WEBVTT 00:00:01.960 --> 00:00:05.540 You're listening to There Auto Be A Law, the 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:08.259 Center for Auto Safety podcast with Executive 00:00:08.259 --> 00:00:11.720 Director Michael Brooks, Chief Engineer Fred 00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:15.640 Perkins, and hosted by me, Anthony Cimino. For 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:18.300 over 50 years, the Center for Auto Safety has 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:26.100 worked to make cars safer. Hey, listeners, thanks 00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:29.500 for coming and interrupting our really enlightening 00:00:29.500 --> 00:00:32.990 conversation. I'm glad you're here. Today is 00:00:32.990 --> 00:00:36.590 Wednesday, May 27th, and we're going to talk 00:00:36.590 --> 00:00:39.850 to you about the wonderful world of what? Waymo. 00:00:40.570 --> 00:00:44.289 That's right. Waymo is going to dominate this 00:00:44.289 --> 00:00:47.450 week's episode, is my guess. Because, as we talked 00:00:47.450 --> 00:00:50.329 about last week, Waymo still has problems with 00:00:50.329 --> 00:00:54.409 flooded roads. That's right. So this is from 00:00:54.409 --> 00:00:57.450 TechCrunch. I'm going to quote directly. Waymo 00:00:57.450 --> 00:01:00.429 admitted that it hadn't finished developing a 00:01:00.429 --> 00:01:03.149 final remedy. Now I got to stop there because 00:01:03.149 --> 00:01:06.049 that's the way most PR is generally top notch. 00:01:06.250 --> 00:01:08.209 But they decided to use for a software solution. 00:01:08.349 --> 00:01:11.609 They use the term final remedy, which just sounds 00:01:11.609 --> 00:01:15.090 like something Elon would have written. Anyway, 00:01:15.189 --> 00:01:18.849 continuing, they hadn't finished developing a 00:01:18.849 --> 00:01:21.530 final remedy for avoiding flooded areas when 00:01:21.530 --> 00:01:23.629 it issued its software recall last week. Instead, 00:01:23.769 --> 00:01:25.530 the company said it had shipped an update to 00:01:25.530 --> 00:01:27.930 its fleet that placed restrictions at times and 00:01:27.930 --> 00:01:30.989 in locations, whereas an elevated risk of encountering. 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:33.939 A flooded higher speed roadway, according to 00:01:33.939 --> 00:01:36.579 documents sent to NHTSA. Further down, Waymo 00:01:36.579 --> 00:01:38.719 told TechCrunch on Thursday that the storm in 00:01:38.719 --> 00:01:40.760 Atlanta produced so much rainfall that flooding 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:42.640 was happening before the National Weather Service 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:45.280 had issued a flash flood warning watcher advisory. 00:01:45.659 --> 00:01:48.200 The company said those alerts are part of a larger 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:50.579 set of signals it relies on to repair the vehicles 00:01:50.579 --> 00:01:54.620 for poor weather. So this is almost my gaslight. 00:01:54.780 --> 00:01:56.480 I'm not sure what my gaslight is, but I think 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:00.150 this last sentence is my gaslight. So Waymo and 00:02:00.150 --> 00:02:03.310 every other AV company tells us that AVs are 00:02:03.310 --> 00:02:07.989 smarter, better, more perfect, greater than humans. 00:02:08.629 --> 00:02:11.409 But they have to rely on data from the National 00:02:11.409 --> 00:02:13.449 Weather Service to tell them the road's flooded 00:02:13.449 --> 00:02:16.689 or potentially flooded. Whereas even the dumbest 00:02:16.689 --> 00:02:19.270 human can just go, oh, that's more than a puddle. 00:02:20.090 --> 00:02:22.530 Well, I wouldn't give humans too much credit 00:02:22.530 --> 00:02:24.629 there. We continually see them drive into the 00:02:24.629 --> 00:02:27.689 same circumstances. Despite the fact that, you 00:02:27.689 --> 00:02:30.270 know, the phrase, turn around, don't drown, was 00:02:30.270 --> 00:02:34.349 coined in 2003 by a Texas meteorologist. And 00:02:34.349 --> 00:02:37.349 we're all pretty aware of it. People, you know, 00:02:37.349 --> 00:02:42.610 people underestimate the power of water. And 00:02:42.610 --> 00:02:45.229 they also under it's really hard to tell how 00:02:45.229 --> 00:02:48.430 deep water is both for humans and for Waymo's 00:02:48.430 --> 00:02:50.270 apparently when it's on the road ahead of you. 00:02:51.069 --> 00:02:54.909 But it's interesting here. You know, Waymo essentially 00:02:54.909 --> 00:02:58.849 said, well, we're going to pause in San Antonio 00:02:58.849 --> 00:03:02.110 and our solution is going to be essentially to 00:03:02.110 --> 00:03:05.090 we're relying on National Weather Service flash 00:03:05.090 --> 00:03:08.919 flood warnings to, you know. prevent our vehicles 00:03:08.919 --> 00:03:11.319 from operating in an environment where that's 00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:15.800 likely, you know, that's an approach that works 00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:18.139 to some extent. But then you have things like 00:03:18.139 --> 00:03:20.560 flooded water mains. You know, there are a lot 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:23.620 of other sources of flooded roads that that, 00:03:23.699 --> 00:03:25.919 you know, precipitation is probably the number 00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:28.379 one by by good margin. But there's a lot of reasons 00:03:28.379 --> 00:03:31.219 that happens. And shouldn't the cars here be, 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:34.439 you know. able to notice that the road ahead 00:03:34.439 --> 00:03:37.800 is is no longer asphalt and is covered in you 00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:40.680 know six or more inches of water i'd say yes 00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:43.539 or and in that case you know if there is water 00:03:43.539 --> 00:03:45.340 in front of the in front of a vehicle and the 00:03:45.340 --> 00:03:48.699 vehicle can't detect how deep the water is why 00:03:48.699 --> 00:03:51.139 isn't it following the age -old advice of turn 00:03:51.139 --> 00:03:55.280 around don't drown well there's a couple of problems 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:58.000 with this uh the first problem that's fundamental 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.770 is that they've loudly announced that they're 00:04:00.770 --> 00:04:05.330 now using end -to -end AI to develop the algorithms 00:04:05.330 --> 00:04:11.270 for their car control. So how do you send out 00:04:11.270 --> 00:04:15.090 a rapid fix to the software if you have to wait 00:04:15.090 --> 00:04:19.470 for AI to develop the solutions? You don't. You 00:04:19.470 --> 00:04:22.550 know, if it's going to be AI, it's going to have 00:04:22.550 --> 00:04:26.350 to be trained with many, many examples because 00:04:26.350 --> 00:04:31.750 that's how AI works. So something's there's a 00:04:31.750 --> 00:04:34.189 gap here. I mean, either they're doing end to 00:04:34.189 --> 00:04:37.230 end AI or they're doing something else. And in 00:04:37.230 --> 00:04:39.170 either case, it seems to me that they're bullshitting 00:04:39.170 --> 00:04:44.189 the public on exactly what is between the computer 00:04:44.189 --> 00:04:47.870 and the controls on the car. Well, I haven't 00:04:47.870 --> 00:04:50.009 delved too much into this in recent times, but 00:04:50.009 --> 00:04:52.629 I believe even with an end to end model, what 00:04:52.629 --> 00:04:54.189 they can do is they can basically put a rule 00:04:54.189 --> 00:04:56.790 around that saying, you know, here, here's our 00:04:56.790 --> 00:04:59.740 learning. These are the neural network we have. 00:05:00.439 --> 00:05:02.759 But, hey, if you see something that resembles 00:05:02.759 --> 00:05:05.259 water, we can stop the vehicle and not go in 00:05:05.259 --> 00:05:08.540 there. Well, sure, that's a rules -based control, 00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:13.079 which is what they already had. But if they are 00:05:13.079 --> 00:05:14.839 advertising that they're moving away from rules 00:05:14.839 --> 00:05:18.959 -based controls to end -to -end, as is Tesla, 00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:22.410 right? They're announcing the same thing. Then 00:05:22.410 --> 00:05:25.730 how do you square that circle? I don't understand. 00:05:25.970 --> 00:05:30.509 I don't think that they even know how to square 00:05:30.509 --> 00:05:34.170 it because their first resort here was to a recall 00:05:34.170 --> 00:05:36.790 that was based on geofencing vehicles to prevent 00:05:36.790 --> 00:05:38.910 them from entering flash flood areas, right? 00:05:39.170 --> 00:05:41.629 They didn't have a solution where the vehicle 00:05:41.629 --> 00:05:45.269 detects the water or detects how deep the water 00:05:45.269 --> 00:05:47.509 is or decides whether or not it can proceed in 00:05:47.509 --> 00:05:49.569 those situations. They simply had to apply a 00:05:49.569 --> 00:05:52.279 blanket rule. And I think they did this, what, 00:05:52.360 --> 00:05:54.199 in the San Antonio area first. I think we were 00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:56.240 looking at that recall last week. They applied 00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:00.259 that rule to prevent operation in the San Antonio 00:06:00.259 --> 00:06:03.199 area. And then later, after, you know, Atlanta 00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:06.480 flooded a week later and they had problems there. 00:06:07.180 --> 00:06:10.439 They, I guess, have to broaden their geofence 00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:13.019 now to Atlanta and to a number of other cities 00:06:13.019 --> 00:06:15.000 that will, you know, I think Dallas and Houston 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.360 as well. You know, virtually anywhere in America 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:19.519 can experience flash flooding events at some 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:21.660 time. And, you know, unless you're on the tip 00:06:21.660 --> 00:06:25.420 top of a rocky mountain somewhere, maybe. So 00:06:25.420 --> 00:06:29.199 it's, you know. There needs to be something here 00:06:29.199 --> 00:06:34.019 beyond a geofence if Waymo is going to, you know, 00:06:34.019 --> 00:06:36.980 be able to operate in the future. And, you know, 00:06:36.980 --> 00:06:39.100 flash flood warnings happen and flood warnings 00:06:39.100 --> 00:06:41.920 happen all the time across America, you know, 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:44.399 and in the future when America is deployed, I 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:46.500 mean, when Waymo is presumably going to be deployed 00:06:46.500 --> 00:06:49.779 in a lot more spots, are they going to be able 00:06:49.779 --> 00:06:54.180 to deal with this problem? I have a lot of questions 00:06:54.180 --> 00:06:56.600 about whether they will if, you know, if the 00:06:56.600 --> 00:07:00.259 LIDAR and all the other systems they have aren't 00:07:00.259 --> 00:07:03.660 capable of detecting the depth of water. Like, 00:07:03.660 --> 00:07:06.939 how do you determine whether you're just crossing 00:07:06.939 --> 00:07:09.139 through, you know, what's really just a puddle 00:07:09.139 --> 00:07:11.459 in the middle of the street versus a, you know, 00:07:11.459 --> 00:07:14.980 four foot deep trench? It's difficult. It's very 00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:18.279 difficult for humans. I'm not sure what the solution 00:07:18.279 --> 00:07:20.579 is. I think Waymo is probably still struggling 00:07:20.579 --> 00:07:22.740 with that to some extent. I'm sure they are. 00:07:22.779 --> 00:07:25.379 Because what they would say is they have remote 00:07:25.379 --> 00:07:28.040 assistance available so that they've got a human 00:07:28.040 --> 00:07:32.199 being watching over the vehicle operation, which 00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:34.160 means they're not really autonomous, by the way. 00:07:34.180 --> 00:07:36.620 But that's okay. We'll say they're autonomous 00:07:36.620 --> 00:07:40.740 adjacent. The problem is with that, that the 00:07:40.740 --> 00:07:43.920 remote assistance is not nearly fast enough to... 