You're listening to There Auto Be A Law, the
Center for Auto Safety podcast with Executive
Director Michael Brooks, Chief Engineer Fred
Perkins, and hosted by me, Anthony Cimino. For
over 50 years, the Center for Auto Safety has
worked to make cars safer. Hey, listeners. Welcome
back. Today is Wednesday, March 25th. We have
a... Returning, recurring special guest, the
man who needs no introduction, Phil Koopman. Welcome
back to the show. Hi, guys. Great to be back.
Maybe I should have asked you if you wanted a
specific introduction. That's fine. It's fine.
Everybody knows you at this point. You know,
you're the fourth Marx Brothers in this show.
So we're going to talk a lot about the wonderful
world and Michael's favorite subject. lately
waymo aren't we we're talking more and more about
self -driving cars but let's start off with a
an article from david zipper who's in bloomberg
titled here comes the self -driving traffic surge
now what's interesting about this is you know
they sell safe self -driving vehicles as being
hey this is going to make everything wonderful
and all the world will be great and traffic will
never happen accidents Won't be a thing. Your
kids will, you know, like you more. But this
article points out that more of AVs will lead
to more traffic because people will be taking
rides that they normally wouldn't take now. But
my the interesting part of this article that
jumped out at me was quoting as of late 2025,
deadheading represented almost half of Waymo's
total miles driven in the Bay Area. And that's
just. An empty Waymo just driving around looking
for a fare or going back to recharge or something
like that. So, gentlemen, it seems that AVs are
not the answer to everything. I have some thoughts
on this. Perfect. First of all, ride hail spends
a lot of time deadheading too. Yep. Right? Yep.
Taxes. And so an easy way to look at it is this
is just ride hail without the person in the front.
And why would you expect it to be any different
other than if someday it's cheaper, like they
keep promising. Last I heard, when the cost goes
down, demand goes up. So the issue is going to
be that if it actually ends up being cheaper,
you're going to see increased demand in some
cities like San Francisco, New York. That's going
to be huge. And other cities where the roads
are empty, maybe not as big a deal. The other
takeaway I got from this was. Another quote,
Waymo's Bay Area riders pay a premium of at least
10 % to take a robo taxi instead of a human driven
ride hail. So people are just paying extra because
they don't want to have to deal with a person,
which is very Silicon Valley. From my experience,
it sounds like that's a that's a big draw. I
mean, we've we've gone through that before. I
think when. I can't remember who it was, an article
or a lobbyist or someone talking about their
driver not smelling great or whatever it is.
There's kind of a negative sheen that's attached
to some drivers of cabs. And also, I think this
article cited, you know, you can play your own
music, control your own air conditioning. You
can do all these things on your own without running
it through a driver. I mean, I guess for those
of us that are, you know, not social creatures,
that could be a benefit worth paying a little
more for. But with human drivers on one of the
services, you can pay more for them not to talk
to you. That's actually a thing. Wait, really?
Yeah. Yeah. Quiet ride. And it's an upcharge.
Wow. That's just so rude and weird. I don't know.
Well, that, you know, people are willing to pay,
you know, fine. The question really is, is that
because it's novel or is that going to be enduring?
And even if it's an upcharge compared to a human
driver, if more supply drives the cost down,
you're going to get more use because that's just
how it's going to be, right? Yeah. There were
some other negative outcomes. Go ahead, Fred.
Speaking of people not talking, I did a little
research this morning, and using AI, it turns
out that Waymo has either 2 ,500 or 3 ,000 cars
in service right now. AI is very useful because
I asked it for an answer, and so it gave me two
different answers. So who the hell knows? But
they also said that they've got 70 people staffing
their remote driving capability at any time.
So using advanced mathematics, it turns out that
that means each driver, each remote driver's
got 42 .857 cars they're responsible for. And,
you know, each task or each driving. task for
the Waymos is roughly 20 minutes, right? They
said it's 10 miles and assuming it's 30 miles
an hour, you've got 20 minutes per trip. So for
each trip, the allocation of time for a remote
driver is about 30 seconds. And this, I don't
know, to me, this doesn't seem like a lot of
time to spend. Looking at all the safety -critical
events that can happen that need supervision
in the cars, what do you think about that, Phil?
What do you think about those numbers? Well,
the 30 seconds per trip is an average, so it
could be five minutes on one and nothing on a
bunch of others. It's hard to use the averages.
Yeah, that's an average, yeah. So Waymo would
probably say that that demonstrates cost -effectiveness
because they've improved the driver -to -vehicle
ratio, which is their big thing. If they were
intervening effectively, I'd say that was great.
What we're seeing on the roads is a lot of situations
where they're not able to intervene effectively.
I have a little side before we go down that path
because I think that's getting into my main point.
Yeah, it is. There's another thing about the
half -empty statistic, which is subtle but important
for safety. If the cars are empty half the time,
then that means if they get in a crash, it is
by definition a non -injury crash to the occupants.
And I did, there's an old blog entry on this,
I did some quick math. And basically, if you
only look at occupant injuries, setting aside
pedestrian injuries, if you look at occupant
injuries, if you have exactly the same number
of crashes in a robo -taxi as in a ride hail,
you should expect one -third the number of injuries.
Because half the time... The Robotaxi has nobody
and half the time it has one person. But a ride
hail, half the time it has one person and half
the time it has two people. If you do the math,
just if you had exactly the same crashes with
no differences at all, you would expect one third
the injury crash injuries or half the injury
crash, depending on your note. So if somebody
says, oh, we only have half as many injury crashes
as a ride hail, it's like, so you're no different
at all. Now, it's interesting. If there's no
drivers being hurt, you know, maybe that's a
good thing. There's fewer people being hurt.
But it's not a direct measure of how many bad
crashes are happening. It's just that the vehicle's
empty when it crashes. So when that Waymo crashed
into a utility pole, there was no one in it.
So there was no injury. But it might have been
as much because it was empty as because it was,
you know, that doesn't mean it was not a big
crash. Great point. Great point. The thing about
the claims of safety by Waymo that's interesting
to me is that, number one, the statistics that
they cite are not supported by the references
that they put on their website. So that's kind
of interesting. And the references they put in
their website are no more current than 2022.
In 2022, they were restricted in both speed and
geography to where they could go and how quickly
they could go there. There's a lot of bullshit
going on there, Bill, it seems to me. And by
all accounts, had very different software. They
apparently have incorporated end -to -end learning
in the last year, and that wasn't there for the
old data. Yeah, there's a lot of questions. There's
a lot of questions on this data. And a bigger
thing, everything is, I think you said this last
episode, Fred, it made sense. But another thing
to put on top is, if you have a... I guess they're
at 170 million miles a day to whatever they are
at, which is still, they're going to need, by
the time the dust settles, they'll need a billion.
They still have a long way to go to get statistical
experiments if nothing changed. But it did change.
They're completely changing the software stack
to the end -to -end. And from a statistical point
of view, you can't count old software against
new. It's like, well, I drove, and this is not
quite what they're saying, but I drove. I drove
100 million miles in a Waymo, then I drove a
million miles in a Tesla, so I get to divide
the Tesla data by 101 million. No, it doesn't
work that way. But I drove around 100 million
miles in an old Waymo that had componentized
machine learning. I switched to end -to -end.
