What's Behind The Auto Recall Surge?

Published April 11, 2014 at 1:35 PM EDT

Following GM and Toyota, BMW is the latest auto maker to issue a recall of thousands of its vehicles. (Ron Sombilon/Flickr)

BMW is the latest automaker to announce a car recall. Yesterday, the automaker announced it’s recalling 156,137 luxury cars and SUVs because of possible stalling issues.

This comes on the heels of Toyota’s recall announcement this week, and General Motors’ recent vehicle recall notices. There have been more than 11 million vehicle recalls so far this year, and it’s part of the rapid rise of recalls in the past five years.

Paul Eisenstein, publisher of the car news website The Detroit Bureau, says on the whole, car quality is better than ever, but there are other factors at work, including larger scale production, and increased regulation of the auto industry.

He joins Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson to discuss the surge in recalls, despite all the innovations in automobile production.

Guest

Paul Eisenstein, publisher of the car news website TheDetroitBureau.com. He tweets @DetroitBureau.