A top executive says Takata Corp. is encouraging automakers to replace defective air bag inflators with newly designed ones from the company, or with those made by competitors that don't include a volatile chemical.
The defect is linked to at least six deaths and more than 100 injuries.
The company has declared 33.8 million air bags defective in an agreement with U.S. regulators.
Takata uses the chemical, ammonium nitrate, to inflate the air bags. It can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal inflator and sending shrapnel into the passenger compartment.
In replacing many faulty air bags, Takata is looking to make air bag inflators with a new design that use ammonium nitrate, or to use inflators made by rival suppliers which don't use the chemical, Kennedy said.
Already, half the replacements that Takata shipped to automakers last month had inflators made by its competitors, Kennedy said. By year's end, he said, that is expected to reach about 70 percent.
The Takata air bag problems began surfacing about a decade ago.
Although the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the auto industry are still trying to determine exactly what is causing Takata's inflators to explode, the agency said last week it decided the recall action needed to be taken immediately to protect the public.
Kennedy said there have been fewer than nine failures causing air bag ruptures in the U.S. out of every 100,000 air bag deployments. Most of them occurred in parts of the country with high heat and humidity, he said.