mr. schostek. mr. schostek: we have replaced nearly two million. senator klobuchar: thank you very much. senator thune: senator nelson has one question to ask. he'll be back momentarily. let me ask our manufacturers, if your companies or other auto manufacturers are looking into what role if any the vehicle design may have played with regard to persistent high humidity affecting the performance of the airbag inflators, and if so, what have you learned? mr. schostek: you're reporting takata is talking about the vehicle design. mainly on the passenger side not driver side. where this area is grounded. we have not received much information from takata about this vehicle design theory. and when we do, we'll be happy to look into it. but we have not begun a study of our own on that idea. >> we are not doing our own study on that. we are unaware of takata seeing this trend in the data and asking the i.t.c. if they see more trend based on the parts tested from the field. senator thune: senator nelson. senator nelson: just one quick question. mr. schostek,

mr. schostek. mr. schostek: i appreciate the committee. let me begin by acknowledging that in the past two weeks we have confirmed that two more customers lost their lives. one in september, 2014, and the other in april of this year as a result of takata air bag inflator ruptures that have occurred in our older model vehicles. this is heartbreaking. and a painful reminder to us of the reason we continue to urgently accelerate our actions to repair the affected vehicles. but of course the real pain is experienced by the families of the victims. we sincerely apologize to them and extend our deepest sympathies. we are working very hard to solve this problem. over and above the required mailed notification to affected customers, we have pursued new and creative ideas to encourage our customers to check their vehicle identification number in order to increase the rate of response to the recalls. we have enhanced our general recalls website and created a new microsite dedicated to this issue to keep our customers informed and make it easy for th

mr. schostek. mr. schostek: we have replaced nearly two million. senator klobuchar: thank you very much. senator thune: senator nelson has one question to ask. he'll be back momentarily. let me ask our manufacturers, if your companies or other auto manufacturers are looking into what role if any the vehicle design may have played with regard to persist tent high humidity affecting the performance of the airbag inflators, and if so, what have you learned? mr. schostek: you're reporting takata is talking about the vehicle design. mainly on the passenger side not driver side. where this area is grounded. we have not received much information from takata about this vehicle design theory. and when we do, we'll be happy to look into it. but we have not begun a study of our own on that idea. >> we are not doing our own study on that. we are unaware of takata seeing this trend in the data and asking the i.t.c. if they see more trend based on the parts tested from the field. senator thune: senator nelson. senator nelson: just one quick question. mr. schoste

mr. schostek. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the opportunity to update the committee on our efforts since my last appearance before this committee. in the past two weeks we've confirmed two more customers lost their lives. one in september 2014 and the other in april of this year as a result of takata air bag inflator ruptures that have occurred in our older model vehicles. this is heartbreaking. and a painful reminder of the reason we continue to accelerate our actions to repair the affected vehicles. of course, the real pain is experienced by the families of the victims. we sincerely apologize to them and extend our deepest sympathies. we are working hard to solve this problem. over and above the required mail notification to affected customers, we've pursued new ideas to encourage our customers to check their vehicle identification number in order to increase the rate of response. we've enhanced our general recalls website and created a new microsite dedicated to this issue to keep consumers informed and make it

mr. schostek. mr. schosktek: i appreciate the committee. let me begin by acknowledging that in the past two weeks we have confirmed that two more customers lost their lives. one in september, 2014, and the other in april of this year as a result of takata air bag inflator ruptures that have occurred in our older model vehicles. this is heartbreaking. and a painful reminder to us of the reason we continue to urgently accelerate our actions to repair the affected vehicles. but of course the real pain is experienced by the families of the victims. we sincerely apologize to them and extend our deepest sympathies. we are working very hard to solve this problem. over and above the required mailed notification to affected customers, we have pursued new and creative ideas to encourage our customers to check their vehicle identification number in order to increase the rate of response to the recalls. we have enhanced our general recalls website and created a new microsite dedicated to this issue to keep our customers informed and make it easy for th

mr. rick schostek has the executive vice president or honda north america so i'm going to ask if we could my right if you will proceed with your testimony and then we will go from there and if you can confine it to is close to five minutes as possible and take it from there. mr. kennedy. [inaudible] >> i'm sorry. is it on now? my apologies. chairman thune ranking member nelson and establishment of the committee and honored to be here on behalf of takata and our employees throughout the united states. for takata safety is the core of what we do and who we are. we are proud that takata airbags have saved thousands of lives and prevented serious injuries in hundreds of thousands of accidents. it is unacceptable to us for even one of our products failing to perform as intended. we deeply regret each instance in which someone has been injured or killed. we will do everything in our power to adjust the safety concerns raised by airbag ruptures. our chairman met twice with administrator rosekind and made that commitment personally. that is why after months of testing and extensive analysis would