I drive 1 million miles. You don't get to divide
by 101, but that's kind of what they're doing.
And those are all trailing statistics, trailing
indicators. So they've got nothing to do with
the future behavior of those vehicles. This is
another way to get at it. But the issue is, the
problem is, the rhetorical problem here is, if
you have something that's really bad, and we
don't know if it's really good or bad because
of the following problem. If you go 100 million
miles with something pretty good, you have something
that's twice as bad, which still in the world
of auto safety is still pretty safe. It's one
fatality per 50 million instead of 100 million.
It's going to be a long time before you see that
happen. But if you go 1 million with something
twice as dangerous, you dilute the numbers by
a factor of 100. So if you put out something
that's really dangerous and divide by the entire
history, you can do that and then fix it and
you haven't really changed the statistics at
all because there's so much inertia from the
history. So dividing by the entire life of all
the versions of software tells you nothing about
the current version. And it's what you said.
I'm just sort of coming at it a different way.
Well, what Waymo has said and... Paraphrasing,
saying every software release is validated to
operate exactly as it's designed. So does that
mean it's, I have to be snarky because I'm on
the show. Does that mean it's designed to pass
school buses without stopping? Because that's
what that says, right? I don't even understand
what that sentence means. I'm sure, to be clear,
I'm sure they didn't intend to say that, but
that's where you end up, right? Yeah, it's bizarre.
And they keep in mind, and correct me if I'm
wrong, but they still don't count any. where
the Waymo gets rear -ended, right? Well, they
don't count anything that's not their fault,
apparently. California is a no -fault state,
too. Anything they can say is not more than 50
% their fault, they don't like to count, depending
which study and which metric you're looking at.
And they don't say what that fault means. I mean,
is that their own opinion? Is that the opinion
of an insurance company? Is that, you know, what
the hell does that actually mean? It's mixing
legal with engineering descriptions. It's not
an approach that's safe. There is a precise definition
sort of for one of the really old ones, way,
way back when they only had a few million miles,
they did the insurance study. And the problem,
what at fault meant was that their insurance
policy paid out to a third party. But what that
leaves out is where there was no payment or was
49 .9 % their fault or. You know, depending if
it's that kind of state. But the other thing
that some of my insurance friends pointed out
is that if you pay cash at the time of the crash
to settle it out of your pocket, that doesn't
show up in your insurance. And that's also not
your fault. And we don't know whether they did
that or not. But my insurance friends looked
at this set and said, well, there's all sorts
of loopholes. Or if there's a court battle, if
there's dispute and you don't pay out till five
years later, for those five years, it doesn't
count as a payout, right? So there's a... Those
kind of studies have lots of problems. Basically,
if you're talking blame in this game, if you're
trying to talk about safety and use the word
blame or use the word fault, you're just trying
to dodge the numbers. Right. Well, there's another
issue with the Waymo. The terms of service say
that people can't sue. So the amount you can
recover is severely limited by the fact that
you've signed up for the service. So that's another
thing that skews the data away from fault. So
Michael's the lawyer on the call. But, you know,
if you sign binding arbitration and the Waymo
Insurance Company says no, that counts as not
their fault and your options for recourse are
limited. Okay. So we know that Waymo's PR team
is top notch, fabulous. We know that they're
playing some statistical. Absolutely, man. Some
of the stuff they get away with saying. Yep.
It's next level. Like Orwell is sitting there
cracking up, spinning in his grave. One thing
that Waymo has said is, and this is written down,
we don't have a teen program. Teens are not allowed
in our vehicle except in the Phoenix area. You
must be 13. Your parents sign a waiver. Nowhere
else on planet Earth does Waymo have a teen program.
And so now - How about preteens? Are they allowed?
No, you have to be at least 13. 13 and you always
have to be, if you're under the age of 18, you
have to be accompanied by an adult, except for
this. restricted area in phoenix where you can
get your parents if you're over 13 to sign a
liability waiver or something uh you're allowed
to do it but we've pointed out in the show that
there's people in san francisco talking about
i'm putting my nine -year -old in the car setting
him off to school and you know waymo is well
aware of this and now the california gig workers
union has filed a complaint against waymo quoting
from their press release the california gig workers
union and its affiliates filed a formal complaint
with the california public utilities commission
alleging that Waymo has been knowingly violating
the conditions of its state permit by transporting
unaccompanied minors through its autonomous ride
-hailing service in California, which raises
serious public safety and regulatory compliance
concerns. Now, Mr. Brooks, as an attorney, what
technique does Waymo use to just be like, that's
fine, don't worry about it? I mean, they've got
to go before. Apparently, they're going to have
to go before the California Public Utilities
Commission, which we discussed in the past, primarily
in relation to its actions with GM Cruise. And
they've got a lot of, you know, there are a lot
of different complaints here, right? There's
transporting unaccompanied minors, whether Waymo
has safeguards in place to prevent this from
happening, like age verification. I mean, we
know that Waymo can. basically see into every
vehicle and can monitor who and what is there
and what's going on. So, you know, reasonable
safeguards might include looking at the passenger
to determine whether or not they are a minor
or that type of thing. And then they're looking
to suspend Waymo's permit going for. financial
penalties for previous violations and a number
of other things, ultimately resulting in some
type of mandatory age verification happening.
And I don't think this is just a Waymo issue.
I mean, Waymo is obviously taking a lot of heat,
both from us and from regulators in a lot of
areas, because they're kind of the big boy on
the block that's out there first and making all
these mistakes. I definitely don't want to lose
track of the rest of the industry as, you know,
happens a lot in articles because there are,
you know, first of all, Waymo is using Federal
Motor Vehicle Safety Standard compliant vehicles
to do this. There are a lot of vehicles from
Zoox and from other companies that are proposed
that don't even meet those standards that are
going to be operating on our roads soon and have
far less miles accumulated with Waymo using a
different technology that hasn't been taken.
tested quite as long as Waymo. So, you know,
my concerns about Waymo exist, and yet I find
myself often wondering, you know, what does the
future hold for these other companies that are
kind of riding into the scene on Waymo's coattails
without any of the, you know, experience and,
you know, kind of underlying safety focus that,
you know, we've seen from Waymo in some areas.
We're not sure that that's going to translate
to the rest of the industry. Tesla, obviously,
is one of the concerning parties there. I think
that's fair. There's a lot of fast and loose
going on in the industry. We beat on Waymo, even
though they're better behaved than most. But
on the other hand, Waymo is past the point where
they could say, oh, give us a break. We're still
learning. When you brag about how many hundred
million miles you have and your slogan is you're
the world's most experienced driver and all these
things, you can't play that. But we're still
learning. You can't have it both ways. Well,
my Gaslight nomination this week will address
exactly that, how the Waymo infection is spreading
to Europe. Okay, well, before we get into that,
let's do a gentle feed into that, I think. There's
an article from KGW8 titled, Watch driverless
Waymo vehicle turns into oncoming traffic and
blocks roads in Houston. And so this is a case
where a Waymo starts trying to go down the wrong
way, down a one -way street, pauses, blocks traffic.
Hangs out there for a while, but then some mysterious
person in a faraway land moves the vehicle remotely.
