Tavares admitted responsibility and deep regret for the serious Takata airbag affair and apologized to the customers involved. The CEO then set an ambitious goal: to solve 80 percent of the problems by Christmas, thus trying to end this crisis.
Carlos Tavares offers apology and promises to resolve Takata airbag problem by year’s end
After the notorious Takata airbag scandal, Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, expressed deep regret for the inconvenience caused to customers of the DS and Citroen brands, who were involved in the extensive recall campaign. The company is now committed to resolving at least 80 percent of the cases by the end of the year.
The Stellantis CEO publicly acknowledged the seriousness of the situation and issued a sincere apology to affected customers, directed at DS and Citroen customers involved in the extensive Takata airbag recall. This stance is an exception in the automotive world, where top management rarely publicly admits mistakes of this magnitude. Instead, Tavares wanted to emphasize the inconvenience caused to owners of the vehicles involved, who were asked not to use their cars until the defective airbags were replaced.
Defective airbags: 600,000 vehicles recalled for DS and Citroen, more than 2,300 French consumers sue Stellantis
We would like now to recall that this Takata defective airbag scandal involved hundreds of thousands of vehicles of the DS and Citroen brands produced between 2009 and 2019. The mass recall, which affected about 600,000 vehicles across Europe, represented one of the biggest automotive safety crises in recent years, forcing the company to take drastic measures to protect the safety of drivers and passengers.
That Takata airbag issue has since taken on a significant legal dimension, especially in France where a collective of more than 2,300 consumers has filed a class action lawsuit against Stellantis, demanding substantial financial compensation.
Aware of the considerable inconvenience caused to customers, who were forced to give up the use of their cars for a prolonged period, Tavares assured a total commitment on the part of Stellantis to resolve the issue as quickly as possible by implementing a series of extraordinary initiatives.
Commitment to an ambitious goal: 80 percent of replacements by Christmas
In fact, to meet the high demand for replacements, Stellantis has doubled the production capacity of new airbags that meet safety standards. In addition, customers involved in the recall were offered free courtesy vehicles for the duration of the replacement operations for the defective airbags. And not only that. Obviously, it also had to activate and create teams of specialized technicians, creating information campaigns to provide the ways of solutions needed to book interventions for the affected vehicles.
While more than 161,000 airbags have already been replaced, Stellantis is determined to reach an even more ambitious goal: to complete 80 percent of replacements by the holiday season. To accelerate the timetable, CEO Carlos Tavares has announced a new strategy that includes greater involvement of all the group’s brands. The objective is to boost intervention capacity and optimize replacement operations, thus ensuring faster and more efficient customer service.