recall 125 million vehicles by 2019. No comments could be obtained immediately from representatives of the new owner of Takata.
With Reuters (Gilles Guillaume and Makini Brice, Gilles Guillaume and Dominique Vidalon, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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