Because what do we know about autonomous vehicles?
There's always somebody who's driving the vehicle
or at least monitoring the vehicle or paying
attention. I don't know. I think, Phil, you can
explain what what what happens here. At what
point does. Is the computer not doing the dynamic
driving task? There's a lot. I'm just going to
let you go. I'll leave the room. Okay. I will
give this a shot. For every robo -taxi that's
going to be practical on the roads for the foreseeable
future, there will be at some point in time someone
not in the robo -taxi who's going to deal with
its operation. This applies to robo -trucks.
I'll say robo -taxis, but it's going to apply
to robo -trucks as well. And the issue is you're
in a world that is not fully defined. The world
is full of craziness and no computer can deal
with all of it. And if you're saying, well, use
machine learning and it's really flexible, it's
like, well, it can only learn what it's seen
by example. And when there's something it's never
seen, it's going to struggle. And saying that
that's going to go away by next Tuesday is just
wishful thinking. This is with us for the long
term. It's one of the fundamental hard problems
of technology. Now, that's not bad. on its own.
You just have to embrace it instead of deny it.
So there will be times where it needs some help.
And the question is, how does that help happen?
And what are the safety implications? And so
in China, and for some, you know, maybe Tesla,
we don't really know, there's somebody watching
it all the time, or maybe somebody watching five
or 10 all the time. It's just there's a continuous
feed, and their job is to jump in when it needs
help. And if you're watching 10, it better not
be grab the steering wheel on a highway because
if two of them have that problem or it takes
too long. But if it gets stuck and you have to
jump in, you can notice it's stuck without it
telling you it's stuck, right? But in the U .S.
especially and for companies like Waymo, what
they would say is, no, no, no, we're not watching
them all the time. There have been times when
we know they were watching them all the time.
But for now, let's just say that that's the case.
They're not actually watching them all the time.
They can drop in randomly if they want. But the
story they tell is, well, the robot taxi is in
charge and it phones home for help. It phones
a friend. It uses a lifeline, depending on your
age and what your TV watching history is. You
know, it calls in for help. And they call that
a remote assistant. So a remote driver is someone
with a steering wheel. And a remote assistant
is, I'm just here to provide friendly advice.
Now, what they will claim, based on some standards
and guidelines, they'll claim, so SAJ 3016, the
standard that defines the levels, also defines
a remote assistant. And I'm not going to read
the precise language, but remote assistant is
someone who drops in to help when the trip cannot
or should not continue without some human perspective.
But J3016 is not a safety standard. It's explicitly
not a safety standard. It just says, here's the
definition of a role. Make of it what you will.
But there's another document from AVSC, Fred's
favorite organization, AVSC, which is not a standard,
which is not really a best practice because it's
a closed group that publishes whatever they want
through SAE. It's a bunch of autonomous vehicle
companies. And they publish this technical information
with an SAE banner, but it's really just their
publication. And some of the stuff they publish
is pretty good, but this one has a problem in
it. So it's the AVSC I -04 -2023 Best Practice
for ADS Remote Assistance Use Case. That's the
title. Good luck with that. We'll put a link
to it. You can put a link to it. And the good
thing about AVSC is you can download them for
free, unlike real SAE standards you have to pay
for most of them. So it's about how remote assistants
work. And what they do is they divide the world
into there's remote drivers and remote assistants.
Remote drivers perform a substantive part of
the dynamic driving tasks. So they're moving
the steering wheel, they're working the accelerator,
they're working the brakes. in some combination
as if they're in the car. This is the very generalized
thing. And remote assistance, well, they don't
have vehicle controls. Okay, we're still okay.
And in practice, you'll see interaction like
a pop -up menu on a screen. And a remote assistant
just clicks a box and the car will ask, is this
traffic light red or green? And they'll click
red or they'll click green. Or is this thing
on the road a... a plastic garbage bag or is
it a person who's fallen on the road? That's
actually an example from the guidance. That's
actually in there. Okay. It says, you know, if
it's a bag, that means it may be okay to run
over. And having a person remotely do these is
probably a good thing because I'd really rather
have a person check in on that than have the
machine guess when it's not really sure what's
going on. So this is okay so far. But... The
place where this gets problematic is the industry
position is if the remote person is not a driver,
then they do not play a safety role. It's just
advice. The car is responsible. They use the
word the car is responsible. The computer in
the car, the automated driving system is responsible
for safety. They've got a problem with this.
The problem with this is that a computer can't
be responsible for anything because it's not
a person. It has nudity of care for the safety
of other road users. You can't sue it. It has
nothing to pay you with if you could sue it because
it's not a person. It's not even a fictitious
person. It's just it can't be responsible for
anything. That's just playing hide the ball.
That's like literally nobody's responsible. But
quoting right from the AVSC document, while the
remote assistant may address. certain mission
-relevant tasks, it cannot perform safety -critical
functions like the DDT. And that's a huge gaslight.
That's my gaslight. That's a huge gaslight because
it clearly performs part of the DDT. You know,
saying it can't perform all means it has nothing
to do with safety. You know, I'm sorry, if the
remote person is saying that's a garbage bag,
it's okay to run over, even though you're not
sure, and you run over it, you can't say the...
The computer's responsible for running over the
person who's falling into the street. And this
stock and this standard lets the industry, gives
them a reason to say, but it wasn't the remote
person's fault either because they're not actually
the driver. So whose fault is it? Literally nobody's.
And there's a bunch of tort liability versus
product liability, which we can go to if you
guys really want to. But this is really a huge
problem. And one of the examples on page 12,
table two lists confirming or changing trajectory,
for example, whether there's an empty plastic
grocery bag or a person, right? So that's clearly
an issue. There was also a recorded mishap involving
Waymo. And the written thing in the SGO data
is a little unclear. Missy Cummings has gone
on record saying there's more nuance to it. So
let me do the two versions. We read the SGO and
some accompanying insider info that got published.
It was that the traffic light was red, but the
remote assistant said it was green. And the Waymo
entered the intersection in a crossing. I think
it was a moped rider wiped out trying to avoid
it, right? And the car would not have entered
the intersection if the remote assistant had
not said it was green. There's no way that would
have happened, right? So tell me that's not part
of completing the dynamic driving task. In particular,
object and event detection recognition saying,
hey, what color is your traffic light? Now, the
story that Missy Cummings tells us, it was a
little more nuanced. It was that a time delay
was involved, was that it was actually sort of
a stale yellow. And by the time the remote assistant
opined that it was yellow and for whatever reason
was okay to turn, it had turned red by the time
the answer came back, which is, Also interesting.
But either way, either way you go, it's still
the remote assistant was clearly playing a driving
safety role. But, you know, if you have this
thing on the road, you don't know what it is.
You ask, is it OK to run over? Click yes or no.
I understand you don't have a steering wheel.
I understand you don't have a gas pedal, but
don't tell me that you have no role to play in
safety. And we saw the same thing in one of the
school bus incidents, right? Well, yeah. And
so this really came to a head. One of the school
bus incidents, the remote assistant said, oh,
that's not a school bus with its stop sign out,
so it's okay to go by. And no one got hurt that
time. But that's an issue. So these remote assistants
are making decisions. I look at it as they're
making decisions. They're not driving. They're
making driving decisions. Is it OK to do X, Y?