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:47.120 deliver a reasonable solution. If it's going 00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:50.139 down the road at highway speed and it confronts 00:07:50.139 --> 00:07:54.000 water in its path, there's no way in the world 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:57.279 a remote assistant can go through all of the 00:07:57.279 --> 00:08:00.199 hoops and hurdles they've got to do to triage 00:08:00.199 --> 00:08:04.339 the complaints coming in from the car, analyze 00:08:04.339 --> 00:08:06.579 the situation, and then send a solution back 00:08:06.579 --> 00:08:09.420 to the car in time for that car to make a reasonable, 00:08:09.459 --> 00:08:17.769 safe operation. So it doesn't have a false positive 00:08:17.769 --> 00:08:21.310 that causes it to jam into brakes versus a real 00:08:21.310 --> 00:08:27.750 problem with water that's too deep. And by the 00:08:27.750 --> 00:08:30.990 way, why is it that this is an approach that 00:08:30.990 --> 00:08:33.129 makes sense for them to geofence around water 00:08:33.129 --> 00:08:36.230 when they know that there's a known hazard associated 00:08:36.230 --> 00:08:38.590 with the school buses and driving through school 00:08:38.590 --> 00:08:41.830 buses and hitting pedestrians in school zones? 00:08:42.629 --> 00:08:45.509 which they're not willing to geofence. I mean, 00:08:45.529 --> 00:08:49.090 what's really going on here? What's more important, 00:08:49.210 --> 00:08:53.149 capital preservation or life preservation? I 00:08:53.149 --> 00:08:57.169 think that there's a fundamental issue here that's 00:08:57.169 --> 00:09:00.669 not been settled. Well, beyond that, I want to 00:09:00.669 --> 00:09:04.110 know, Fred, from a technical point of view, okay, 00:09:04.210 --> 00:09:06.129 this Waymo, it's covered in, it's got radar, 00:09:06.309 --> 00:09:08.409 it's got LiDAR, it's got a bunch of cameras. 00:09:09.629 --> 00:09:13.480 Why can't... Figure out this is just a little 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:16.120 bit of a puddle versus this is the Mariana Trench. 00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:21.279 Well, because water is muddy. So you can't use 00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:25.820 LiDAR outside of water to determine how deep 00:09:25.820 --> 00:09:28.600 the water is. Basically, you've got to use sonar 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:31.860 inside the water to determine the depth of the 00:09:31.860 --> 00:09:34.539 water. And in order to do that, you've got to 00:09:34.539 --> 00:09:37.340 immerse the sonar in the water. Otherwise, sound 00:09:37.340 --> 00:09:40.429 energy gets reflected off the interface. So there's 00:09:40.429 --> 00:09:44.269 a real technical problem of how can you remotely 00:09:44.269 --> 00:09:50.870 determine the depth of water at all, particularly 00:09:50.870 --> 00:09:52.809 when you're approaching it at a high rate of 00:09:52.809 --> 00:09:54.929 speed. The only other way I could think of would 00:09:54.929 --> 00:09:59.330 be to map, you know, the elevation of every inch 00:09:59.330 --> 00:10:02.809 of road in America to know, you know, what height 00:10:02.809 --> 00:10:06.649 the water is collecting versus the height of 00:10:06.649 --> 00:10:12.100 the roadway. But that seems... That seems like 00:10:12.100 --> 00:10:14.679 a gigantic process. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, think 00:10:14.679 --> 00:10:18.500 of it. You've got to have an algorithm that monitors 00:10:18.500 --> 00:10:21.240 the surface of the road everywhere to determine 00:10:21.240 --> 00:10:24.059 where the potholes exist and what the depth of 00:10:24.059 --> 00:10:26.679 the pothole is when it's dry. Then determine 00:10:26.679 --> 00:10:28.960 that, well, it's not dry anymore. It's full of 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:32.840 water. So we've got to have that memory of what 00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:37.019 the dry pothole depth is versus the smooth surfaces. 00:10:38.639 --> 00:10:41.240 Being confronted by the sensor suite that's in 00:10:41.240 --> 00:10:45.899 the car. It's a mess. Yeah. I don't know how 00:10:45.899 --> 00:10:48.860 you can do this. I mean, I think until, you know, 00:10:48.860 --> 00:10:52.240 I think Waymo should be applying a very, very 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:56.000 broad turnaround. Don't drown philosophy to these 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.399 situations. I mean, there are situations where 00:10:58.399 --> 00:11:01.179 I think humans could be even better at judging 00:11:01.179 --> 00:11:04.879 the. depth of a puddle versus the sensors that 00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:08.720 are installed on Waymos right now. I think the 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:11.220 real solution is put a human being in the car 00:11:11.220 --> 00:11:14.759 so that they can, you know, use judgment as to 00:11:14.759 --> 00:11:16.820 whether or not they got a problem. Is this a 00:11:16.820 --> 00:11:20.080 puddle or is this a flooded road? We're pretty 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:22.860 good at that. I think we've all survived, well, 00:11:22.899 --> 00:11:25.100 in my case, 120 years of driving experience. 00:11:25.539 --> 00:11:27.620 Yeah. Some better than others, right? Without 00:11:27.620 --> 00:11:33.519 being swept away. Yeah. Even if the water's clear 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:36.559 and whatnot, I mean, can a remote operator even 00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:39.659 tell the depth? I'm thinking the remote operator 00:11:39.659 --> 00:11:41.679 doesn't have a stereo image of it. They just 00:11:41.679 --> 00:11:45.159 have a flat image. If you're in the back of the 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:47.379 Waymo, do you trust the remote operator to make 00:11:47.379 --> 00:11:50.039 that decision for you? I've made a lot of life 00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:51.860 choices that are incorrect if I'm in the back 00:11:51.860 --> 00:11:57.539 of a Waymo. But yeah, and that brings us into 00:11:57.539 --> 00:12:00.639 our next story. Another related one. Yeah, I'll 00:12:00.639 --> 00:12:03.519 do this as the transition. There's a guy on the 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:07.740 Internet and he was in the back of a Waymo. And 00:12:07.740 --> 00:12:10.860 he's the I'll quote from this article in Auto 00:12:10.860 --> 00:12:14.080 Evolution. The writer was at Elliot underscore 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:16.720 Slade, who's goes by the handle Quiet Light on 00:12:16.720 --> 00:12:19.700 X. This is just too much. Elliot posted a couple 00:12:19.700 --> 00:12:22.179 of videos showing his robot taxi accelerating 00:12:22.179 --> 00:12:24.500 through a construction area on a freeway while 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:27.139 police were chasing it. Minutes before this happened, 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:29.639 a remote operator tried to help steer the robo 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:32.440 -taxi out of the blocked area. The car then accelerated 00:12:32.440 --> 00:12:34.539 through traffic cones until it reached highway 00:12:34.539 --> 00:12:38.100 speeds in the construction zone. Which is crazy. 00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:40.399 I watched one of the videos that was in this 00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:42.860 article, and I couldn't make any sense of it 00:12:42.860 --> 00:12:44.299 as far as I could tell. The phone was in his 00:12:44.299 --> 00:12:48.220 pocket. Do you think there's something wrong 00:12:48.220 --> 00:12:53.279 with this? With his phone? Possibly. Something 00:12:53.279 --> 00:12:57.480 was really wrong here. And Waymo suspended all 00:12:57.480 --> 00:13:00.399 of its highway service, freeway service, I guess 00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:02.860 they're calling it for the moment. And they need 00:13:02.860 --> 00:13:05.559 to like what the hell happened here? There was 00:13:05.559 --> 00:13:09.759 a remote operator involved and the car just kind 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:13.000 of went nuts, you know, speeding through a construction 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:17.399 zone with police chasing it. OK, so this is this 00:13:17.399 --> 00:13:20.559 gets to my big pet peeve is, OK, so the police 00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:23.519 are chasing a Waymo. One, we all know that should 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:25.980 never happen because a Waymo drives perfectly. 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:28.820 It never drives drunk. It never drives distracted. 00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:32.100 It never drives while farting. No, it's perfect. 00:13:32.220 --> 00:13:34.960 It's wonderful. But somehow the police are chasing 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:38.179 it and it decides to speed up and run away from 00:13:38.179 --> 00:13:41.320 the police. Now, again, if you or I did this, 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:43.399 other police would be involved. There'd be that 00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:45.779 move where the police hit the back of the car, 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:48.980 spin you out, potentially. The car has stopped. 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:51.480 There are multiple armed and angry men pointing 00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:54.620 guns at you, right? We've all seen this a thousand 00:13:54.620 --> 00:13:57.059 times. And you're getting handcuffs on you. You're 00:13:57.059 --> 00:13:59.600 getting thrown in jail. Bad things are going 00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:02.620 to happen to you for at least, you know, 24 hours. 00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:06.580 Waymo, in this case, nothing bad happens, right? 00:14:07.100 --> 00:14:09.259 They don't get a ticket. They're not getting 00:14:09.259 --> 00:14:11.519 a fine. No one's getting a gun. Maybe the people 00:14:11.519 --> 00:14:13.220 in the backseat are getting a gun pulled on them. 00:14:13.259 --> 00:14:15.419 I don't know. I guess that depends on whether 00:14:15.419 --> 00:14:17.259 you think having to shut down all their freeway 00:14:17.259 --> 00:14:19.679 service across the country was bad. But that 00:14:19.679 --> 00:14:21.840 wasn't a requirement. That was something they 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:24.419 chose to do in the interest of safety. And, you 00:14:24.419 --> 00:14:26.980 know, I want to see somebody in handcuffs. There's 00:14:26.980 --> 00:14:29.519 there's yeah. I mean, there is no one. I mean, 00:14:29.539 --> 00:14:32.940 there are. I don't know. You have to. I don't 00:14:32.940 --> 00:14:35.480 know that there is. It's hard to say here that 00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:37.480 even though if a human did this, it would be 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:40.419 a crime that there was a crime committed by the 00:14:40.419 --> 00:14:43.889 Waymo or. Whoever is running the scene for the 00:14:43.889 --> 00:14:45.929 rainbow in the background, the remote operator, 00:14:46.230 --> 00:14:47.590 are you going to get them? Are you going to hook 00:14:47.590 --> 00:14:49.450 this hook? You know, are you going to handcuff 00:14:49.450 --> 00:14:52.149 the CEO for something a car did on a freeway? 00:14:52.289 --> 00:14:56.269 I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. In the interest 00:14:56.269 --> 00:14:58.210 of driving defensively, which we've all been 00:14:58.210 --> 00:15:01.309 told to do for a long time now, we should have 00:15:01.309 --> 00:15:05.230 identifiers on the car that says this is a self 00:15:05.230 --> 00:15:08.750 -driving vehicle. Be aware, you know, this is 00:15:08.750 --> 00:15:12.120 a great example of how. People, average people, 00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:18.000 are being endangered by the operations of this 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:21.100 autonomous adjacent vehicle that's out there. 00:15:21.179 --> 00:15:26.159 In Germany, Mercedes is using turquoise lights 00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:30.340 to identify self -driving operation when it's 00:15:30.340 --> 00:15:33.779 under automatic control as a way for people to 00:15:33.779 --> 00:15:36.940 know that this is coming and that there's additional 00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:39.720 hazards associated with the unknowns of the AI. 00:15:41.060 --> 00:15:43.940 So here in America, we want to pretend there's 00:15:43.940 --> 00:15:46.860 nothing there. We want to pretend, at least if 00:15:46.860 --> 00:15:49.840 we're a robot taxi company, that these are just 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.840 regular vehicles. No reason to take any special 00:15:52.840 --> 00:15:56.179 concern about them. Nothing to see here, folks. 00:15:56.340 --> 00:16:00.960 Just move along. That's just wrong. We, in the 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:03.100 interest of people preserving their own lives, 00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:06.580 defending themselves against errant vehicles. 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:10.000 There should, as a minimum, be some way of identifying 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:13.460 that this vehicle is on the road and approaching 00:16:13.460 --> 00:16:16.659 you, and you need to take special consideration 00:16:16.659 --> 00:16:19.399 of the fact that there's no human being in there. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:22.919 And actually, the algorithm that's driving the 00:16:22.919 --> 00:16:26.399 vehicle is still under development because the 00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:29.259 company is using end -to -end AI, which is still 00:16:29.259 --> 00:16:33.659 untrained. This is a mess. There's a lot of issues 00:16:33.659 --> 00:16:36.720 here. I mean, all of them important. I mean, 00:16:36.740 --> 00:16:39.100 I don't think it's beyond the pale to say, you 00:16:39.100 --> 00:16:42.519 know, this is a bad driver. Right. 100 percent. 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:44.960 So, Michael, you said you think as a consequence 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:47.840 of them, Waymo shutting down their all their 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:50.200 freeway operations. They did that voluntarily. 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:53.259 Again, me or you, we run away from the police. 00:16:53.340 --> 00:16:56.299 We're not voluntarily giving up anything. The 00:16:56.299 --> 00:16:59.700 government, the police, they're taking it from 00:16:59.700 --> 00:17:03.129 us. That's the disconnect here is Waymo just 00:17:03.129 --> 00:17:04.789 goes, all right, we'll stop for a little bit 00:17:04.789 --> 00:17:07.210 while we look into, you know, we'll put an update 00:17:07.210 --> 00:17:10.170 out there. Have a nice day, everybody. Here's 00:17:10.170 --> 00:17:13.369 a contribution to the police athletic fund. Yeah. 00:17:13.490 --> 00:17:16.450 It's meanwhile, the human is suspended license 00:17:16.450 --> 00:17:19.670 and possibly gun to the head. In this case, it 00:17:19.670 --> 00:17:23.230 would be probably felony eluding or escape or 00:17:23.230 --> 00:17:24.990 something like that. And you would be in jail. 00:17:25.170 --> 00:17:28.609 Absolutely. And I'm not just given the fact that 00:17:28.609 --> 00:17:31.150 you're in a construction zone. I mean, remember, 00:17:31.549 --> 00:17:34.069 this is all happening with orange cones and construction 00:17:34.069 --> 00:17:36.990 vehicles. There's discussion of this act of domestic 00:17:36.990 --> 00:17:39.890 terrorism. that's part of the story all of a 00:17:39.890 --> 00:17:42.029 sudden with a human in there there's you know 00:17:42.029 --> 00:17:44.789 there's a person on the pavement with a gun to 00:17:44.789 --> 00:17:47.109 their head at some point during this whereas 00:17:47.109 --> 00:17:50.269 waymo just goes all right guys uh you know everyone's 00:17:50.269 --> 00:17:53.410 getting bonuses this year and uh we'll go on 00:17:53.410 --> 00:17:56.190 from there so what waymo has said is uh quote 00:17:56.190 --> 00:17:58.730 we have temporarily paused freeway operations 00:17:58.730 --> 00:18:01.950 as we work to integrate recent technical learnings 00:18:01.950 --> 00:18:04.210 into our software and expect to resume these 00:18:04.210 --> 00:18:09.700 routes soon I want to next time anyone listeners, 00:18:09.779 --> 00:18:11.920 you get pulled over at any time, say I'm going 00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:14.700 to temporarily pause operations. Well, I get 00:18:14.700 --> 00:18:17.460 these technical learnings of not stopping at 00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:19.720 the stop sign and doing 85 in a school zone. 00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:22.880 I hope to resume driving soon as soon as this 00:18:22.880 --> 00:18:25.779 officer moves away. And you hope to. But how 00:18:25.779 --> 00:18:27.680 do you even figure this out? Right. I mean, if 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.940 there's a lot of black box characteristics to 00:18:30.940 --> 00:18:33.500 an A .I., if you've got in the end A .I. operating 00:18:33.500 --> 00:18:36.420 these vehicles. How do you even figure out what 00:18:36.420 --> 00:18:40.279 happened here? And how do you fix it from that 00:18:40.279 --> 00:18:42.619 point? I guess that's kind of the scary part 00:18:42.619 --> 00:18:44.420 of all this. The really scary part of all this 00:18:44.420 --> 00:18:47.400 to me is that there aren't the traditional answers 00:18:47.400 --> 00:18:50.700 that we would see in crashes. You know, help 00:18:50.700 --> 00:18:53.440 us avoid them in the future if you can't even 00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:55.000 figure out why it happened in the first place. 00:18:55.299 --> 00:18:58.680 I agree with that. But so I agree with that. 00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:01.359 But at the end of the day, there are people responsible 00:19:01.359 --> 00:19:04.240 for putting this how this unknown mystery technology 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:06.759 works out on the road. And they are the responsible 00:19:06.759 --> 00:19:09.359 parties. It's like me. I don't know how a gun 00:19:09.359 --> 00:19:11.579 works. I don't understand ballistics. You know, 00:19:11.579 --> 00:19:13.160 if I pull the gun and I kill somebody, I'm not 00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:16.140 going to like, look, I didn't know how I didn't 00:19:16.140 --> 00:19:18.680 know flight patterns and trajectories. Come on. 00:19:18.759 --> 00:19:25.000 Yeah. So anyway, I expect Sundar Pichai in handcuffs 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:27.440 soon. Is that how you pronounce his name? The 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:30.500 CEO of Alphabet? You're on the wrong person to 00:19:30.500 --> 00:19:36.299 ask about pronunciation. Anyway, continuing with 00:19:36.299 --> 00:19:39.839 this, our friend of the show, Phil Kopman, has 00:19:39.839 --> 00:19:43.500 a very good long article titled Autonomous System 00:19:43.500 --> 00:19:45.579 Safety. Is that what the, no. Robotaxi safety 00:19:45.579 --> 00:19:49.440 problems are the new normal. And he talks about 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:51.200 driving into floodwaters. I'm going to quote 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:53.859 a little bit from him. The fix was not a software 00:19:53.859 --> 00:19:55.900 update, but rather a restriction in the operational 00:19:55.900 --> 00:19:59.319 design domain to exclude areas at high risk of 00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:01.359 flood. In other words, avoid places that might 00:20:01.359 --> 00:20:03.500 flood pending a later fix. In principle, that 00:20:03.500 --> 00:20:05.319 seemed a smart risk reduction techniques that 00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:07.799 lets them get back on the road while avoiding 00:20:07.799 --> 00:20:13.299 the identifying hazard. But that just opens up 00:20:13.299 --> 00:20:20.839 a whole new set of problems. Man, I can't focus 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:24.019 my brain. In one incident, a car stopped itself 00:20:24.019 --> 00:20:26.119 on a flooded Atlanta street on May 20th with 00:20:26.119 --> 00:20:29.519 a journalist inside twice. Other human driven 00:20:29.519 --> 00:20:31.559 cars were proceeding, but in the video, the passenger 00:20:31.559 --> 00:20:34.140 was told to expect a 54 minute wait for roadside 00:20:34.140 --> 00:20:37.519 assistance to arrive. Another stranded Waymo 00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:39.180 was shown stuck in the middle of a flooded intersection. 00:20:39.660 --> 00:20:42.019 News sources reporting this stand down as temporary 00:20:42.019 --> 00:20:46.170 pause during stormy weather. I mean, that raises 00:20:46.170 --> 00:20:50.049 another level of concern, too. You're not just 00:20:50.049 --> 00:20:53.630 going through the water, right? I mean, a lot 00:20:53.630 --> 00:20:56.529 of times you will see people, when the flash 00:20:56.529 --> 00:20:59.569 flood begins, you can get through water that 00:20:59.569 --> 00:21:02.890 is not that deep. But if you stop in the middle 00:21:02.890 --> 00:21:06.390 of that situation, the water is likely only going 00:21:06.390 --> 00:21:09.589 to get higher, right? And create an even more 00:21:09.589 --> 00:21:14.069 dangerous situation. Stopping for 54 minutes 00:21:14.069 --> 00:21:18.890 in potentially in water that's potentially rising 00:21:18.890 --> 00:21:22.250 quickly during a flash flood is a terrible way 00:21:22.250 --> 00:21:26.849 to ensure passenger safety. Right. I mean, especially 00:21:26.849 --> 00:21:30.789 if the vehicle can see other vehicles proceeding 00:21:30.789 --> 00:21:34.609 through the problem. So a lot of this is, you 00:21:34.609 --> 00:21:38.049 know, it just seems like, again, a really bad 00:21:38.049 --> 00:21:41.269 driver. Right. So I'm going to continue a little 00:21:41.269 --> 00:21:43.789 bit more from Phil quoting the interesting part 00:21:43.789 --> 00:21:46.210 about the Waymo flood water recall is that it 00:21:46.210 --> 00:21:48.470 specifically calls out higher driving speeds 00:21:48.470 --> 00:21:51.150 as a contributing factor, suggesting that the 00:21:51.150 --> 00:21:54.069 robot taxi fails to realize it is in a high risk 00:21:54.069 --> 00:21:56.549 situation. And until it was too late to stop 00:21:56.549 --> 00:22:01.450 before plowing into deep water. That again, sounds 00:22:01.450 --> 00:22:06.630 like a teenager. Yeah. I mean, that is not the 00:22:06.630 --> 00:22:11.119 person I want to be on the road near. So I don't. 00:22:11.119 --> 00:22:13.160 And I just think this is something that, you 00:22:13.160 --> 00:22:15.259 know, as Phil notes, you know, this is something 00:22:15.259 --> 00:22:17.099 that Waymo should have planned four years ago. 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:21.579 This is not some new crazy thing that's just 00:22:21.579 --> 00:22:24.259 started happening in 2026. You know, this is 00:22:24.259 --> 00:22:26.440 something that people have been warned about. 00:22:27.579 --> 00:22:31.019 Ad nauseum for many years now and something that 00:22:31.019 --> 00:22:34.019 everyone that drives a car should be highly aware 00:22:34.019 --> 00:22:36.660 of if they're driving in bad weather or anywhere 00:22:36.660 --> 00:22:39.539 around, you know, flooded roads. Yeah, it's something 00:22:39.539 --> 00:22:41.859 every driver has seen. Fred, you've seen this, 00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:48.039 right? That's amazing. He wasn't on muted a second 00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:52.500 ago, but now he's muted. I am not. What a thing 00:22:52.500 --> 00:22:56.740 to say about me. There's another dimension to 00:22:56.740 --> 00:23:00.740 this, which is that the occupant of the vehicle, 00:23:00.900 --> 00:23:04.880 if there is one, should have some way of aborting 00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:08.819 the trip. Oh, I got it. Sorry, I got to go to 00:23:08.819 --> 00:23:11.299 the door. Someone's ringing my doorbell. No, 00:23:11.400 --> 00:23:13.900 no. Fred was going to say the occupant should 00:23:13.900 --> 00:23:16.720 have some way of aborting the trip or stopping 00:23:16.720 --> 00:23:20.099 the vehicle if the occupant is able to see this, 00:23:20.119 --> 00:23:24.650 you know, risk. Big red stop button. Yeah, I 00:23:24.650 --> 00:23:27.589 mean, it's you shouldn't have to have a conversation 00:23:27.589 --> 00:23:30.750 with the vehicle. Hey, Waymo, can you stop? I 00:23:30.750 --> 00:23:33.450 mean, there should be an immediate way to, you 00:23:33.450 --> 00:23:36.109 know, prevent the vehicle you're in from entering 00:23:36.109 --> 00:23:40.009 a flood area. But that right. That ruins part 00:23:40.009 --> 00:23:41.829 of their sales pitch. Part of their sales pitch 00:23:41.829 --> 00:23:44.109 is you don't have to pay attention to the road. 00:23:44.170 --> 00:23:46.750 We've got you covered. Sit in the back, read 00:23:46.750 --> 00:23:51.930 a book, watch a movie, eat, eat a meal. I don't 00:23:51.930 --> 00:23:53.609 know. I mean, I mean, I guess it's going to take 00:23:53.609 --> 00:23:58.369 some time and a lot more work to, you know, kind 00:23:58.369 --> 00:24:00.950 of convince those of us who are afraid of that. 00:24:00.990 --> 00:24:02.849 I mean, I can't imagine being in one of these 00:24:02.849 --> 00:24:05.430 vehicles and not monitoring what it's doing every 00:24:05.430 --> 00:24:09.670 second of the drive. Right. I get that. But, 00:24:09.750 --> 00:24:11.509 you know, you, like most listeners, will go to 00:24:11.509 --> 00:24:15.950 autosafety .org and click on donate. That wasn't 00:24:15.950 --> 00:24:19.410 my best sales pitch. But with that, hey, Michael, 00:24:19.470 --> 00:24:22.809 do you have a gas light this week? Well, I'm 00:24:22.809 --> 00:24:24.730 kind of going back and forth. You know, Fred 00:24:24.730 --> 00:24:26.950 stole the one I wanted, which was Uber, but I'm 00:24:26.950 --> 00:24:29.130 going to let him have that. And mine goes into 00:24:29.130 --> 00:24:32.890 another story we might take a look at, but it's 00:24:32.890 --> 00:24:36.079 kind of a short. thing, you know, and it's Tesla, 00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:38.519 you know. Never heard of them. And it wasn't 00:24:38.519 --> 00:24:40.579 a statement that they made, but what they've 00:24:40.579 --> 00:24:44.539 done in the, you know, the standing general order 00:24:44.539 --> 00:24:48.279 that NHTSA issued basically requires all autonomous 00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:52.680 vehicle companies to report crashes and other 00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:55.200 incidents that occur with their vehicles. It's, 00:24:55.200 --> 00:24:59.539 you know, kind of the first. attempt by the federal 00:24:59.539 --> 00:25:01.819 government to wrap their hands around the operation 00:25:01.819 --> 00:25:05.039 of not just automated, but also partially automated 00:25:05.039 --> 00:25:09.779 and ADAS vehicles. Tesla has long redacted what 00:25:09.779 --> 00:25:12.420 I believe is probably the most important field 00:25:12.420 --> 00:25:15.839 in that data reporting, which is the description 00:25:15.839 --> 00:25:18.599 or the narrative around the crash. They claimed 00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:21.759 it was somehow a trade secret and harmful. Meanwhile, 00:25:22.019 --> 00:25:24.900 every other autonomous vehicle manufacturer. 00:25:25.890 --> 00:25:30.289 has routinely, you know, disclosed the narrative 00:25:30.289 --> 00:25:32.650 summary of each crash so that, you know, it gives 00:25:32.650 --> 00:25:38.250 the public and the regulators at NHTSA a better, 00:25:38.369 --> 00:25:39.769 well, the regulators at NHTSA are getting it 00:25:39.769 --> 00:25:42.470 anyway because they see behind the redaction, 00:25:42.509 --> 00:25:45.599 but it gives the public. The ability to understand 00:25:45.599 --> 00:25:47.839 the context of the crash, you know, whether the 00:25:47.839 --> 00:25:50.140 autonomous vehicle was at fault or whether it 00:25:50.140 --> 00:25:54.480 was something else. And Tesla's routinely avoided 00:25:54.480 --> 00:26:00.920 doing that. And so just this past data dump from 00:26:00.920 --> 00:26:03.200 this past month that just came out, Tesla has 00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:06.480 now magically removed all their redactions from 00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:10.930 the. autonomous vehicle data right there's two 00:26:10.930 --> 00:26:13.789 levels of data that nets is collecting here um 00:26:13.789 --> 00:26:17.509 and so now you can go in and see the 17 crashes 00:26:17.509 --> 00:26:21.029 that robo taxis have had in austin and maybe 00:26:21.029 --> 00:26:22.589 elsewhere i'm not sure if there's a same thing 00:26:22.589 --> 00:26:29.529 yeah but my gas light is There's still the collection 00:26:29.529 --> 00:26:33.710 for advanced driver assistance level two plus 00:26:33.710 --> 00:26:36.990 systems going on at the same time here. Tesla 00:26:36.990 --> 00:26:41.450 has reported thousands of crashes to that database 00:26:41.450 --> 00:26:45.730 and they're remaining redacted, right? Under 00:26:45.730 --> 00:26:49.190 the same, you know, bullshit claim that that's 00:26:49.190 --> 00:26:51.690 somehow going to interfere. It's a trade secret, 00:26:51.809 --> 00:26:53.769 somehow going to interfere with their competitiveness, 00:26:53.970 --> 00:26:56.680 blah, blah, blah. My Gas Light of the Week is 00:26:56.680 --> 00:26:59.799 Tesla for while trying to open up, you know, 00:26:59.819 --> 00:27:03.859 17 crashes over here, leaving redacted the I 00:27:03.859 --> 00:27:07.460 think it's well over 2000, maybe more crashes 00:27:07.460 --> 00:27:10.700 that are occurring in their autopilot and full 00:27:10.700 --> 00:27:13.339 self -driving systems across America. So we still 00:27:13.339 --> 00:27:16.980 have zero context for evaluating any of those 00:27:16.980 --> 00:27:20.660 crashes. Meanwhile, other manufacturers are Honda, 00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:22.519 for one, which I saw today when I was looking 00:27:22.519 --> 00:27:26.000 at the data is. is giving the public narratives 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:28.220 that explain, you know, what happened in this 00:27:28.220 --> 00:27:31.380 crash so that we have a way to evaluate just 00:27:31.380 --> 00:27:34.440 how safe these manufacturers offerings are. That's 00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:38.599 pretty good from an article in electric who examines 00:27:38.599 --> 00:27:41.140 a lot of this stuff. They come out showing that 00:27:41.140 --> 00:27:44.119 a lot of these accidents involving the Tesla 00:27:44.119 --> 00:27:46.839 robot, robot taxi was these robot taxis being 00:27:46.839 --> 00:27:50.299 rear ended. And we've seen that a lot with Waymo's 00:27:50.299 --> 00:27:52.279 as well. And they're like, it's not our fault. 00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:55.759 We were rear ended. I mean, it's happening at 00:27:55.759 --> 00:27:58.960 a lot at a higher frequency than human drivers. 00:27:59.019 --> 00:28:01.500 And it seems that, you know, human drivers following 00:28:01.500 --> 00:28:05.380 behind these vehicles don't expect the cars to 00:28:05.380 --> 00:28:07.799 stop the way that they're stopping or in the 00:28:07.799 --> 00:28:10.700 locations or with the speed that they're stopping. 00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:14.279 So that I think that leads again to another argument 00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:16.819 that Fred makes all the time is put a big old 00:28:16.819 --> 00:28:19.359 sign on these cars, say not driven by a person 00:28:19.359 --> 00:28:22.559 or, you know. So I think just like a little bomb 00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:25.839 icon would be mine. A little flashing neon sign, 00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:29.400 a little bomb. I'm sure the autonomous vehicle 00:28:29.400 --> 00:28:31.519 companies don't want that because effectively 00:28:31.519 --> 00:28:33.819 you're singling out and saying, this is a special 00:28:33.819 --> 00:28:36.160 case here and you need to be aware for your own 00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:39.960 safety, which suggests that there's a possible 00:28:39.960 --> 00:28:41.720 safety risk that we should all be looking out 00:28:41.720 --> 00:28:45.869 for. And maybe even a heightened safety risk 00:28:45.869 --> 00:28:48.769 that we don't have to look out for, you know, 00:28:48.769 --> 00:28:51.430 in regard to human driven vehicles. So I can 00:28:51.430 --> 00:28:54.369 see why they are so opposed to that. However, 00:28:54.650 --> 00:28:58.029 I would love to there to be a blue light on top 00:28:58.029 --> 00:29:01.210 of. Tesla's operating on full self -drive and 00:29:01.210 --> 00:29:03.750 certainly on any other type of fully autonomous 00:29:03.750 --> 00:29:07.210 vehicle. It would just be nice to know. So I 00:29:07.210 --> 00:29:09.410 don't have to guess when one's coming at me on 00:29:09.410 --> 00:29:12.170 a two -lane road. Do driving schools, because 00:29:12.170 --> 00:29:13.990 there's driving schools near me and all their 00:29:13.990 --> 00:29:16.930 cars are labeled student driver, student driver, 00:29:17.130 --> 00:29:19.849 caution, student driver. Is there a law that 00:29:19.849 --> 00:29:22.089 requires them to label that or do they just do 00:29:22.089 --> 00:29:24.190 that to try and hope that other drivers will 00:29:24.190 --> 00:29:28.609 be kinder to them? I don't know. But I would 00:29:28.609 --> 00:29:30.769 assume they're doing that because they encounter 00:29:30.769 --> 00:29:33.670 a bunch of assholes on the road honking at new 00:29:33.670 --> 00:29:36.549 drivers. And that can't be a good environment 00:29:36.549 --> 00:29:39.589 to learn how to drive. So they didn't cover driving 00:29:39.589 --> 00:29:43.089 school signage in law school? No. Well, have 00:29:43.089 --> 00:29:46.029 you considered getting your money back? You know, 00:29:46.089 --> 00:29:48.869 I didn't take that class. Oh, well, there you 00:29:48.869 --> 00:29:51.630 go. All right, Fred, what is your gas light this 00:29:51.630 --> 00:29:55.869 week? Rumor has it it's Uber. And he's muted 00:29:55.869 --> 00:29:58.630 again, ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, 00:29:58.750 --> 00:30:01.329 he's confusing the mute button with the talk 00:30:01.329 --> 00:30:05.309 button. So many buttons, so little time. It's 00:30:05.309 --> 00:30:09.190 one button! Well, maybe you're correct. Never 00:30:09.190 --> 00:30:12.349 mind. Okay, so I want to talk about our friends 00:30:12.349 --> 00:30:15.430 at Uber who are completely corrupting the entire 00:30:15.430 --> 00:30:21.230 legal system for their own profit. So what they're 00:30:21.230 --> 00:30:25.940 doing is actually very clever. cynical and diabolical. 00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:30.720 They are collecting money from everybody for 00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:34.960 insurance and putting it into an escrow account 00:30:34.960 --> 00:30:40.539 in an insurance company, which is fine. So they're 00:30:40.539 --> 00:30:43.180 self -insuring. But what they're doing is they're 00:30:43.180 --> 00:30:45.319 putting it into an insurance company that they 00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:49.500 happen to own. So the money that goes into their 00:30:49.500 --> 00:30:52.210 insurance is going on the balance sheet. At the 00:30:52.210 --> 00:30:54.089 same time, they are complaining that they're 00:30:54.089 --> 00:30:56.490 paying too much for insurance. So they're going 00:30:56.490 --> 00:31:02.430 to the state legislatures and trying to get legislation 00:31:02.430 --> 00:31:05.650 put in place that reduces their liability even 00:31:05.650 --> 00:31:09.309 beyond the terms of service that they are foisting 00:31:09.309 --> 00:31:14.650 onto their unwitting customers. So that ultimately 00:31:14.650 --> 00:31:16.950 what will happen is they're overfunding these 00:31:16.950 --> 00:31:21.000 insurance accounts with this money. And when 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:23.980 they are successful in either the ballot initiatives 00:31:23.980 --> 00:31:28.240 or the state legislatures in reducing their insurance 00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:31.940 liability, all of a sudden they're going to find 00:31:31.940 --> 00:31:34.720 they magically have a lot of extra money in their 00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:37.559 insurance escrow account. What they plan to do 00:31:37.559 --> 00:31:40.799 is to take this extra money and use it to fund 00:31:40.799 --> 00:31:44.779 purchase of autonomous vehicles so that when 00:31:44.779 --> 00:31:48.619 they, because of recent changes in the tax laws. 00:31:49.180 --> 00:31:51.279 When they use the money to buy the autonomous 00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:54.240 vehicles, they'll be able to offset that against 00:31:54.240 --> 00:31:56.740 their taxes as an investment. So they'll end 00:31:56.740 --> 00:32:00.720 up paying no tax at all on the money that they're 00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:04.920 accruing from unwitting customers in this big, 00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:08.160 vast insurance account, paying themselves a lot 00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:13.339 of incentive compensation for their success in 00:32:13.339 --> 00:32:17.519 getting this really nefarious scheme into place. 00:32:19.810 --> 00:32:24.849 And you've got to admire, I mean, this is such 00:32:24.849 --> 00:32:30.349 a bald -faced, corrupt approach that I am surprised 00:32:30.349 --> 00:32:32.210 that Trump doesn't have his fingers into it, 00:32:32.210 --> 00:32:36.269 frankly. I mean, there's a lot of background 00:32:36.269 --> 00:32:40.190 here. And one of the biggest, I guess, the news 00:32:40.190 --> 00:32:44.849 right now on this is that last week, I think 00:32:44.849 --> 00:32:48.109 it was Thursday. or maybe Friday morning, I think 00:32:48.109 --> 00:32:52.450 it was maybe Wednesday night, 2 a .m., you know, 00:32:52.450 --> 00:32:55.589 one of our old favorites here, Vince Fong, Fong 00:32:55.589 --> 00:32:59.390 is wrong, U .S. representative from California 00:32:59.390 --> 00:33:03.269 who was a closet tech bro, got this language 00:33:03.269 --> 00:33:06.230 through that essentially eliminates liability 00:33:06.230 --> 00:33:11.500 for Uber. in a wide range. You know, this goes 00:33:11.500 --> 00:33:14.779 to accidents caused by its drivers. So Uber hired 00:33:14.779 --> 00:33:17.420 someone, you know, I think Consumer Watchdog 00:33:17.420 --> 00:33:19.859 has been covering this heavily. Uber, and I think 00:33:19.859 --> 00:33:22.559 they noted a situation where Uber hired someone, 00:33:23.039 --> 00:33:25.619 or not hired, I guess you can't say hired in 00:33:25.619 --> 00:33:30.079 the gig worker economy. They allowed someone 00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:36.099 to access their platform and drive an Uber. who 00:33:36.099 --> 00:33:39.880 was on probation for DUIs and who ultimately, 00:33:40.039 --> 00:33:43.319 you know, was apparently riding around drunk 00:33:43.319 --> 00:33:47.119 on nitrous at 120 miles an hour and killed two 00:33:47.119 --> 00:33:50.960 people. And that's the kind of thing that, you 00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:55.059 know, where, you know, Uber has the ability to 00:33:55.059 --> 00:33:58.279 vet these people. It's allowing onto its service 00:33:58.279 --> 00:34:02.099 beforehand. People who are getting the ride from 00:34:02.099 --> 00:34:04.980 Uber don't. Right. And so there's there's a duty 00:34:04.980 --> 00:34:08.699 on Uber to to at least, you know, to conduct 00:34:08.699 --> 00:34:11.400 a background check on these people and determine 00:34:11.400 --> 00:34:13.119 whether or not they should be allowed on the 00:34:13.119 --> 00:34:17.500 platform. And this, you know, what what, you 00:34:17.500 --> 00:34:20.219 know, Fong is wrong, just put out there in in 00:34:20.219 --> 00:34:22.460 the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. 00:34:22.619 --> 00:34:25.400 They passed this as part of the Build America 00:34:25.400 --> 00:34:28.460 Act, which is the surface reauthorization. That 00:34:28.460 --> 00:34:32.489 is a giant bill. And so this was snuck in at 00:34:32.489 --> 00:34:34.550 the last minute. We obviously didn't hear about 00:34:34.550 --> 00:34:36.309 it beforehand or we would have had a lot to say 00:34:36.309 --> 00:34:39.750 about it. But it essentially immunizes Uber from 00:34:39.750 --> 00:34:44.889 traffic crashes, at least in regard to their 00:34:44.889 --> 00:34:47.730 ride share services, whether this, you know, 00:34:47.730 --> 00:34:50.750 I don't think this applies or would apply to 00:34:50.750 --> 00:34:54.489 their autonomous vehicle offerings that they're 00:34:54.489 --> 00:35:00.289 still kind of in their infancy. you know, their 00:35:00.289 --> 00:35:02.389 efforts in California and the ballot measure 00:35:02.389 --> 00:35:07.190 to essentially drop attorney's fees so much that 00:35:07.190 --> 00:35:09.849 attorneys aren't going to be able to take these 00:35:09.849 --> 00:35:12.170 cases. We've talked a lot about how expensive 00:35:12.170 --> 00:35:15.869 it is to bring product liability cases and crash 00:35:15.869 --> 00:35:18.730 cases in court because of the, you know. The 00:35:18.730 --> 00:35:21.190 expert witnesses, the time and all the money 00:35:21.190 --> 00:35:24.329 that has to go in just to establish proof that 00:35:24.329 --> 00:35:26.570 something that there was a defect involved or 00:35:26.570 --> 00:35:29.570 that there was somehow fault or liability by 00:35:29.570 --> 00:35:34.349 another party. So this is a terrible provision. 00:35:34.610 --> 00:35:36.929 I don't think there's any chance that this one 00:35:36.929 --> 00:35:39.289 will make it through the Senate, but, you know, 00:35:39.289 --> 00:35:42.449 we'll be there fighting it. And it is it just 00:35:42.449 --> 00:35:46.400 Uber has. Between this and what they're doing 00:35:46.400 --> 00:35:51.099 in California, Uber is a bad, bad company who 00:35:51.099 --> 00:35:53.360 is essentially trying to exempt themselves from 00:35:53.360 --> 00:35:55.500 any responsibility when it comes to your safety. 00:35:55.880 --> 00:35:58.559 Oh, and there's yet another dimension to their 00:35:58.559 --> 00:36:02.940 irresponsibility, which is that they're now reducing 00:36:02.940 --> 00:36:05.719 their fight against the unionization of the Uber 00:36:05.719 --> 00:36:09.219 drivers because they're planning to move to self 00:36:09.219 --> 00:36:12.380 -driving vehicles. So what's the point of fighting 00:36:12.380 --> 00:36:15.760 unionization of their drivers if you're not going 00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:18.039 to have any drivers in the future? Yeah. And 00:36:18.039 --> 00:36:21.500 they've made provisions for purchasing a specific 00:36:21.500 --> 00:36:24.599 company's vehicles and, you know, they're marching 00:36:24.599 --> 00:36:29.519 down this road. So I've got to admire their... 00:36:29.519 --> 00:36:33.820 Chutzpah. Chutzpah. Chutzpah. Chutzpah. Yeah. 00:36:34.190 --> 00:36:35.949 Well, you got to admire, Fred, your home state 00:36:35.949 --> 00:36:38.210 of Massachusetts for, I believe, certifying the 00:36:38.210 --> 00:36:41.329 first ride share union for Uber and Lyft drivers. 00:36:41.809 --> 00:36:45.750 Was that a couple of days ago? Yeah. And, you 00:36:45.750 --> 00:36:48.650 know, I wish I could get past the terms of service 00:36:48.650 --> 00:36:51.989 so that I could actually use Uber, but I don't 00:36:51.989 --> 00:36:56.150 know. You're still reading. Yeah. So, hey, what 00:36:56.150 --> 00:37:01.090 I was going to say before about the MMOC trials. 00:37:01.920 --> 00:37:04.579 remember we were talking about the Waymos going 00:37:04.579 --> 00:37:07.199 into the water, is that there's another dimension 00:37:07.199 --> 00:37:11.179 to this whole sea trial problem, which is that 00:37:11.179 --> 00:37:17.280 it illustrates, I think very well, the idea that 00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:19.260 the passengers in these vehicles should have 00:37:19.260 --> 00:37:23.400 some means of aborting a trip or aborting the 00:37:23.400 --> 00:37:26.800 getting out of the car or whatever on demand 00:37:26.800 --> 00:37:31.280 quickly if the car goes crazy. Right. There should 00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:36.280 be an easily identified button somewhere that 00:37:36.280 --> 00:37:39.239 says, get me the hell out of here. Or command 00:37:39.239 --> 00:37:41.119 or that kind of thing, you know, for the for 00:37:41.119 --> 00:37:43.039 blind and people who can't hit a button. You 00:37:43.039 --> 00:37:45.760 know, there needs to be multiple ways for for 00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:49.460 us to say, stop, let me out. Right. And my understanding 00:37:49.460 --> 00:37:52.380 is the only way to do that now is to plow through 00:37:52.380 --> 00:37:56.559 the menu on the on the touch screen and eventually 00:37:56.559 --> 00:38:00.699 find the part that says. stop the vehicle. I've 00:38:00.699 --> 00:38:02.500 never used them, so I don't really know for sure. 00:38:02.579 --> 00:38:04.800 If anybody knows for sure how this works, please 00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:08.079 let me know. But the point is that the remote 00:38:08.079 --> 00:38:11.280 assistance is not capable of doing this in the 00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:15.480 time scale that is required to preserve your 00:38:15.480 --> 00:38:18.519 safety, protect you against the errant vehicles 00:38:18.519 --> 00:38:22.360 when you're in the car. The other item we talked 00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:25.719 about, which is this errant car that was... driving 00:38:25.719 --> 00:38:29.019 through the construction zone at high speed with 00:38:29.019 --> 00:38:32.619 police chasing them. If there's a person in the 00:38:32.619 --> 00:38:36.179 car, they should have a way of pushing a button 00:38:36.179 --> 00:38:39.539 to say, stop the damn vehicle. So this is a huge 00:38:39.539 --> 00:38:43.500 oversight. Whether or not intentional is something 00:38:43.500 --> 00:38:47.039 that should be fixed in these cars before they're 00:38:47.039 --> 00:38:50.360 approved by any state for transporting passengers 00:38:50.360 --> 00:38:54.980 within that state. Yeah, I mean, it's a functional 00:38:54.980 --> 00:38:59.820 way to avoid what I think is the most, I guess, 00:38:59.860 --> 00:39:02.119 the base nightmare for people getting into these 00:39:02.119 --> 00:39:04.159 cars, that they're going to be trapped in a vehicle. 00:39:04.239 --> 00:39:06.019 It's very similar to what we've seen with people 00:39:06.019 --> 00:39:08.119 who are involved in sudden acceleration incidents. 00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:10.739 You're trapped in a vehicle that's functionally 00:39:10.739 --> 00:39:13.699 lost its mind and you have no way to stop it. 00:39:13.880 --> 00:39:16.260 So I guess it's let me jump back to this Uber 00:39:16.260 --> 00:39:17.880 article real quick since we're on that and then 00:39:17.880 --> 00:39:21.079 we'll wrap up the gaslight. Quoting from a L 00:39:21.079 --> 00:39:23.860 .A. Times article. The trial attorney's competing 00:39:23.860 --> 00:39:26.500 measure competing against Ubers, which is, hey, 00:39:26.619 --> 00:39:29.500 man, we're all good, would classify Uber as a 00:39:29.500 --> 00:39:32.320 common carrier akin to a bus operator, effectively 00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:34.739 increasing its exposure to sexual assault cases 00:39:34.739 --> 00:39:37.500 involving Uber drivers. It would also mandate 00:39:37.500 --> 00:39:39.719 annual fingerprint checks, public reporting of 00:39:39.719 --> 00:39:42.320 sexual misconduct incidents and disclosure of 00:39:42.320 --> 00:39:44.960 an internal driver risk score on the Uber app. 00:39:45.480 --> 00:39:49.360 Yeah, which I think is all great and good. And 00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:52.860 of course, Uber is like, no, we have. Is it over 00:39:52.860 --> 00:39:55.340 3 ,000 sexual assaults reported a year or is 00:39:55.340 --> 00:39:58.420 it 30 ,000? I don't know. It's in the thousands. 00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:00.360 It's not a good number. It's not a good look. 00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:05.039 But their solution is trust us. Yeah, trust us. 00:40:05.199 --> 00:40:08.099 I mean, it's all good. And so we'll keep you 00:40:08.099 --> 00:40:11.579 updated on that. And now let's recap the gaslight 00:40:11.579 --> 00:40:15.000 situation here. So mine was just, mine was an 00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:17.260 early one. So actually I'll do mine very, I'll 00:40:17.260 --> 00:40:19.800 do another one very quickly. Cause I had one 00:40:19.800 --> 00:40:21.659 that just popped into the last second here, but 00:40:21.659 --> 00:40:25.860 one, I remember donut, the donut. I'm not, I 00:40:25.860 --> 00:40:28.280 mean, I, I'm yeah, I'm going to win this one. 00:40:28.440 --> 00:40:30.059 Okay. But you're not going to like why I went. 00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:32.380 Okay. No, I'm doing a, I'm doing a third. Okay. 00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:36.280 So the member donut, donut. The solid state batteries? 00:40:36.539 --> 00:40:38.179 Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we're all like, this is 00:40:38.179 --> 00:40:39.860 going to be amazing. It doesn't use any rare 00:40:39.860 --> 00:40:42.340 earths. I don't know. It's more and more. It 00:40:42.340 --> 00:40:44.780 seems like bullshit to me, right? They're my 00:40:44.780 --> 00:40:46.159 gaslight because they said it was going to be 00:40:46.159 --> 00:40:48.420 out in March. It is currently the end of May. 00:40:49.460 --> 00:40:52.739 TikTok. Okay. But my initial one was a lame one. 00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:55.320 It was around, hey, Uber or Waymo being like 00:40:55.320 --> 00:40:57.500 having to rely on the National Weather Service 00:40:57.500 --> 00:40:59.679 and their whole flood thing. Nothing there. Blah, 00:40:59.699 --> 00:41:03.090 blah, blah. Michael. You had a very good one. 00:41:03.150 --> 00:41:04.469 I don't remember what it was about. It was too 00:41:04.469 --> 00:41:10.510 long ago. It was Fong is Wrong, which was great 00:41:10.510 --> 00:41:13.409 and really in -depth around that. Fred, your 00:41:13.409 --> 00:41:15.949 one about Uber, very good. And I know it was 00:41:15.949 --> 00:41:17.730 very good because I wasn't paying attention, 00:41:17.829 --> 00:41:19.710 but Michael got passionate about it. So that's 00:41:19.710 --> 00:41:22.610 how you know it's a good gaslight. But your fatal 00:41:22.610 --> 00:41:25.110 flaw, Fred Perkins, was you started this off 00:41:25.110 --> 00:41:28.760 saying, our friends at Uber. Our friends. Are 00:41:28.760 --> 00:41:30.579 you gaslighting us saying that we're friends 00:41:30.579 --> 00:41:35.320 with Uber people? I have many more flaws than 00:41:35.320 --> 00:41:37.880 that, Anthony. You should not harp on that. All 00:41:37.880 --> 00:41:40.119 right. Well, then if we take that away, then 00:41:40.119 --> 00:41:44.420 Fred, you win. Yeah, there we go. I'm fine with 00:41:44.420 --> 00:41:46.579 that. Yeah, I think that's fair enough. Because 00:41:46.579 --> 00:41:49.579 the Uber was my original gaslight, but I ceded 00:41:49.579 --> 00:41:51.739 it to Fred. I know you're doing it. Thank you, 00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:54.360 Michael. You're a kind and generous person. You're 00:41:54.360 --> 00:41:57.599 doing a mitzvah. All right. So continue. I want 00:41:57.599 --> 00:41:59.659 to do one more. I think this is just the last 00:41:59.659 --> 00:42:03.500 Waymo piece. So, again, the greatest group of 00:42:03.500 --> 00:42:05.760 people, the most talented group of people on 00:42:05.760 --> 00:42:08.519 planet Earth at this current moment in time are 00:42:08.519 --> 00:42:12.360 Waymo's PR team. Hands down. No one can disagree 00:42:12.360 --> 00:42:14.760 with that. They are. I mean, look at the story 00:42:14.760 --> 00:42:17.199 they get. They get placed immediately after all 00:42:17.199 --> 00:42:19.340 these problems. Right. So they have to shut down 00:42:19.340 --> 00:42:21.239 freeway travel. They have problems with school 00:42:21.239 --> 00:42:22.940 buses, a problem with flooding. And so they. 00:42:23.610 --> 00:42:26.349 Post a piece in the New York Times. I'm not saying 00:42:26.349 --> 00:42:27.989 there's a journalist who wrote this because it's 00:42:27.989 --> 00:42:30.909 not. It's PR flack, 100 percent saying we're 00:42:30.909 --> 00:42:34.090 helping the blind. We're doing this for the blind. 00:42:34.130 --> 00:42:36.889 The blind love us so much. And so I'm going to 00:42:36.889 --> 00:42:38.969 quote specifically from one little section of 00:42:38.969 --> 00:42:41.849 this article. And this is a this sums up all 00:42:41.849 --> 00:42:43.690 of the problems of everything, not just self 00:42:43.690 --> 00:42:45.969 -driving cars, but everything with tech brawl 00:42:45.969 --> 00:42:49.030 culture here. Quoting, I don't have to talk to 00:42:49.030 --> 00:42:51.820 another human being. Said Sarah Funes, a South 00:42:51.820 --> 00:42:53.719 San Francisco resident who is partially blind. 00:42:53.820 --> 00:42:58.480 I get in a car and I'm just alone. Anytime you 00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:01.639 think about any technology and any of these weirdos 00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:04.480 talking about stuff, that's what they want. They 00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:07.260 want to live in an underground bunker. They don't 00:43:07.260 --> 00:43:09.809 want to be subjected. taxes they want to live 00:43:09.809 --> 00:43:13.110 off on in some seasteading island you think you're 00:43:13.110 --> 00:43:15.329 going a little too far there this is just a blind 00:43:15.329 --> 00:43:17.929 person that wants a little independence right 00:43:17.929 --> 00:43:20.570 no independence is one thing but this this i 00:43:20.570 --> 00:43:22.829 think this captured it perfectly i don't have 00:43:22.829 --> 00:43:26.480 to talk to another human being I thought that 00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:31.239 was kind of sad when I read that. I guess as 00:43:31.239 --> 00:43:34.300 a closet introvert, I can kind of sympathize 00:43:34.300 --> 00:43:37.400 with that understanding. What I can't sympathize 00:43:37.400 --> 00:43:40.360 with here is the fact that you're willing to 00:43:40.360 --> 00:43:44.530 trade this. particular independence that you 00:43:44.530 --> 00:43:46.389 find in being in a car without another human, 00:43:46.550 --> 00:43:49.469 you're willing to trade that for the safety risk 00:43:49.469 --> 00:43:51.650 that comes with turning these things loose on 00:43:51.650 --> 00:43:54.269 the roads across America, right? Well, it's a 00:43:54.269 --> 00:43:56.489 lot like jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, 00:43:56.650 --> 00:43:59.630 right? I mean, you are intentionally exposing 00:43:59.630 --> 00:44:03.369 yourself to danger just for the thrill of finding 00:44:03.369 --> 00:44:07.949 that you can survive that danger. It's an odd 00:44:07.949 --> 00:44:11.670 approach to life, but, you know. Bless him if 00:44:11.670 --> 00:44:14.409 that's the way he wants to run his life. Just 00:44:14.409 --> 00:44:17.909 hope that the car never breaks down in between 00:44:17.909 --> 00:44:24.650 your embarkation and your destination. What's 00:44:24.650 --> 00:44:27.389 not new here are AV companies using the disabled 00:44:27.389 --> 00:44:30.489 as an emotional crutch to support scaling of 00:44:30.489 --> 00:44:33.429 unsafe autonomous vehicles, right? That's something 00:44:33.429 --> 00:44:36.090 they've been doing for about a decade now. Yeah, 00:44:36.110 --> 00:44:38.190 now they've actually got a live person. Right. 00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:42.000 So that's good. But, you know, this person should 00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:45.360 really consider their participation in a Waymo 00:44:45.360 --> 00:44:49.139 C trial and see if that still fits their safety 00:44:49.139 --> 00:44:52.199 profile. Well, I mean, keep in mind that they 00:44:52.199 --> 00:44:53.940 got people from the American Council for the 00:44:53.940 --> 00:44:58.619 Blind, which is heavily funded by Waymo. Do you 00:44:58.619 --> 00:45:01.099 know that? A hundred percent. I don't. I do know 00:45:01.099 --> 00:45:04.280 that Waymo has worked by partnering with several 00:45:04.280 --> 00:45:06.480 organizations. It says it right in the article 00:45:06.480 --> 00:45:08.800 by partnering, partnering, you know, what does 00:45:08.800 --> 00:45:11.519 that mean? We have a, we, we give them a t -shirt. 00:45:11.539 --> 00:45:14.900 You don't know. So you can't say they're funding 00:45:14.900 --> 00:45:18.880 them. I'll dig into that. Fine. All right. I 00:45:18.880 --> 00:45:21.360 would, I would, I would go out. I would go, you 00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:23.559 know, I've, I've speculated about this many times 00:45:23.559 --> 00:45:25.619 in the past. We just don't have any real evidence 00:45:25.619 --> 00:45:27.139 of it. I mean, I don't even know if you went 00:45:27.139 --> 00:45:28.860 into their nine nineties and that sort of thing. 00:45:28.900 --> 00:45:30.900 If you could figure out who was donating to them, 00:45:31.019 --> 00:45:34.500 whether that's public record, but, um, I have 00:45:34.500 --> 00:45:38.079 been very suspicious of a, you know, some type 00:45:38.079 --> 00:45:40.179 of financial connection or motivation between 00:45:40.179 --> 00:45:42.579 some of the disabled groups and some of the larger 00:45:42.579 --> 00:45:45.599 autonomous vehicle companies for many years now. 00:45:46.440 --> 00:45:53.340 Because invariably in NHTSA comments and in NHTSA 00:45:53.340 --> 00:45:55.599 meetings and public meetings and in all sorts 00:45:55.599 --> 00:45:59.039 of PR related activities. These AV companies 00:45:59.039 --> 00:46:01.079 will trot out members of the disabled community, 00:46:01.320 --> 00:46:04.659 particularly the blind community, over the past 00:46:04.659 --> 00:46:08.219 few years to, you know, essentially serve as 00:46:08.219 --> 00:46:10.519 an emotional crutch for the idea that these should 00:46:10.519 --> 00:46:12.760 be expanding or these vehicles should be deployed 00:46:12.760 --> 00:46:15.860 and expanded as quickly as possible to save these 00:46:15.860 --> 00:46:18.400 disabled people without considering the fact 00:46:18.400 --> 00:46:20.679 that they're also creating safety hazards to 00:46:20.679 --> 00:46:23.380 everyone, including the disabled folks around. 00:46:24.519 --> 00:46:27.420 It's a real just it's a real I don't know. I 00:46:27.420 --> 00:46:30.219 find the whole operation somewhat seedy. But 00:46:30.219 --> 00:46:32.239 forgetting that, stepping away from that, I have 00:46:32.239 --> 00:46:35.639 a couple of blind friends and they use ride share 00:46:35.639 --> 00:46:39.280 apps. And we've seen this with Waymo or sometimes 00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:41.739 Waymo just stops in the middle of it and says, 00:46:41.860 --> 00:46:44.539 yeah, the ride's over. We're done. Get out of 00:46:44.539 --> 00:46:47.420 the car. They do that to a blind person. You 00:46:47.420 --> 00:46:48.960 don't know where you are. You're in the middle 00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:51.289 of nowhere. You're screwed. But specifically, 00:46:51.349 --> 00:46:53.610 a friend of mine, she had, you know, put in the 00:46:53.610 --> 00:46:55.650 address. The driver drives her to a location. 00:46:56.230 --> 00:46:58.889 She gets out and realizes, wait a second, this 00:46:58.889 --> 00:47:02.070 is not where I'm supposed to be. And so she can 00:47:02.070 --> 00:47:03.630 then have an interaction with the driver. We're 00:47:03.630 --> 00:47:05.409 like, hey, is this the address I'm supposed to 00:47:05.409 --> 00:47:08.829 be at? The person go, oh, you didn't know. The 00:47:08.829 --> 00:47:10.909 app says it is, but you're right. We're not at 00:47:10.909 --> 00:47:13.329 the correct address. Whereas if you're dropped 00:47:13.329 --> 00:47:15.570 off without a driver, you're just dropped off. 00:47:15.610 --> 00:47:19.550 That car drives away. What do you do then? I 00:47:19.550 --> 00:47:22.280 mean, this is. This really isn't an edge case 00:47:22.280 --> 00:47:24.880 because we've seen enough of Waymo's just, hey, 00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:26.400 we're going to drop you off here. You're done. 00:47:28.260 --> 00:47:30.659 Well, clearly that can never happen because the 00:47:30.659 --> 00:47:33.400 maps are infallible. And why are you making this 00:47:33.400 --> 00:47:35.380 up, Anthony, out of the whole class? I'm not 00:47:35.380 --> 00:47:38.280 making this up. Not at all. I mean, it's fun. 00:47:38.360 --> 00:47:40.119 You ever been on a sailboat with two blind people 00:47:40.119 --> 00:47:44.139 fighting over the tiller? It's amazing. Anyway, 00:47:44.360 --> 00:47:47.860 that's it. I have. It's amazing. They're really 00:47:47.860 --> 00:47:49.420 good at sailing because they can feel the wind 00:47:49.420 --> 00:47:53.199 on their faces. Anyway, Fred, do you have some 00:47:53.199 --> 00:47:58.219 towel time? I do. But I think I already went 00:47:58.219 --> 00:48:00.380 through that, actually. Did you already do the 00:48:00.380 --> 00:48:04.500 towel? Are we done? I did. I think my towel bled 00:48:04.500 --> 00:48:07.639 over into one of my comments, which was really 00:48:07.639 --> 00:48:12.539 about that extra dimension of the safety discussion 00:48:12.539 --> 00:48:16.190 associated with. the ability of the passenger 00:48:16.190 --> 00:48:18.489 to be the final authority on whether or not the 00:48:18.489 --> 00:48:20.949 transportation was safe. It was a secret towel. 00:48:21.130 --> 00:48:24.510 Ooh, secret towel. Yeah, I slipped that right 00:48:24.510 --> 00:48:28.150 in over the threshold. So I don't need to repeat 00:48:28.150 --> 00:48:30.829 that, but it's been a perennial theme. I think 00:48:30.829 --> 00:48:35.789 that that's a big gap in the permitting process 00:48:35.789 --> 00:48:38.610 associated with these vehicles. People need to 00:48:38.610 --> 00:48:40.510 be able to defend themselves against the vehicles 00:48:40.510 --> 00:48:44.429 because Folks, they're not perfect. Anybody who's 00:48:44.429 --> 00:48:46.829 ever used a computer knows that these things 00:48:46.829 --> 00:48:50.590 can screw up. And when you give them control 00:48:50.590 --> 00:48:54.030 over your life, you damn well better have a backup 00:48:54.030 --> 00:48:58.090 strategy to preserve yourself and defend yourself 00:48:58.090 --> 00:49:00.829 against the technological flaws that can occur. 00:49:01.510 --> 00:49:03.789 No, it will never screw up. Go to autosafety 00:49:03.789 --> 00:49:07.250 .org and click on Donate. In terms of conditions 00:49:07.250 --> 00:49:09.309 applied, it might screw up. Anthony, where are 00:49:09.309 --> 00:49:11.809 you going to put the towel? Intro music this 00:49:11.809 --> 00:49:13.710 week. You haven't listened to this show in over 00:49:13.710 --> 00:49:15.630 two years, have you? Because that intro music 00:49:15.630 --> 00:49:18.630 disappeared a couple of years ago. I like that. 00:49:18.670 --> 00:49:22.869 He turned into a slacker. I liked it, too. Anyway, 00:49:23.670 --> 00:49:26.690 before we go to recalls, let's go to my favorite 00:49:26.690 --> 00:49:29.150 subject. One of my favorite subjects. Wiggly 00:49:29.150 --> 00:49:32.570 Wiggly? No, he's pretty good. From a friend of 00:49:32.570 --> 00:49:35.230 the show, Jonathan Gitlin, has an article in 00:49:35.230 --> 00:49:38.440 Ars. titled, These Clever Active Beam Headlights 00:49:38.440 --> 00:49:41.659 Are Finally Coming to America. I'm going to quote 00:49:41.659 --> 00:49:43.460 directly from the article. Despite America's 00:49:43.460 --> 00:49:46.019 reputation as an innovation powerhouse, we have 00:49:46.019 --> 00:49:48.599 lagged behind Europe and Japan in automotive 00:49:48.599 --> 00:49:52.039 lighting technology for decades. Thanks to 1960s 00:49:52.039 --> 00:49:54.619 era regulations allowed only low and high beam 00:49:54.619 --> 00:49:57.639 headlights, nothing else. For years, OEMs like 00:49:57.639 --> 00:49:59.539 Audi, BMW, Mercedes -Benz, Toyota, and Volvo 00:49:59.539 --> 00:50:02.800 lobbied NHTSA to allow them to bring more modern 00:50:02.800 --> 00:50:05.300 technology to these shores to no avail. At first, 00:50:05.300 --> 00:50:07.400 it was laser high beams, which could project 00:50:07.400 --> 00:50:10.219 their beams much further down the road than conventional 00:50:10.219 --> 00:50:12.900 halogen or xenon lights. Lasers are cool, but 00:50:12.900 --> 00:50:15.280 adaptive driving beam technology is even cooler. 00:50:15.579 --> 00:50:18.719 Each headlight is actually a multiplex LED, and 00:50:18.719 --> 00:50:21.219 by turning some of those pixels off, the headlight 00:50:21.219 --> 00:50:23.539 beam can be shaped to mask the light to selectively 00:50:23.539 --> 00:50:26.420 dim oncoming vehicles instead of switching to 00:50:26.420 --> 00:50:29.500 low beams. Oh my god, I want every vehicle on 00:50:29.500 --> 00:50:33.610 the road to have this now. This is... Super cool. 00:50:33.750 --> 00:50:36.489 I think we all do. And we've wanted it for a 00:50:36.489 --> 00:50:39.829 number of years. And NHTSA not doing anything. 00:50:40.289 --> 00:50:43.550 You know, I think Europe allowed these in 2006. 00:50:44.829 --> 00:50:49.289 NHTSA's final rule allowing the tech was put 00:50:49.289 --> 00:50:55.250 out in 2022. Didn't follow directly what automakers 00:50:55.250 --> 00:50:57.889 were already doing in Europe and added some additional 00:50:57.889 --> 00:51:01.090 restrictions around glare, which were probably 00:51:01.090 --> 00:51:04.489 needed. I don't know that everyone agrees with 00:51:04.489 --> 00:51:08.809 that. I do. And so, you know, here we are four 00:51:08.809 --> 00:51:11.550 years later and Audi is now the first manufacturer 00:51:11.550 --> 00:51:13.829 that I think it looks like that has successfully 00:51:13.829 --> 00:51:16.610 been able to design and test systems that can 00:51:16.610 --> 00:51:19.190 comply with the NHTSA rules. And those are going 00:51:19.190 --> 00:51:22.510 to be coming out, what is it, next year's? Is 00:51:22.510 --> 00:51:25.550 it the 2027? No, 2026, I think is what they said. 00:51:25.650 --> 00:51:31.869 2028. Alley goes on sale later this year. Right. 00:51:31.929 --> 00:51:34.030 So it looks like it'll be, I think that'll be 00:51:34.030 --> 00:51:37.590 a 2027 vehicle. Okay, so. Which is great. You 00:51:37.590 --> 00:51:41.530 know, did you see the light carpet? It looks 00:51:41.530 --> 00:51:44.409 so cool. Check this article out. So, Michael, 00:51:44.489 --> 00:51:48.389 how many crashes do we know occur at night? Or 00:51:48.389 --> 00:51:52.380 can we make a guess? How many of these are potentially 00:51:52.380 --> 00:51:55.559 related to people being blinded by people running 00:51:55.559 --> 00:51:58.280 fog lights that are trying to blind me? There's 00:51:58.280 --> 00:52:01.179 no evidence that, you know, any of them are directly 00:52:01.179 --> 00:52:03.559 caused by that. So I think we've dealt with that 00:52:03.559 --> 00:52:06.599 before. I just looked at it and, you know, there's 00:52:06.599 --> 00:52:09.420 just not, whether it's a, you know, there could 00:52:09.420 --> 00:52:11.460 be a failing crash reporting, police reporting 00:52:11.460 --> 00:52:14.599 that, you know, where drivers report this condition. 00:52:14.719 --> 00:52:18.949 Also. I think it's really difficult to prove 00:52:18.949 --> 00:52:20.849 in a lot of circumstances, because if you know, 00:52:20.889 --> 00:52:23.269 unless the two vehicles collide, the one that's 00:52:23.269 --> 00:52:24.949 got the blinding lights and the other vehicle, 00:52:25.090 --> 00:52:26.769 you don't even you're not even going to get a 00:52:26.769 --> 00:52:29.409 statement or have evidence that the vehicle was 00:52:29.409 --> 00:52:32.090 driving by with its headlights on bright. Right. 00:52:32.530 --> 00:52:35.829 Or you just don't have that proof. So there's 00:52:35.829 --> 00:52:38.789 a lot of data problems there. But ultimately, 00:52:38.889 --> 00:52:41.250 I don't think we've. You know, we just haven't 00:52:41.250 --> 00:52:43.050 been able to find a large sustained connection 00:52:43.050 --> 00:52:45.789 between headlight glare and crashes. Right. We 00:52:45.789 --> 00:52:48.369 see a lot of people that are annoyed by it. But 00:52:48.369 --> 00:52:53.889 so far, the data simply doesn't bear out a safety 00:52:53.889 --> 00:52:56.530 risk that can be addressed. But in this case, 00:52:56.590 --> 00:52:58.269 you know, this is one of the reasons why I mentioned 00:52:58.269 --> 00:53:01.630 that's in the glare and in the adaptive driving 00:53:01.630 --> 00:53:04.590 being rule they put out. They added additional. 00:53:05.550 --> 00:53:09.170 protections on top of what the EU does or the 00:53:09.170 --> 00:53:12.010 EU did when it allowed them in 2006 to address 00:53:12.010 --> 00:53:16.590 the glare problem. So NHTSA has, you know, made 00:53:16.590 --> 00:53:19.429 a step at least towards addressing any concerns 00:53:19.429 --> 00:53:22.050 there might be around the glare, around LED and 00:53:22.050 --> 00:53:25.710 that kind of thing. Well, so given the time frame 00:53:25.710 --> 00:53:28.309 for technology like this to go through the entire 00:53:28.309 --> 00:53:31.210 fleet of all the cars on the road, we're talking 00:53:31.210 --> 00:53:34.949 about 30 years. Yeah, I would say 30 years on 00:53:34.949 --> 00:53:38.210 average there for any type of technology to fully 00:53:38.210 --> 00:53:39.889 penetrate the fleet. I mean, and that's just 00:53:39.889 --> 00:53:41.869 because, you know, some people are going to keep 00:53:41.869 --> 00:53:43.710 their cars for 30 years, right? I get it. I'm 00:53:43.710 --> 00:53:45.369 just wondering when I can finally feel comfortable 00:53:45.369 --> 00:53:47.610 driving. So when I'm 80 years old, I'll be good. 00:53:48.170 --> 00:53:52.429 Perfect. Maybe. That happens faster than you 00:53:52.429 --> 00:53:55.230 expect, Anthony, by the way. Okay, well, I'll 00:53:55.230 --> 00:53:57.969 race you to it. Let's see what happens. Hey, 00:53:58.150 --> 00:54:02.199 let's jump into recalls. All right. First up, 00:54:02.260 --> 00:54:08.039 Toyota. 43 ,566 vehicles. The 2024 Toyota Tundra. 00:54:09.079 --> 00:54:12.179 There's problems with their engines. The subject 00:54:12.179 --> 00:54:15.500 vehicle is equipped with a specific B35A engine 00:54:15.500 --> 00:54:17.460 that contains crankshaft main bearings, which 00:54:17.460 --> 00:54:19.579 allow the crankshaft to rotate within the engine 00:54:19.579 --> 00:54:21.800 assembly while running. During a specific production 00:54:21.800 --> 00:54:24.239 period possibility, there was machining debris 00:54:24.239 --> 00:54:27.880 inside this. Oh, they got some metal shavings 00:54:27.880 --> 00:54:32.710 in there. The pressure. Presumably. Yeah. Oh, 00:54:32.769 --> 00:54:37.050 so what's going to happen here? Essentially, 00:54:37.329 --> 00:54:39.730 I think you're essentially your engine's going 00:54:39.730 --> 00:54:41.230 to fail. You're going to stall. You're going 00:54:41.230 --> 00:54:44.190 to lose motive power. And this is a stalling 00:54:44.190 --> 00:54:48.869 recall. You know, I'm assuming that what's going 00:54:48.869 --> 00:54:51.590 to have to happen here is they're going to have 00:54:51.590 --> 00:54:56.079 to. take a look inside of these engines to determine 00:54:56.079 --> 00:54:58.860 whether or not there's any debris there. If so, 00:54:59.019 --> 00:55:04.579 they're going to replace the engine, possibly, 00:55:04.619 --> 00:55:06.800 if there's damage. But definitely, I don't know, 00:55:06.860 --> 00:55:09.159 clean out the engine. We don't really know yet 00:55:09.159 --> 00:55:11.679 because no information has been provided on the 00:55:11.679 --> 00:55:14.500 remedy yet. So it looks like they're going to 00:55:14.500 --> 00:55:17.659 be sending out a notification to owners later 00:55:17.659 --> 00:55:22.409 this summer in July. you know, at least tell 00:55:22.409 --> 00:55:24.289 you what to expect. But for right now, we're 00:55:24.289 --> 00:55:29.530 all kind of in the dark. Up next, Hyundai, 421 00:55:29.530 --> 00:55:34.849 ,078 vehicles, the 2025, 2026 Santa Cruz, same 00:55:34.849 --> 00:55:38.630 year's Tucson hybrid and the Tucson plug -in 00:55:38.630 --> 00:55:41.409 hybrid. The forward collision avoidance system 00:55:41.409 --> 00:55:43.269 in the subject vehicles may exhibit increased 00:55:43.269 --> 00:55:46.750 sensitivity to forward object proximity in certain 00:55:46.750 --> 00:55:49.010 driving scenarios due to the front camera software. 00:55:49.349 --> 00:55:52.409 This can dull... Condition can result in forward 00:55:52.409 --> 00:55:54.489 collision and avoidance engagement earlier than 00:55:54.489 --> 00:55:57.050 the operator's expectation, potentially leading 00:55:57.050 --> 00:56:00.090 to sudden braking. Ooh, so they've got sudden 00:56:00.090 --> 00:56:02.449 braking and they can explain why it happens. 00:56:02.570 --> 00:56:06.530 That's a first. I like it. It looks like, you 00:56:06.530 --> 00:56:09.429 know, this is essentially a phantom braking condition. 00:56:10.329 --> 00:56:12.190 something that we're highly concerned with in 00:56:12.190 --> 00:56:15.070 a lot of automatic emergency braking and other 00:56:15.070 --> 00:56:17.429 systems. You know, we've seen this in autonomous 00:56:17.429 --> 00:56:19.829 vehicles stopping short and causing crashes. 00:56:19.889 --> 00:56:22.530 We already discussed that a little today. They're 00:56:22.530 --> 00:56:25.929 autonomous adjacent vehicles? Yeah, it looks 00:56:25.929 --> 00:56:29.110 like four crashes have been reported here where, 00:56:29.230 --> 00:56:32.250 you know, these Hyundai vehicles were rear -ended 00:56:32.250 --> 00:56:34.630 by vehicles that were probably following them 00:56:34.630 --> 00:56:38.349 too closely in the first place and four injuries. 00:56:40.550 --> 00:56:43.309 Essentially, you know, they're going to revise 00:56:43.309 --> 00:56:47.929 the software for the system. And it looks like 00:56:47.929 --> 00:56:53.170 owners will get a remedy in mid -July 17th is 00:56:53.170 --> 00:56:56.050 when Hyundai is saying it's going to come. So 00:56:56.050 --> 00:56:59.949 be on the lookout for that. And also, be careful 00:56:59.949 --> 00:57:04.110 driving around your vehicle with, you know, defective 00:57:04.110 --> 00:57:06.530 software until then. You know, it seems like 00:57:06.530 --> 00:57:07.949 it's something they should be getting together 00:57:07.949 --> 00:57:12.139 a little quicker. Two months, three months is, 00:57:12.199 --> 00:57:14.440 you know, a typical run, I think, for a recall 00:57:14.440 --> 00:57:16.840 repair. In some cases, owners would be happy 00:57:16.840 --> 00:57:19.860 with three months. In this scenario, I would 00:57:19.860 --> 00:57:21.780 like to point out to the people following too 00:57:21.780 --> 00:57:24.739 closely. When you come to a stop sign or a traffic 00:57:24.739 --> 00:57:27.579 light, you should stop far enough behind the 00:57:27.579 --> 00:57:29.440 vehicle in front of you that you can see their 00:57:29.440 --> 00:57:33.280 rear tires completely on the road as a general 00:57:33.280 --> 00:57:36.659 rule of thumb. Why? There's all this space there. 00:57:36.739 --> 00:57:38.820 Why don't I take up all that space? Because when 00:57:38.820 --> 00:57:41.559 the moron behind you hits you, you don't hit 00:57:41.559 --> 00:57:44.519 the car in front of you. This safety message 00:57:44.519 --> 00:57:47.960 brought to you by me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, riding 00:57:47.960 --> 00:57:51.539 too closely is a huge problem. Arguably, phantom 00:57:51.539 --> 00:57:54.199 braking would not be an issue if following drivers 00:57:54.199 --> 00:57:58.239 were observing, you know, the time and distance 00:57:58.239 --> 00:58:03.469 recommendations for following vehicles. As all 00:58:03.469 --> 00:58:06.130 of us who have driven know that there's a significant 00:58:06.130 --> 00:58:09.389 number of people who don't observe those recommendations. 00:58:10.070 --> 00:58:14.769 Looking at you, state of Connecticut. One of 00:58:14.769 --> 00:58:18.889 my favorite driving games is when somebody passes 00:58:18.889 --> 00:58:22.610 me who is a maniac, for example, and they're 00:58:22.610 --> 00:58:24.710 speeding down the road. Sorry about that. What 00:58:24.710 --> 00:58:27.530 I like to do is to kind of track them and see 00:58:27.530 --> 00:58:30.010 how much time they're actually saving when they 00:58:30.010 --> 00:58:33.300 perform this crazy maneuver. Yeah. And typically 00:58:33.300 --> 00:58:36.260 I catch up to them at the next red light. So 00:58:36.260 --> 00:58:39.900 they haven't saved any time, but it's never more 00:58:39.900 --> 00:58:43.059 than about 10 seconds before I lose track of 00:58:43.059 --> 00:58:45.400 them. I mean, I had someone pass me in the middle 00:58:45.400 --> 00:58:48.119 of a, on a double yellow line, like in the middle 00:58:48.119 --> 00:58:50.519 of town, double pass me and the car in front 00:58:50.519 --> 00:58:53.480 of me. That was going a little slow, but, and 00:58:53.480 --> 00:58:55.980 then pull in, you know, less than a quarter mile 00:58:55.980 --> 00:58:57.900 down the road, pull into the same supermarket 00:58:57.900 --> 00:59:00.679 as I did. And I beat them into the grocery store. 00:59:00.840 --> 00:59:05.739 So there. What did you beat them with? You know, 00:59:05.739 --> 00:59:08.380 the shopping cart. So the Piggly Wiggly, Michael? 00:59:08.559 --> 00:59:11.219 No, no. Unfortunately, they don't have those 00:59:11.219 --> 00:59:14.639 here yet. Oh, man. Next up, Hyundai. That's two 00:59:14.639 --> 00:59:17.679 Piggly Wigglies today. That's a third now. Okay. 00:59:18.639 --> 00:59:23.960 Hyundai, 54 ,337 vehicles, 2024, 2026. Hyundai 00:59:23.960 --> 00:59:30.239 Elantra Hybrid. And what is happening here? Hybrid 00:59:30.239 --> 00:59:32.780 power control unit. Oh, the overheating of the 00:59:32.780 --> 00:59:36.800 hybrid power control unit. Yeah, these are hybrids. 00:59:36.820 --> 00:59:39.559 Yes, overheating could increase the risk of fire. 00:59:39.800 --> 00:59:42.139 Oh, I don't like that. Yeah, I think there's 00:59:42.139 --> 00:59:44.519 both a fire and a potential loss of propulsion 00:59:44.519 --> 00:59:48.780 here. That's never good. Again, it's going to 00:59:48.780 --> 00:59:52.519 be a software fix that improves. MOSFET cooling. 00:59:52.860 --> 00:59:55.860 Yeah, whatever MOSFET cooling is. Fred Perkins, 00:59:55.920 --> 01:00:00.630 what is MOSFET? Metal oxide semiconductor field 01:00:00.630 --> 01:00:04.429 effect transistor. I've got some in this little 01:00:04.429 --> 01:00:07.989 cabinet next to me. You probably remember what 01:00:07.989 --> 01:00:11.849 a relay is from your primitive exposure to electronics, 01:00:12.050 --> 01:00:16.570 but MOSFETs are solid state replacements for 01:00:16.570 --> 01:00:20.489 relays, mechanical relays. And so that's basically 01:00:20.489 --> 01:00:24.969 what switches the heavy power off and on that's 01:00:24.969 --> 01:00:29.789 going to your motors. Remedy is going to be out 01:00:29.789 --> 01:00:32.630 in mid -July again for the Hyundai owners. The 01:00:32.630 --> 01:00:34.309 only reason I do these recalls is just to hear 01:00:34.309 --> 01:00:37.570 you say July. July. It makes me want to drink 01:00:37.570 --> 01:00:40.869 a mint julep. All right. Hyundai again. Third 01:00:40.869 --> 01:00:42.769 entry Hyundai. Hyundai, who do you think you 01:00:42.769 --> 01:00:48.309 are? Ford? 3 ,493 vehicles. The 2016 Hyundai 01:00:48.309 --> 01:00:53.469 Elantra GT. 2015, 2016 Hyundai Elantra. Oh. An 01:00:53.469 --> 01:00:56.250 airbag inflator rupture increases the risk of 01:00:56.250 --> 01:00:59.170 severe injury. The subject dual stage hybrid 01:00:59.170 --> 01:01:01.309 airbag inflators provided in specific production 01:01:01.309 --> 01:01:04.289 lots may contain propellant outside of density 01:01:04.289 --> 01:01:08.969 specifications. This is the scary, scary, scary. 01:01:09.250 --> 01:01:12.150 Why did it take them a decade to find this? Well, 01:01:12.150 --> 01:01:15.809 this one's weird. Like this is so NHTSA has been 01:01:15.809 --> 01:01:20.469 looking at ARC airbags for about 10 years now. 01:01:20.530 --> 01:01:22.429 I think their 10th year anniversary of this investigation 01:01:22.429 --> 01:01:25.619 comes up this year. That's a name. incredibly 01:01:25.619 --> 01:01:29.260 long engineering analysis, maybe the longest 01:01:29.260 --> 01:01:31.440 engineering analysis in the history of the agency. 01:01:31.860 --> 01:01:34.099 I don't have the data to back that up, but I'm 01:01:34.099 --> 01:01:37.699 pretty sure. But as part of the ARC airbagging 01:01:37.699 --> 01:01:39.559 investigation, you know, the original defect 01:01:39.559 --> 01:01:43.449 that. um was cited was that there was some type 01:01:43.449 --> 01:01:47.190 of slag from welding process that was left in 01:01:47.190 --> 01:01:49.849 the airbags that was getting caught or blocking 01:01:49.849 --> 01:01:53.949 the um pores or the holes that allow the gas 01:01:53.949 --> 01:01:58.429 to escape in the airbag inflator um and thus 01:01:58.429 --> 01:02:02.590 resulting in explosive rupture of those airbags 01:02:02.590 --> 01:02:07.429 um you know nizza We tried to go through the 01:02:07.429 --> 01:02:10.489 recall process to have these vehicles recalled. 01:02:10.730 --> 01:02:12.449 You know, there weren't a lot of incidents. This 01:02:12.449 --> 01:02:15.150 wasn't the same as Takata airbags, where these 01:02:15.150 --> 01:02:17.269 airbags are going to get more dangerous over 01:02:17.269 --> 01:02:20.369 time due to humidity levels. There's, you know, 01:02:20.389 --> 01:02:23.659 the agency essentially. I think it was in late 01:02:23.659 --> 01:02:29.239 2024, said, you know, we don't have enough information 01:02:29.239 --> 01:02:31.980 to move forward at this point, even after they 01:02:31.980 --> 01:02:34.679 had filed an initial defect determination. And 01:02:34.679 --> 01:02:36.920 they said, we're going to continue investigating 01:02:36.920 --> 01:02:39.000 this for now. So presumably we're still in that 01:02:39.000 --> 01:02:41.900 stage in regards to this larger investigation 01:02:41.900 --> 01:02:45.219 of these 50 million or more ARC airbags that 01:02:45.219 --> 01:02:47.019 are out there still riding around in vehicles 01:02:47.019 --> 01:02:51.139 all over America. In this case, Hyundai. And 01:02:51.139 --> 01:02:53.320 pursuant to that investigation, Hyundai had been 01:02:53.320 --> 01:02:57.000 collecting its airbag inflators, giving them 01:02:57.000 --> 01:02:59.460 to, I think it was Northrop Grumman to do some 01:02:59.460 --> 01:03:03.340 testing on them. And Northrop Grumman came back 01:03:03.340 --> 01:03:04.960 to Hyundai and was like, well, you know, we're 01:03:04.960 --> 01:03:08.849 not seeing. The problem that is alleged as the 01:03:08.849 --> 01:03:11.510 defect in our airbags, which is the weld slag 01:03:11.510 --> 01:03:15.230 blocking the gas ports in the inflators. But 01:03:15.230 --> 01:03:19.750 we've done these CT scans of your airbags, and 01:03:19.750 --> 01:03:25.250 we're seeing that the propellant wafer that you're 01:03:25.250 --> 01:03:27.389 using that essentially contains the explosive 01:03:27.389 --> 01:03:32.369 that deploys the airbag, they're lower density. 01:03:32.670 --> 01:03:34.610 They're not quite right. They're not what we're 01:03:34.610 --> 01:03:39.679 expecting here. And Hyundai took that, you know, 01:03:39.679 --> 01:03:42.219 I guess to their credit and did its own testing 01:03:42.219 --> 01:03:45.269 and said, you know. You know, they went back 01:03:45.269 --> 01:03:47.409 to ARC, actually, and ARC said, ah, don't worry 01:03:47.409 --> 01:03:49.590 about it. You know, the performance isn't impacted. 01:03:49.829 --> 01:03:51.750 They're a little lower density on these propellant 01:03:51.750 --> 01:03:54.449 wafers, but no problem. Hyundai did some tank 01:03:54.449 --> 01:03:57.210 testing of these inflators and turns around and 01:03:57.210 --> 01:03:59.469 says, okay, we're doing a recall. So they saw 01:03:59.469 --> 01:04:01.610 something there that was very concerning that 01:04:01.610 --> 01:04:04.530 ARC is maintaining is not a problem. It doesn't 01:04:04.530 --> 01:04:06.730 appear to be related to the original defect. 01:04:06.829 --> 01:04:10.789 However, you know. There is a possibility that 01:04:10.789 --> 01:04:13.469 there could be, you know, a problem with ARC's 01:04:13.469 --> 01:04:15.849 manufacturing process and its propellant wafer 01:04:15.849 --> 01:04:18.090 process that might extend to other manufacturers. 01:04:18.369 --> 01:04:20.550 We have no information to support that yet, but 01:04:20.550 --> 01:04:23.650 this perhaps could be an alternative defect theory 01:04:23.650 --> 01:04:26.349 to what NHTSA has been looking at for over a 01:04:26.349 --> 01:04:31.690 decade or almost a decade now. Getting to the 01:04:31.690 --> 01:04:34.469 point, Hyundai is going to conduct a recall on 01:04:34.469 --> 01:04:38.250 these inflators and replace them for customers 01:04:38.250 --> 01:04:42.570 who are affected. And I believe they say they've 01:04:42.570 --> 01:04:45.789 isolated this to a specific batch. I think it's 01:04:45.789 --> 01:04:49.769 around 3 ,000 vehicles that are going to be covered. 01:04:49.909 --> 01:04:52.869 So owners can expect to hear about that. I think 01:04:52.869 --> 01:04:57.159 it's in a couple of months. Yes, definitely get 01:04:57.159 --> 01:04:59.000 that one fixed. If you have one of these vehicles, 01:04:59.099 --> 01:05:01.440 you get that recall notice in the email, in the 01:05:01.440 --> 01:05:05.420 snail mail, anywhere. Do not delay on this, please. 01:05:05.860 --> 01:05:10.099 And with that, that is our show, ladies and gentlemen. 01:05:10.300 --> 01:05:13.380 We'd like to thank you for joining us. Thanks, 01:05:13.460 --> 01:05:15.619 everybody. I want to talk in a very slow and 01:05:15.619 --> 01:05:20.849 PR -type voice. So I'll talk a little faster. 01:05:21.090 --> 01:05:24.849 Thank you, and goodbye. I don't think snarky 01:05:24.849 --> 01:05:26.809 people can pull off a PR case. I don't know what 01:05:26.809 --> 01:05:29.869 you're talking about. All right, goodbye, people. 01:05:29.949 --> 01:05:35.170 Bye -bye. For more information, visit www .autosafety 01:05:35.170 --> 01:05:35.710 .org.