NHTSA is putting $1.5 million in grants behind getting more recalled cars fixed

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced $1.5 million in grant money on Nov. 5 to help states get more recalled vehicles repaired. The funding is aimed at state motor vehicle agencies that can warn an owner about an open safety recall at the moment a registration is filed or renewed. Administrator Jonathan Morrison made the announcement at a Washington public meeting on the future of recalls.

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Open recalls are a stubborn problem because the notice usually arrives by mail, months after a manufacturer files its paperwork, and often goes to an address that is no longer current. A state registration desk sees nearly every vehicle on the road at least once a year, which makes it an obvious place to catch a car that was never fixed. The grant is meant to test how well that idea works in practice.

A grant program built around the registration counter

NHTSA’s announcement of the funding lists three priorities for applicants. States should build and operate a dependable process for telling owners about open recalls when they register vehicles, measure recall completions with data rather than guesswork, and write up their methods so other states can copy what works. The agency also encouraged applicants to assess how drivers feel about specific notification methods and to plan ways of tracking which vehicles actually get the remedy after a notice goes out.

The federal funding opportunity listing adds the mechanics. The program is titled State Process for Informing Consumers of Recalls, carries a $1.5 million total, and expects about five awards, with a ceiling of $1.5 million and a floor of $300,000 per award. Eligible applicants are state agencies with authority to register motor vehicles for use on public roads. No cost sharing is required. The listing was posted Nov. 4, and applications close Feb. 4, 2027.

Morrison framed the stakes in blunt terms. A vehicle with an open recall creates an avoidable hazard on the nation’s roads, the administrator said in the release, adding that giving states resources to flag open recalls when drivers register or renew can keep dangerous vehicles off the road.

Completion rates in the April 2026 report to Congress

The numbers behind the program come from NHTSA’s own April 2026 report to Congress on recall completion. It found that vehicle-only recalls opened between 2012 and 2022 have a weighted average completion rate of 65.8 percent, which leaves roughly a third of affected vehicles unrepaired. Cars three years old or younger have historically finished at about 87 percent, and rates fall as vehicles age and change hands.

Ownership churn is a large part of the explanation. The report says up to 30 percent of unrepaired vehicles in older campaigns see an owner or address change each year, and in the Takata airbag recalls up to 30 percent of vehicles were classified as unreachable. A registration-time prompt works around that gap because it reaches whoever currently holds the vehicle, wherever the original notice went. The report also said NHTSA planned a fiscal 2026 grant opportunity for state motor vehicle agencies to notify owners during registration, which is the program now on the table.

Other recommendations in the report point the same direction: better contact data drawn from purchase and repair records, plainer language that conveys urgency, and fewer obstacles such as long dealer waits, including mobile repairs, loaner cars and free towing. Owners can already check any vehicle by VIN on NHTSA’s recalls lookup page, but the lookup only helps people who think to use it.

Recalls Next and the open-recall problem

Morrison announced the money at Recalls Next: Technological Innovations and Safety Recalls, a daylong meeting at Department of Transportation headquarters on Nov. 5. NHTSA’s event page described the premise in a single sentence: despite technological and communication advances, millions of safety-recalled vehicles remain unrepaired. The agenda covered consumer outreach, automated driving systems, over-the-air updates, state initiatives and heavy-vehicle problems.

Morning breakout sessions went after the owner-behavior side of the problem. One session on reducing recall barriers featured Dr. Sheena Mirpuri of The Behavioural Insights Team, Dr. Jessica Cicchino of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Ford’s Emily Frascaroli and Patricia Doersch of the National Automobile Dealers Association, a lineup that mixes behavioral science, insurers, a manufacturer and the dealers who perform most repairs.

A state panel in the afternoon included Phil Dacey, deputy administrator of the Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration, alongside representatives from Stellantis, Experian Automotive, a New Jersey auto retailer coalition and the American Car Rental Association. Registration systems are run by states, not Washington, so the grant depends on agencies like Maryland’s choosing to build the notification step and then publishing what they learn.

The arithmetic is modest. If NHTSA funds about five awards from a $1.5 million pool, only a handful of states will receive money, and a single award at the ceiling would consume the entire program. Whether the results are strong enough to persuade the rest of the country to copy the approach will not be known until the first grantees report, well after the Feb. 4, 2027 deadline passes.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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