They're granting permission. And the thing they're
granting permission for is something that carries
inherent life critical risk in many cases. And
so saying they have no, as this guidance says,
it cannot perform safety critical functions.
That's just not true. And we've already seen
multiple incidents that demonstrate this is not
true. Yeah. I mean, and we're even seeing, you
know, this kind of. We're seeing the industry
lobby to get language that would cement this
position into federal law. You know, the Self
-Drive Act that was proposed earlier this year
essentially defines and the definition section
says, you know, the automated driving system
and ADAS shall be considered to be the driver
of a vehicle when the ADAS is engaged, virtually
eliminating responsibility for remote drivers
and, you know, eliminating the ability of, you
know, injured parties to go after whoever it
is that can be considered responsible here in
the absence of ADS computing systems having bank
accounts. And where this ends up is, so there's
another side, I'm going to tease this again,
but we don't have to go into it right now, that
you can sue a driver under tort negligence liability,
but you have to sue a computer under product
liability, which is much more expensive, much
harder, and a different set of criteria. But
this allows the remote drivers to hide behind
the product liability, right? So now people say,
well, what about the operators in the Philippines?
Well, the remote operators in the Philippines,
if you believe the car is responsible, they have
no responsibility for safety. They just pick.
And Waymo will say, well, they have driver's
license and you should feel good they're carefully
selected. And maybe that will always be true
for Waymo, even when they come under cross -pressure.
We'll see how that turns out. But it is not necessarily
true for every company in every situation over
all time. And by the way, here's the cognitive
dissonance. If they have nothing to do with safety,
why do you care if they have driver licenses?
Why do you feel need to tell us they have driver
licenses if they have nothing to do with safety?
That's trying to put my finger on the cognitive
dissonance. Gets everyone uncomfortable about
this. But wait, there's more. If they really
have nothing to do with safety, if they have
nothing to do with safety, why isn't some high
school kids in Thailand who are using their Xbox
to give the feedback? I don't see. They have
nothing to do with safety. Why should it matter
who they are? Well, why is it anybody if it has
nothing to do with safety? Yeah. Why not? Why
are they needed? Yeah, I mean, do you turn left
or right? Well, we're going to have three eight
-year -olds with their Xbox playing a game, and
this is an in -game mission. And two of them
said left, one said right, so we're going with
left. I mean, and yeah, you think I'm exaggerating,
but a lot of AI turns out to be repackaging.
overseas cheap labor and running it through machine
learning, right? There's the whole deal about
Mechanical Turks and all that other stuff. And
you have to assume that if there is cost pressure,
you get what you incentivize. If there's cost
pressure and there's no regulatory oversight
of the quality and the diligence of the remote
workers, you're going to see a push to the bottom
on cost. Why would you expect anything else to
happen? And again, I'll say, you know, Waymo
is probably the best example of good practices
in the industry here. So what does that say about
what's coming our way? Particularly if Congress
allows for these massive exemptions and expansion
of current law to allow these types of vehicles
to scale quickly. I think we're going to see
some really negative safety outcomes. And to
be clear, so I was in D .C. at NHTSA and did
a panel, and there were some other panels there,
and it was a really interesting day. But on the
stage, someone said the computer driver, used
not quite these words, but they said the computer
driver is responsible for safety, used the word
responsible, and it wasn't Waymo. This is an
industry position. Waymo's out there because
they have the most cars, but this is the industry
all singing out the same songbook. And Waymo's
just the one having the incidents because they
have a couple thousand. Fred, your numbers were
about right. It's 2 ,000, 3 ,000 cars and something
like 70 operators. All right. So I've got a couple
of questions here. So the computer driver is
responsible. So the second - ADS, if you want
to be uptight, it's the automated driving system,
ADS level 345. So that - computer gets into some
accident and whatnot. So from an evidentiary
point of view, is that system software all locked
down now? So it can't be over the air updated
by accident because this is, this version is
involved in an accident. It's responsible. Is
all of that taken off of the market now? Because
it doesn't exist in one location. It exists in
3000 locations at once. Well, if you pull power,
it started frozen in. Right. Well, that's but
you have to do that fleet wide. And if you live
in Oklahoma, you remove the computer and throw
it in a jail cell, put a new computer in, you're
good to go because that computer was the one
that was responsible. And I wonder if the federal
statute that Michael's talking about ends up
there. But we you know, it's it's not, you know,
just physical hardware. That's the computer.
It's software as well. That's what I'm saying.
You pull the memories out too. The whole box
goes in the jail cell. Okay. But do we do that
with all 3 ,000 Waymo computer drivers out there?
Those are different computers. That's insane.
They're different drivers. Oh, that's not. Oh,
no, no. I'm sorry. Sanity left the building quite
a while back. Okay. You missed the exit. Got
it. Okay. So I'm going to try another version.
So Waymo driving down the street. It's moving
at 35 miles per hour. I don't know at what distance
its cameras and sensors see a object that it
doesn't know what it is. How far out is that?
100 yards? 500 yards? They go, I mean, even back
in 2015 when I was roading one in D .C., it was
hundreds of yards out in front of the vehicle
the LIDAR was seeing. Okay, so the resolution
is an issue. But, I mean, so seeing something
small that far out is hard. But, you know, just
get a single point back. So basically, if you
can see it, they can see it, but they see it
differently and maybe not with the same resolution,
maybe not with the same depth of perception.
So my question is, as an object in the road,
it doesn't know what it is. It's moving at 35
miles per hour. There's traffic behind it. Is
it, what is it doing before it calls for help?
Is it slowing and upsetting the traffic behind
them? Because everyone goes, it's just a plastic
bag. Who cares? Or is it getting there, stopping?
Or is it continuing at the same speed? It depends
on the company. There's no standard that requires
it to do anything. Okay, so let's pretend. Now,
Waymo, I want to be fair to Waymo. What Waymo
will tell you is the car is 100 % responsible
for ensuring safety. It phones a friend. Much
of the time, it figures it out before the friend
even responds and continues on its way. There
are a bunch of requests for remote assistance
that never actually connect. When Cruise had
these bad numbers about every two to five miles.
One of the things they said is a bunch of those
never actually even connect because it sorts
itself out before we can call home and we're
doing it proactively. And there's nothing wrong
with that, right? So be careful. If it calls
home and it sorts it on its own, then that's
fine. You shouldn't say that cost is a, you know,
I would prefer them to call home more often than
they need to out of abundance of caution. There
should not be penalized for that. So it calls
home and the car is responsible. The Waymo story
is the car is responsible for safety the entire
time. So if the person doesn't answer or the
person takes a long time to respond, that's on
the car. It's not on the person. Okay. But then
the person back in headquarters, wherever. At
some point, the person provides info and they're
going to be under time pressure. Why? Because
it's a call center. All call centers are under
time pressure. And meanwhile, you're clogging
up traffic and you've been told not to let the
thing clog up traffic too long and all these
other things. So you're under some time pressure.
You have to gain situational awareness. You have
to figure out what's happening. In some cases,
whether or not they do, I don't know. But you
should review the last 30 seconds of driving
to find out if there's something under the car
you can't see that happened to cruise, right?
