Interesting
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-27/air-bag-maker-in-global-crisis-used-unusual-explosive.html
Takata fell 3.1 percent to 1,490 yen at the close of trading in Tokyo. The shares have plunged 51 percent this year.
Juichiro Takada, the son of Takezo who had taken over the business, was reluctant to enter a fledgling air-bag market he viewed as risky, according to Saburo Kobayashi, a former Honda engineer who spearheaded the automaker’s use of the safety devices.
Takada had reasons for reservations. Air bag deploy through contained, controlled explosions. Their designs are drawn from rocket propellant and munitions industries.
At a New Year’s party thrown by Honda in 1985, Takada said he wanted his company to stay out of air bags, Kobayashi wrote in his memoirs published in 2012.
“If anything happens to the air bags, Takata will go bankrupt,” Takada said, according to Kobayashi’s book. “We can’t cross a bridge as dangerous as this.”