Top Recalled Components
Torino, 10th December 2025
Why Component-Level Recall Data Matters
Over the last few years, the automotive industry has undergone one of the most significant transformations in its history. Electrification, digitalization, and increasingly complex supply chains have reshaped how vehicles are designed, produced, and supported in the field. With this complexity, however, comes a new generation of quality and safety challenges, many of which manifest through large-scale recall campaigns.
Understanding which components fail has become essential not only for OEMs and suppliers, but also for insurers and underwriters who must quantify technical exposure in a rapidly evolving market.
In our recent article “The Rising Wave of EV Recalls”, we explored how high-voltage batteries and electrified architectures are influencing recall trends. Continuing that analytical journey, we now turn to a different but equally important question:
From a component-level perspective, where do the majority of recalls originate, and how does this pattern differ across EV/hybrid and traditional powertrains?
To answer this, we analyzed 2020 to Nov 2025 recall data published by NHTSA, focusing on the underlying components that triggered recall actions. The results reveal clear patterns, emerging risks, and a number of insights that matter for both manufacturers and underwriters.
Top Recall Components
The chart illustrates the top 25 vehicle components most frequently involved in recalls from 2020 to 2025. Among these, six categories stand out as the primary drivers of recall exposure.
- Airbags
- Electrical systems
- Back-over prevention,
- Hydraulic service brakes
- Gasoline fuel systems
- Power train
Combined, these six categories represent more than 65% of all recalled units, demonstrating how concentrated recall risk remains across a handful of critical systems.
At the same time, approximately 7% of recalled vehicles were issued without any component specified, adding uncertainty when evaluating supplier or technical risk.
With this broader context established, we now turn to the most recent year to understand how these patterns evolve. What does the component landscape look like in 2025 alone?
Which Components Drive Recall Exposure in 2025?
When we compare the 2025 data with the broader 2020–2025 period, one difference becomes immediately clear: airbag-related recalls drop sharply in 2025, while electrical systems and back-over prevention remain consistently high and continue to drive a significant share of recall activity.
Building on this comparison, the difference between ICE and EV/Hybrid vehicles in 2025 becomes clear. ICE models remain more involved in traditional components such as back-over prevention, electrical systems, fuel systems, and hydraulic brakes. EV/Hybrid recalls, though fewer in number, are concentrated almost entirely in electrical and sensor-driven systems.
Furthermore, some recalls are accompanied by safety advisories, including Do Not Drive and Park Outside notices, indicating a higher level of urgency and potential hazard.
When we examine these advisories for 2025, a clear pattern emerges: the majority of high-severity advisories are linked to electrical-system defects in EV/Hybrid vehicles, underscoring how critical electrical architecture has become to overall vehicle safety.
Our analysis has demonstrated clear patterns in the components most frequently driving recalls and how electrification has fundamentally shifted exposure toward electrical and software-driven systems. This trend is reflected in real-world cases, including Volvo’s EX90 recall caused by software issues affecting multiple functions (InsideEVs report). Taken together, these insights confirm that EV/Hybrid recalls are becoming increasingly critical, and when they include advisories, they carry materially higher operational impact and cost implications.
How Rcalls Helps Underwriters Assess Exposure
As vehicle complexity increases and electrification expands, OEMs and insurers must manage a growing range of component-level risks.
Rcalls provides the clarity needed to do so.
- Risk Assessment – Data-driven evaluation of product issues to understand exposure and support insurance negotiations.
- Audit Management – Centralized, always-updated records to ensure compliance and improve quality processes.
- Automated Reporting – Up to 70% faster reporting with ready-to-share outputs on defects, trends, and corrective actions.
- Root Cause Analysis – Expert-supported tools to identify underlying issues and prevent repeat failures.
In a market where a single defect can escalate into a multi-million-dollar recall, Rcalls helps organizations detect issues earlier, understand exposure more accurately, and negotiate product-recall insurance with greater confidence.