The remote assistants didn't have time to respond,
but that would have been something they would
have had to deal with when there's pedestrian
in the car. So to do this properly, you have
to review how it got there. You have to review
where you are. You have to decide what to do
next. And you're looking through cameras and
you haven't lived it. So you have to go back
and sort of re -experience it. This can take
a while. Well, that's what I'm getting at because
then there's this longer delay and there's also
the response and this person who's, you know,
maybe is overworked as an air traffic controller.
There's another dimension to it, which is that
there is a process for escalating the issue to
higher authority. And what Waymo says is that,
yeah, the initial contact comes into the Philippines
or somebody like the Philippines, but then they've
got to take important issues or really dangerous
issues, promote them to personnel who are in
Detroit, Michigan, and have them resolve the
issue. In each case, at each step in the process,
there's got to be what Phil was talking about,
the recognition of the situation, development
of situational awareness, a judgment that the
issue has to be either disposed of there or escalated
to a higher issue or to a higher echelon. If
that happens, then you've got to reestablish
that situational awareness. This is useless for
any active safety issue that comes up as the
car is moving along because you simply don't
have the time to respond with the human input,
even if they're responsible or if they're not
responsible. You have no time for that human
input before the Waymo is going to bang into
that situation. Yeah, so realistically, the car
has to be able to be safe no matter what. It
can call for remote assistance. And if you have
a time -dependent issue, that's a problem because
time pressure is the enemy of getting, these
answers right. You don't want time pressure.
Now, when you're done, you can say, okay, the
car has pulled itself to the side of the road,
but we're in an intersection. Can we move two
meters forward to get out of the intersection?
And it's okay to take two or three minutes to
figure this out because people are honking at
you, but things are stable. Sure. There's nothing
wrong with that at all. As long as you can see
the two or three meters and a bunch of other
things. But if you're at a light that's changing
colors and the question is, do I go now? You're
just asking for trouble. And we've seen that
trouble occur, apparently. Right. But it's the
computer that's at fault. All right. That's a
really good gaslight. Now, Michael, I got to
ask you before we move on, is Phil right in that
it's the individual computer that caused the
problem? Or is my argument being like they're
all running the same software and hardware? More
or less. That it should be all of them. All of
who? All of the Waymo drivers. All of the drivers?
Because they're all the same software, theoretically.
I have a hard time even understanding what that
question means, since we don't really have any
reference for how the computer system could be
liable in the first place, right? Well, Utah
is in the middle of passing a law, so this is
going to be really interesting. Governor's going
to sign a law. So, Anthony, this gets down to,
is it a product defect or is it... the equivalent
of a driver defect. If it's a product defect,
they're all defective, right? But if you're going
after this particular car made a mistake and
we're going to hold that car's driver accountable
and not ask the product defect question, because
you get a machine learning that isn't really
defective because the best you can do is 99%.
No technology that's cost -effective would do
better. 99 % is all you get. 1 % of the time,
it just runs the light. I hope the numbers are
better than that. I'm using an easy number. But
that could be technically not a defective product,
which is not a very good one. And if you want
to say, well, the 1%, you need to hold it accountable,
then none of them are defective. It's just once
in a while it makes a mistake and you decided
it's important to hold them accountable when
they do. So it could be a single car for negligence
-style liability. And it could be all the cars
for product liability. The question is, what
theory are you pursuing when you try and hold
it accountable there? Well, there's going to
be some... interesting lawsuits in the future.
Well, ultimately, if you can't hold the human
actors and the corporations behind all this responsible,
then I don't know that anything makes sense here.
I mean, at some point, don't we reach just this
area of absurdity in the law that requires someone
to pin the tail on, right? Well, it's absurd,
but I think where they're going is they're going
to say, all right, because in Utah, I think it's
only $100 ,000, right? It's a low number. And
a million dollars for pain and suffering, which
compared to the new, the feds just came out with
a new number that's, I think, 14 .2 million value
of human life. That's the number for 2025, right?
So it's a factor, more than a factor of 10, factor
10, factor 100 off. But as a practical matter,
if you really want to go this way, which I think
Michael and I both have a problem with, but if
you want to go this way, you say, look, you carry
$100 ,000 of insurance. That money's in play.
If there's a crash, the insurance pays off or
it doesn't. Max pot is 100K after that. Too bad.
Crazy. Crazy. That's where they're going. That's
the path they're on. Oh, boy. Now, the Utah law
is a little interesting because it says, you
know, a plaintiff is not required to prove a
product defect. I mean, there's some interesting
parts in it, right? It smells like tort negligence
right there. Yeah. They think they're trying
to, the path I said is, is you don't have to
prove product defect. You just have to prove
the thing ran a red light and hit you. And you
have access to up to $100 ,000. for direct damages.
And if it's more than $100 ,000, well, you're
going to have to prove product defect now. So
I like the fact this law exists because it's
finally trying to admit that product liability
is the wrong tool for the job. But I don't think
this law gets us all the way there. No. And I
think the law also eliminates punitive damages,
which are necessary to, you know, whip into shape
bad actors in the industry. I haven't talked
to them, but I'm going to say that if the car
companies are unhappy and Michael's unhappy,
they're going to declare it a compromise and
move on, right? Hey, listeners, if you like tort
negligence, I prefer a lemon tort, go to autosavvy
.org and click on Donate. And with that, Mr.
Perkins, you have a gaslight. I do, and this
is kind of a complex one, but it is a gaslight
that's related to a company called Wave with
an assist from The Guardian. And Waymo. So jump
right into it. There was an article published
in The Guardian called We Don't Tell the Car
What It Should Do, My Ride in a Self -Driving
Taxi. And Steve Rose goes for a drive in a car
developed by a company called Wave, which is
trying to compete with Waymo and other similar
companies in England. And so he took a drive
in a car and he says driverless robo -taxis will
be accepting fares in Britain's biggest city
by the end of next year. And then the president
of the company Wave says, I'm really excited
to show you this, says Alex Kendall. And so they
get in the car and, quoting from the article,
by the time I step out, 20 minutes later. I'm
convinced Wave is a better driver than most humans.
Well, it's interesting because what the hell
is he basing that on? He's one person in one
car. He has crossed maybe a thousand cars going
in another direction, all of whom apparently
reached their destination safely. So why in the
world does he think that there's somehow something
superior about his uneventful trip compared to
all the other uneventful trips he's been observing?
He never really explains that. But there's a
couple of details that are worth noting. Kendall
says, the president of WAVE, says, this is how
WAVE's AI differs from other versions. It's got
a sense of being able to predict how the world
works, how to predict risk and safety. It's actually
understanding the dynamics of the scene. Nonsense.
All nonsense, right? It's understanding, Fred.
Come on. So this is a great example, I think.
He says, when another driver flashes their lights,
our car understands that they're letting us go
first. Now, my interpretation of that is, if
the car detects a flashing light, it assumes
it has the right of way. This seems incredibly
dangerous to me because there's a hell of a lot
of flashing lights out there. But, you know,
that's one of his accomplishments. He goes on
to say, globally, we've driven over 7 million
miles all autonomously, Kendall says. And Phil,
you might chime in. Is 7 million miles a lot
to establish the safety of an AV system? Add
three, four zeros to get there. Yep. And, yeah,
3040 is trailing the 7, not in front of the 7.
