Takata Airbags: Honda Recalling Over 1 Million Cars In China

The fallout from faulty airbags manufactured by Takata Corp. just doesn’t seem to die down. Honda Motor Co. announced Friday it was recalling more than 1 million vehicles in China that were fitted with the airbags, which can explode with too much force and cause injury to passengers.

In a statement on its website, Honda China said Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co. — one of Honda’s two Chinese joint ventures — would recall a total of 1,038,924 vehicles manufactured between 2005 and 2012. They include 533,350 units of the CR-V crossover, 456,581 units of the Civic sedan, 48,309 units of the Platinum Rui sedan, as well as 684 units of imported Civic hybrids.

Dongfeng Honda will replace the faulty airbags in all the recalled vehicles, and will notify vehicle owners through points of sale and service centers, the statement added.

Japanese car manufacturer Honda is one of the worst-affected automakers in the fallout from faulty airbags made by Takata, also a Japanese company, that could see as many as 100 million vehicles recalled globally. In May, Honda had recalled 784,000 vehicles in Japan, and earlier the same month, it was sued — along with Takata — by the state of Hawaii over the airbags in its cars.

The faulty airbags have already been linked to 13 deaths worldwide, 10 of them in the United States, and have injured over 100 people. No injuries linked to the airbags have been reported in China so far.

The cost of recalls has put pressure on Honda and Toyota, Takata’s biggest customers, as well as on Takata itself. The company has been struggling to provide adequate replacement parts, and its stock price has fallen by almost 70 percent in the last 12 months.

On Friday, however, Takata shares closed 7.45 percent higher on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In contrast, Honda shares were up only 0.48 percent, while the broader Nikkei 225 Index climbed 1.07 percent.