Toyota Buying 13 Million Inflators for Air Bags

This move is considered to be a big one as most manufacturer have been affected by the world’s biggest automotive recall that has also made 10 automakers recall tens of millions of vehicles so that they can replace Takata airbags.

If Toyota does switch to Nippon Kayaku inflators it will start by replacing the high-risk Takata inflators, or the older ones, before proceeding to newer inflators.

Takaki Nakanishi, chief executive of Nakanishi Research Institute, told Reuters that the move does not mean that the company will be ending its business with Takata.

Last month, Toyota told the government that it plans to use suppliers other than Takata for around 23 percent of the inflators it will need to fix approximately 2.9 million vehicles in the United States.

Takata airbags, if you do not recall, have been associated with at least 8 deaths and more than 100 injuries after they had exploded (instead of properly inflated) with excessive force, which sprayed shrapnel throughout the vehicles.

Nippon Kayaku employs almost 5,200 staff on a consolidated basis.

After last year’s mass recall of Takata airbags throughout the auto manufacturing industry, most vehicle companies are probably not going to think twice about pursuing other airbag makers.

Takata said that exposure of a long period to high humidity and heat could make the air bags open with great force.

US lawmakers have requested that all cars equipped with air-bags from Takata be recalled, and this could affect about 50 million cars already on US roads.

Based in Tokyo, Nippon Kayaku could not confirm most of these things and the spokesman for Toyota would not respond to queries on the issue, but the sources are on the deal and would not like to be mentioned by name.

Takata uses inflators made by supplier Daicel Corp.as well as its own, and this has increased with the demand for replacements since the recall.

“This is a strategy where it’s trying to maintain business and reduce risk”, he said. Toyota “won’t do anything to crush Takata”, he added.

“It can certainly still survive as an airbag maker if it buys inflators from other companies”, he said. Total group sales in the year to end-March rose 1.1 percent to almost 162 billion yen ($1.3 billion).