That's fair enough. Fair enough. You got me.
Just to be clear with people. It's not 007. No.
But he says, like a human driver, Waves AI knows
enough to figure out new situations, Kendall
claims. Good for them. Now he goes on to say
that first -generation autonomous vehicles. such
as those made by Tesla and Waymo, operated essentially
by breaking down the problem of driving into
discrete areas, meaning that's a rule -based
software system for the operation of those vehicles.
Then he goes on to say, by contrast, Kendall
says, Wave was built on end -to -end AI, so it's
one big neural network that has the intelligence
to make decisions. Both Tesla and Waymo now also
utilize forms of end -to -end AI, which means
that Even though there are significant shortcomings
in the statistics for safety revealed by both
Tesla and Waymo, they're both trailing indicators
that have nothing to do with future behavior.
It's like saying the United States has had major
wars every 20 years, so every 20 years we're
going to have a major war. I don't think that
follows. But it also says that what they've said
in the past and their claims about safety statistics.
are unrelated to the way they're currently operating
their vehicles because they've completely changed,
as Phil said, the software stack, and they're
now doing something completely different than
what they were doing when they made their previous
safety claims, which, again, I love saying this,
were unsupported by the references they put on
their website that is the basis of their safety
claims. A few more things here. Waves cars don't
use it at present. LiDAR. Kendall says Waves
AI is adaptable to any system. That's a hell
of an AI. You just throw anything at it and it's
all good. Anyway, noting that Waymo and Apollo
Go are by far the two largest robot taxi operators
in the world. Waymo completes 450 ,000 rides
a week. Boy, that seems like a lot. And Apollo
Go recording 250 ,000 rides a week. Going back
to AVSC, noting that Apollo Go is not included
in the AVSC coalition. Neither is Tesla. So really
the largest producers of self -driving vehicles
in the world are only represented by Waymo in
the AVSC. AVSC is basically set up to pretend
that there's a safety standard that's written
exclusively by the manufacturers. for their own
benefit, and without any input from third parties
or interested advocates like us. So there's a
problem here. And I'm going to leave it there,
I guess, because, well, one more. In response,
a Waymo spokesperson pointed to a recent poll
of people in San Francisco that said 73 % feel
safe with Waymos on their streets. And 68 % say
the vehicles have a positive impact on road safety.
This is the result of PR and the creation of
an urban myth by Waymo. So I think I've made
my case here. And I'm giving Waymo, actually,
and Wave the Gaslight of the Week award with
an assist to The Guardian. Okay, that's a complex
trifecta. Let me comment on one aspect of that,
which I think is sort of important. When someone
takes a ride in a Waymo or Tesla FSD, you hear
these, oh, I did Tesla FSD, it's a better driver
than I am, kind of quotes, right? Or the Wave
quote. With 70 million miles, you don't have
statistical significance for safety, and we all
know for life -critical safety, we know that.
Why are they saying it's better? There's a difference
between driving fluency and safety. So I expect
a good, solid end -to -end machine learning to
be better at driver fluency than a rule -based
system because it has spent all its computations
learning to how to act like a person. So when
someone flashes your lights, if you see a couple
white lights attached to something that looks
like a car and it's about the right elevation
and angle to be at an intersection. And the last
thousand times a human driver saw that they turned
in front, it's going to turn in front too. It's
going to be, I mean, if you have an LLM, an LLM
is spooky the way it talks like it's a person,
right? So why is it hard to believe that you
have an equivalent foundation model based on
driving data that is spooky and that it drives
like a person? That's not a hard stretch, but
that's driving fluency. It isn't necessarily
safety. Now, fluency and safety go together at
if you can't go 100 feet without hitting something,
well, that's pretty unsafe. And fluency means
you're not hitting stuff every block. Okay, cool.
But that's the beginning of the safety journey,
not the end. And fluency doesn't predict what's
going to happen when something unexpected happens,
which is where most of the hardcore safety stuff
lives. So you can get the feeling that it's a
safer driver. Because you're modeling on it,
does it feel like a good human driver? And the
best ones are going to feel just like a good
human driver. But in a 10 -minute, one -hour
ride, you're not going to see the one -in -a
-million -hour things that's out where fatal
crashes live. So that's why it feels sort of
like a paradox. Oh, thanks. That's a great point.
One other thing I want to say about this article
in The Guardian. is that they ended it by saying,
if you'd like to submit a response of up to 300
words by email to be considered for publication,
please click here. It was a dead link. It was
just dead just for you, though. Yeah, it was
dead just for Fred. They must have known I was
going to read it, I guess. Special for Fred,
absolutely. You should just enter that into an
LLM and be like, hey, why is this link dead?
And we'll come back and say, excellent question.
You're very insightful. Let me think about that.
Mr. Brooks, gaslight me. All right. My gaslight
this week is going to the Washington Post editorial
board. Oh, you sneaky son of a. OK. They wrote
this opinion piece generally centered around
the district. Department of Transportation, which
is very late on a study that was directed by
the city council a number of years ago to allow
to start the process for AVs to go to the nation's
capital. But the Post's commentary on it sounds
strangely familiar as if they are going directly
off industry talking points. So I'll give a few
examples of that. First off, they essentially
accused the D .C. Department of Transportation
of sabotaging the rollout of all vehicles in
the nation's capital, which I think is just jumping
the shark to the extent that, you know, I don't
think that the D .C. Department of Transportation
is actively attempting to sabotage autonomous
vehicles. It's a difficult issue. The D .C. Department
of Transportation is probably trying to catch
up and probably, like most government agencies,
underfunded and incapable of doing so. But here's
where it starts really getting good. Robo taxis
operated by Waymo, the leading AV firm, have
logged more than 170 million fully autonomous
miles with a safety record that puts human drivers
to shame. Clearly. That we've heard from industry
over and over that type of nonsense around statistically
insignificant miles. Next, if the district doesn't
move forward. maintenance and support operations
to Maryland, or legislators seem friendlier to
the idea of letting Waymo vehicles operate. It
would be a sad legacy for Mayor Bowser if Maryland
beats the capital city to the technology of the
future. If anything, that sounds exactly like
the arguments that are being made regarding China
moving ahead of the industry in the United States
and why regulations need to be relaxed here.
continual drumbeat for the end from the industry
and finally given these vehicles enviable safety
record the city ought to and i'm paraphrasing
here a little bit the city ought to move past
safety drivers move past fully autonomous testing
and move directly to full deployment um And for
basically serving as a mouthpiece for the AV
industry in this new formulation of the Washington
Post editorial board, I will give them my gaslight
this week. Excellent. Well done. You missed my
favorite quote from that article that said D
.C. streets are no more complicated or dangerous
than those of Los Angeles or San Francisco. Yes,
that is insane. If anyone's ever been to D .C.,
D .C. streets will run parallel to themselves.
It's the. Most bizarre. I blame the French for
this. Michael, were they were that was that commission
late or were they passive aggressively late?
How late was it? You know, I think they were
about five, six years late. I mean, OK, in fairness,
that sounds passive aggressively late. Yeah.
I mean, I mean, having followed having followed
NHTSA for all these years, you know, five to
six years. Doesn't seem unusual, but, you know,
it's a special, special case here. All right.
Well, I'm going to do my gas light that Michael
assigned to me that that I actually kind of like.
It is not Waymo. It's Tesla. What? No. And it's
Tesla semi trucks. Oh, yeah. That just in itself.
That's the gas light. So Tesla started putting
out its semi trucks and the Washington, the Wall
Street Journal has this very it's like Waymo's
PR wrote it. It's. It's the chef's kiss of just
nonsense because they talk to a bunch of drivers
and say, this is the best thing in the world
ever. It's so good. It's like because I get to
sit in the center of the cockpit and I don't
have to shift gears anymore. I mean, that sounds
great. You don't have to shift gears on an 18
wheeler. I mean, that sounds easier, but it's
just an electric engine. There's nothing unique
about Tesla there. But then when I go to back
up and everything, it's great. I normally have
to get out of the car and look around. But this
has cameras everywhere. You can just go and down
to. some local store and get cameras that will
help you do that today. There's nothing unique
about this. Uh, but then the article ends with,
and this is amazing. I had to look this up. Someone
saying, um, he said that the semi pulled a 25
,000 pound load of dog food up a mountain pass
as though it wasn't even there. I'm not a truck
driver at 25 ,000 pound load. That sounds like
a lot. It's not an 18 wheeler carries double
that. So, OK, they're doing this. The article
also quotes that the company is expected to deliver
between 5000 and 15000 semis in 2026 before ramping
up to 50000 trucks a year, according to a recent
report by Tigris Financial Partners. Tigris Financial
Partners, that sounds like a legitimate firm.
So I look them up. It looks like a website that
was built in 1988. Yes, 1998, 1988. It almost
looks like a gopher page. It's ridiculous. I
don't want to get into specifics because it just
could be poorly written stuff. But you look at
some of it and you're like, this is somebody,
this is a joke. Like it does not look like a
real organization at all. And sadly, this is
what the Wall Street Journal did as their background.
I mean, it's literally just quote what Elon Musk
says, because all of the financial firms that.
push tesla they literally as i've had many back
and forth with arc financial is uh i say hey
where's your source for this information and
they show me tweets from elon i'm like that that's
not a legitimate source come on what are you
talking about so the fact that they're going
to deliver between 5 000 and 15 000 uh that that's
that's not a rounding error that's that's a pretty
big difference like That's, you know, that's
changing how your production model runs for the
rest of the year. So my gaslight is the Wall
Street Journal. Oh, yeah, there we go. I did
it. Now, Fred made a request this week. He said
that I shouldn't be able to judge the gaslight,
which I frankly think Fred's gaslighting me.
That's horseshit. But he said, let's have Phil
judge this week. Our guest of honor, Judge the
Gaslight winner of this week. Oh, you better
be careful what you ask for. Yeah, I'm rooting
for you to do the right thing. First of all,
Anthony, my benchmark is 30 ,000 pounds of bananas,
so I know that the number's higher than that.
That's the number I know. Okay, good. Especially
if you're heading down a hill in the Scranton,
but only some people will get that reference.
I'd do it just if you're hauling string beans
to Utah. There you go. Okay, so. You warned me
this was going to happen. So I'm not unawares.
But it was like, well, usually you would give
it to your guest. You give the gift to your guest.
And I'm the guest. But you can't give it to yourself
if you're the judge. That's bad form. No, it's
not bad form. What are you talking about? Thank
you. Thank you for highlighting that. I softballed
that to you. Do the right thing. Choose yourself.
So I have an answer that pleases everyone. We
all get a trophy. She's giving me this. Yes,
we all get trophies. That's correct. It's a participation
award. All right. Participation trophy. She's
like the president. I love that. All right. Green
ribbons for everyone. All right. Go for it. We
all get an award. Really? That's your answer?
That's it. That's the answer. Everyone gets an
award. Oh, God. All right. All right. One last
thing before we jump into recalls. This was fascinating.
There's an article in Ars Technica. And of course,
I never thought about this. It's titled After
Hackers Hidden Iowa Company Cars Around the Country
Failed to Start. Just a quick story on this.
This is a company that sells interlock systems,
breathalyzers for people who have been convicted,
I guess, of DUIs. They have to blow on this to
get their car to start to show that, hey, I'm
not drunk. But hackers managed to hack the company
behind this and access their database. So none
of these breathalyzer systems will work, which
is. Because apparently while you're driving,
it will randomly ask you at times to blow into
it to make sure that you're still sober. That
sounds like a good idea, but it also sounds incredibly
dangerous. So you're going 65 miles down the
highway, hey, blow into this pipe for a second.
But now hackers have knocked this system offline.
So I think autonomous vehicles and everything
coming forward, computer connected, will be safe
and great. Yeah. I mean, basically, once you're
in the system, you have to go and get the device
calibrated every month. If you're not able to
do that, the device shuts down. You can't drive
because most states, you have to put this on
one car. If you drive, you have to drive that
one car. So these folks, I don't feel sorry for
a lot of them, by the way, or any of them, really,
since there's a reason why they're putting this
device in their car. And it's something else
that we are pretty... adamant about stopping
which is drunk driving But here, you know, the
folks couldn't go in and get their calibrations
done, which means they would be locked out of
their vehicle and unable to drive, unable to
get to work, that sort of thing. That's clearly
a problem. But, you know, like Anthony alluded
to, this is, you know, just one of many, many,
many databases out there that probably aren't
totally secure that could impact vehicle safety
ultimately. And, you know, just one other area
where we need effective cybersecurity. I don't
understand, though. I thought computers never
get distracted. They never make mistakes. You
know, it's a computer. It can't be wrong. You
keep on believing that, Fred. So this is A, predictable,
and B, there's a special case I wonder about.
Years ago, years ago, there was a little box
that would enforce auto payments. So if you were
a bad credit risk, they put a box in your car.
And that you would have to basically feed it
quarters, except you would pay your bill. And
then the car dealer that sold it to you would
send out a code turning your car back on for
another week. You know, it wasn't rental. It
was just keeping you on a short leash for car
payments. And there was a mess up and all the
cars bricked, right? So this kind of thing is
inevitable. But the other one is if it times
out why you're driving. Forget about the cyber
attack. Just normal design. If it times out while
you're driving, does it lock the transmission
on the highway? Yeah. And again, there's a precedent
for that. There's several aircraft, more than
one aircraft, where if you leave the engine running
too long, the engine shuts down, even if it's
in flight, because there's a timer that goes
over. In one of them, it's only like 30 days
or something. What? You have to reboot. There's
one aircraft where you have to reboot the jet
engines every 30 days or else they shut down
in flight. Yeah, it's special. And so as soon
as I hear anyone that there's a timeout, I ask
what happens if the timeout hits while you're
mid -mission because this is very foreseeable.
What airline is this? This is like all of them.
Airbuses have this problem. Boeing's had this
problem with different things. But it all amounts,
there's some 32 -bit counter that when it runs
out of bits, it rolls over in the engine. stops
working. And the solution is to reboot the engine
every couple of weeks. Oh my God. Oh, well, yeah.
There's people who don't like flying with me.
There's a reason it turns out. I know too many
stories. How do you fly? That's a better question.
