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Regulators consider adding more carmakers to Takata recall

Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal has been getting a lot of press recently, but the Takata airbag inflator affair could be grabbing headlines again soon. According to Bloomberg, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is contemplating an expansion to the campaign that could add seven automakers to the 12 already affected. They are Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Spartan Motors, Suzuki, Tesla, Volvo Trucks, and VW Group. To be clear, there's no recall for any of these automakers, yet. The government is simply asking for a full list of vehicles that each of them have with Takata-supplied inflators containing ammonium nitrate propellant. The agency is concerned this substance could play a roll in the ruptures. "NHTSA is considering not only whether to issue an administrative order that would coordinate the remedy programs associated with the current Takata recalls, but also whether such an order should include expansion of the current recalls," the letters say. All seven can be viewed, here. From a report supplied by Takata, the government already knows that the company supplied 887,055 inflators with ammonium-nitrate propellant to VW and 184,926 of them to Tesla. In an incident during the summer, a side airbag allegedly burst in a 2015 VW Tiguan. In early September, NHTSA put out a revised report that there were 23.4 million inflators to be replaced in 19.2 million vehicles in the US. An earlier accounting from the agency had about 34 million of the parts in 30 million cars. High humidity is still believed to be among the biggest risk factors for the ruptures. Although, if ammonium nitrate also gets the blame, some already recalled models might need to be repaired again. Related Video:

Jaguar shows the face of its upcoming XE S sports sedan

Jaguar has a bunch of projects in the hopper, from the replacements for the XJ sedan and XK coupe/convertible to its very first crossover. But arguably the most important among them is the XE - the British automaker's upcoming new sports sedan. Coventry has given us all sorts of peeks at what to expect from the new XE, from a shadowy rendering of the front end to a photo of a camo-wrapped prototype. But this is our best look yet.
As part of an announcement of a planned audio-visual spectacle scheduled to herald the arrival of the XE, Jaguar has released the image you see above, showing the undisguised XE in apparent S specification. From what we can see, it sports a fascia that looks pretty much exactly as we'd expect, though that's no bad thing. The XE is set to introduce the new Ingenium family of 2.0-liter four-cylinder engines. Whether the XE S shown here would carry a version of that (with a potential supercharger) or transplant the 3.0-liter supercharged V6 from the F-Type S remains to be seen, but whatever's under the hood, we'd expect it to hold the top end of the XE range - at least for the car's introduction before a potential R, R-S or SVR version might come along to supplant it.
One way or another, don't be surprised if you see some BMW 3 Series sedans pacing down the street nervously for the next little while. In the meantime, you can scope out all the glorious details of Jaguar's planned collaborations with the likes of Emeli Sandé, Stella McCartney and Idris Elba as part of the FEEL XE campaign in the press release below.

Autoblog Podcast #327

New York Auto Show, Jim Farley interview, 2014 Chevrolet Silverado fuel economy, Ford fuel economy app challenge
Episode #327 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Zach Bowman and Jeff Ross talk about this year's New York Auto Show, Chevrolet's latest assault in the pickup truck fuel economy battle, and Ford's reward for developing a better fuel economy app. Dan also has an interview with Ford's Jim Farley about the future of Lincoln. We wrap with your questions and emails, and for those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Keep reading for our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #327: