WASHINGTON, D.C., and IRVINE, Calif. -

In a development that prompted one Kelley Blue Book analyst to say, “people are in danger,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents released on Thursday that Continental Automotive Systems is recalling potentially up to 5 million air bag control units.

NHTSA officials indicated the affected units manufactured between Jan. 1, 2006 and Dec. 31, 2010 have a power supply component that may corrode and result in the failure of the air bag control units (ABCU).

“If the air bag control unit fails, safety systems such as seat belt pretensioners and air bags may not deploy in the event of a crash, increasing the risk of occupant injury,” NHSTSA said.

“Additionally, in some vehicles, the air bags may inadvertently deploy, increasing the risk of a crash,” the agency continued.

The regulator said Continental will notify the vehicle manufacturers that installed the air bag control units into vehicles. NHTSA noted the affected OEMs then will file recalls for these vehicles and notify their customers and replace the air bag control units.

NHTSA added Continental has not yet provided a notification schedule.

Industry reaction to another air bag issue

With the recall developments involving air bags manufactured by Takata Corp., still ongoing, KBB didn’t mince words when discussing this matter connected to Continental and potentially 5 million more vehicles.

“This is a very different issue than Takata, but the results are the same — people are in danger,” Rebecca Lindland, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book, said in comments the company provided to the media.

“In this case the airbag isn't deploying, which is just as bad as an airbag spewing shrapnel everywhere,” Lindland continued. “Hopefully there's an immediate fix for this latest airbag problem. 

“Automakers need to aggressively let owners know about the problem, and consumers need to proactively check to see if their vehicle is included once the models are identified,” she went on to say.

When the exact models are identified and eventually repaired, Eric Ibara shared an upbeat assessment. Ibara is the director of residual values for Kelley Blue Book.

“The silver lining for consumers is that once the recall fix is completed, there should not be any detrimental impact to their vehicle’s retained value,” Ibara said.

“It is somewhat unusual to see any impact to used-car values after recalls are announced, and in most cases, once the recall action is performed, the value of the vehicle continues to depreciate as if the recall never happened,” he added.

Furthermore, fellow KBB analyst Akshay Anand is looking for the matter involving Continental to handled better than what happened with Takata, which just released findings from an independent review panel that offered more than a dozen improvement suggestions.

“The Continental airbag issue has the potential to be serious, and hopefully they don’t follow Takata’s egregiously wrong route of ignoring the problem until they’re forced to address it,” Anand said.

“Continental, automakers, and the media all need to do their part to ensure consumers are aware of the situation,” Anand went on to say.

Timeline into Continental investigation

Among the documents NHTSA released on Thursday, the regulator shared the chorological series of events that have happened thus far involving Continental’s air bag control units.

Back on Jan. 30, 2008, NHTSA said Continental received an airbag control unit from Daimler AG that was removed from a vehicle whose owner complained of an illuminated airbag warning light. Officials reported that Continental analyzed the ACU and determined the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) was malfunctioning. Continental then sent the ASIC to Atmel Corp. for further analysis.

NHTSA continued that Atmel began an investigation and determined that due to variations in the manufacturing process of the ACU’s power supply component, corrosion in the semiconductor material could lead to swelling within the layers of the semiconductor. Atmel made this discovery in late March 2008.

Subsequently, the regulator noted that electrical connections might be interrupted, which could lead to a failure of the ASIC component.

“Thereafter, Atmel implemented two countermeasures to reduce the likelihood of the corrosion and a corrective action to prevent the corrosion from occurring in the future,” NHTSA officials said.

“Atmel and Continental notified their customers of the investigation results and Atmel’s countermeasures and corrective action,” they continued. “Continental, Atmel, and the various vehicle manufacturers continued to monitor and analyze field returns and determined that after the countermeasures were implemented, field returns for this ASIC issue reduced significantly.”

The next major development came in early 2011.

NHTSA determined that Continental became aware of two inadvertent deployments in the field, one from a Daimler vehicle and one from a Chrysler vehicle. The regulator indicated Continental, Atmel, Chrysler and Daimler continued to investigate this topic and the potential risk of an inadvertent deployment due to this ASIC issue.

Then in August 2011, NHTSA said that Continental concluded that the inadvertent deployments that occurred in the Daimler and the Chrysler vehicles were related to this ASIC issue.

Almost two years later — in March 2013 — NHTSA indicated that Daimler initiated a service campaign outside of the United States covering certain vehicles to address this ASIC issue.

Yet another OEM got involved in the matter last April.

American Honda Motor Co. requested that Continental conduct a download of an ACU from a 2008 Honda Accord that was involved in an accident on Oct. 26, 2013 and was the subject of a lawsuit. On July 21 of last year, NHTSA said Continental analyzed the ACU and determined that the ASIC was malfunctioning.

On that same day, NHTSA said it contacted Continental and requested that Continental conduct a download of an ACU from a 2008 Honda Accord that was involved in an accident on March 30 of last year.

Then on Aug. 18, NHTSA opened an investigation for Honda Accords from the 2008 through 2010 model years

On Sept. 9, NHTSA said Continental analyzed the ACU from the 2008 Honda Accord that was involved in an accident on March 30. On the same date, the regulator said Continental removed the ASIC from the ACU that was installed in the 2008 Honda Accord that was involved in an accident on Oct. 26, 2013.

Officials said the ASIC was sent to Atmel for further analysis and on Sept. 28 of last year, Atmel confirmed that the malfunction of this ASIC was related to this topic.

Yet another development began last Oct. 27. That’s when Mercedes-Benz USA filed a defect information report with NHTSA covering certain Mercedes Benz C-Class vehicles from the 2008 and 2009 model years as well as 2010 Mercedes Benz GLK-Class vehicles to address this ASIC issue.

Then this past Jan. 15, NHTSA said Honda notified Continental that it determined that a safety-related defect exists in the ACU of certain Honda Accords from the 2008 and 2009 model years due to the same defect covered in Mercedes-Benz USA’s defect report.

“For the approximately 3 million ACUs produced from 2006 until implementation of the countermeasures, Continental is aware of 521 field returns that were correlated to this ASIC issue,” NHTSA officials said.

“For the approximately 2 million ACUs produced after these countermeasures, Continental is aware of 81 field returns that were correlated to this ASIC issue,” they continued.

“Continental is not aware of any field returns for this ASIC issue after implementation of the final corrective measure,” NHTSA went on to say.