I fly frequently because I have confidence that
the people know what they're doing as long as
they're adequately staffed. All right, let's
jump into recalls as I cancel my upcoming flights.
First up, Hyundai 61093 vehicles, the 2026 Palisade
Hybrid, the regular Palisade, the second and
third row power seat assemblies equipped in the
subject vehicles may not respond to contact with
an occupant or object as intended during activation
of certain powered seat functions, including
the automatic power folding function and the
one touch tilt and slide feature of the second
row power seat assembly. So this. This happened
because there was a fatality recently in March
in one of the Hyundai Palisade vehicles. There's
also a Kia recall. It's much smaller on their
Telluride. And it's these kind of elite trims.
It's not the base models that have they have
a lot of power. controls for their seats. And
one of these controls, essentially what's going
on here is it's not sensitive enough to objects
or people that are in those seats. And when you
push the button to fold it down, it doesn't reverse
as it should. There is no federal regulation
on this subject. Windows, power windows are required
in many circumstances to reverse. But despite
Pushing somewhat for this over the years for
all power accessories and vehicles, that would
include power doors, you know, the power lift
gate in the back, the power seats as well, because
this is the first time we've seen an incident
involving power seats injuring or killing someone.
There are no federal standards around these products
that require them to auto reverse. set minimum
safety standards to ensure that the systems can
do so. And we think that would have made a difference
in this case. Hyundai has got a temporary fix
that they're putting out over the air that these
owners can go to dealers to get that increases
the sensitivity of the anti -reverse software.
And there's a final fix coming ultimately as
soon as they... figure out the actual root cause
here. They're still doing that and working to
develop their remedy. Oh, please get that fixed,
people. As Michael said, Kia also, same recall,
568 vehicles, the 2027 Telluride Hybrid. And
that is the exact same issue, right? Yep. Okay.
Then, oh, a rare, rare entrant, Ford. 254 ,640
vehicles, the 2022 to 2025. Lincoln Navigator,
the 24 -25 Nautilus, the 25 Aviator. Unexpected
and repeated resets of the image processing module.
Whatever. Rearview camera bullshit. Come on.
You just put this one here on purpose because
Phil's on the show and he'll tell me how complicated
this stuff is. I get it. I get it. Well, I left
out a Toyota one that was a same problem, but
you know, we see one of these virtually every
week. So this is just, I've got to jump in. I
got a letter in the mail. My car has a recall.
It was a rear view camera. Yes. Bravo. Although
it isn't the rear view camera. It's the head
unit. It's not the camera this time. The old
car actually had problems with the camera and
the wiring and all that. This one's the head
unit. It takes a long time to start up. It's
like, yeah, I knew that. I'm glad. Maybe this
time the software fix will fix it. We're going
to find out. Actually, after this show, this
afternoon, I'm going to go down and see if the
over -the -air update really works because it
came out today. We're going to find out. I know
this. Not only did I get the letter, but I went
to the NHTSA website, put in my VIN, which I
do once every couple months. And sure enough,
the recall came up as active. So it's the real
deal. Yeah. Not some hacker trying to trick me
in by sending me a fake mail. Like, we'll get
him. We'll get him with that rear view camera.
All right. So, yeah. That's true. Oh, you know
what? We got. Why not? Let's do one more. It
is not a recall. It is an investigation. And
it's an investigation of a company called Tesla.
So Tesla's FSD is being investigated because
it's no good. Yeah, this is the older investigation.
You know, there's a newer one where they're failing
to stop for stoplights, failure to. cars, failure
to follow traffic laws, essentially. But this
was the first FSD investigation that was opened
in 2024 that involves the system not being able
to detect when the environment and the roadway
it's operating in, you know, is reduced the visibility
and the cameras on the Tesla can't quite detect
everything. This is basically a failure of full
self -driving. to detect when it's coming into
a zone or weather or whatever that it can't operate
in safely and warning the driver that the driver
has to take over the complete control of the
vehicle and that sort of thing. At this point,
it looks like NHTSA is trying, usually at this
state where they move to an engineering analysis
and upgrade the... preliminary evaluation, they
have decided that there's probably a need for
a recall. That's just how things typically operate.
We don't have any information that that's what's
going on here. But it is interesting for a lot
of reasons, particularly that this is something
that we've long pushed back on Tesla about because
there is just... no evidence that these camera
only systems, particularly Tesla's, can operate
safely in a lot of weather environments that
challenge visibility. And so, you know, while
this ultimately, you know, it could still be.
Depending on how Tesla fights a recall here,
you know, five to 10 years before we might see
something actually happen here, you know, and
in the meantime, we have politics interceding
because NHTSA has to, you know, the administrator
in consultation with the secretary of transportation
are going to have a role to play here. And, you
know, they they're going to have to talk to Elon
and negotiate what happens with the recall. We
are on the lookout for another questionable recall
fix here that's cheap for Tesla, allowing them.
It's a claim they did something, but in fact,
not really doing a whole lot for safety on our
roads. But we are very interested in this investigation
and will continue to update all of our listeners
as it progresses. Wonderful. If I can add to
that. So let me give you an example. Let's say
it has trouble in fog, which probably is one
of the things. Fog and mist, right? You can say,
well, don't drive it when it's foggy. Well, how
foggy is foggy? 400 meter haze fog or 100 meters
or 50 meters or 10 meters. And by the way, how
many drivers are trained to estimate how far
they can see in the fog? And it probably depends
on front lit, back lit, day, night. You know,
how is a driver supposed to know when it's too
foggy if the car doesn't tell him? It's completely
unrealistic. And what about smoke? Well, it's
smoke and smog. And if it's a low -lying cloud,
is that fog or is that a cloud? And so trying
to pin down an engineering spec and have a normal
person, ordinary person, implement an engineering
judgment that an engineer would require specialized
equipment to measure, that's not happening. So
for all these vehicles, it has to self -enforce
the environmental limits because it's easy to
say, well, there have to be good road lines or
it can't be foggy. It has to be day. And all
these things have these shades of gray, even
day -night. Well, what about twilight now? Is
it nautical twilight or civil twilight or astronomical
twilight? What do you mean by twilight even,
right? All these things, there's no... way for
a normal human to know exactly where the cutoff
is. And the one little bit over the cutoff, all
of a sudden it's their fault and it's unreasonable
to expect them to know that. So these systems,
to be safe, really have to police and enforce
their own limits. There's really no other way
to do it. Agreed. Maybe NHTSA or someone can
say, hey, these are the definitions of what we
mean by too foggy. Well, I think it's more, you
said too foggy, good for you. I don't care what
you tell the driver. If they press the go button,
it goes. It's on you. It's not on them because
how are they supposed to know that it was 49
meter visibility, not meter visibility? How in
the world were they going to know that, right?
It's the computer driver, man. It wasn't me.
It was the computer. Pull that card out. Put
it in the jail cell. Everything's fixed. Good
to go. Only if you live in Oklahoma. In other
places, it's more complicated. All right. Moving
to Oklahoma, folks. And with that, that's our
show. Thank you so much to Phil Kopman for coming
by again. And we'll be back next week. Bye -bye.
Thank you, Phil. Bye, everyone. Bye -bye. For
more information, visit www .autosafety .org.