You're listening to There Auto Be A Law, the
Center for Auto Safety podcast with Executive
Director Michael Brooks, Chief Engineer Fred
Perkins, and hosted by me, Anthony Cimino. For
over 50 years, the Center for Auto Safety has
worked to make cars safer. Hey, listeners, today
is Wednesday, June 10th, and you've been waiting
for it. I've been waiting for it. Everyone's
been waiting for it. What's going on with donut?
Not that round, sweet, tasty pastry that calls
me in the night, but donut battery, donut labs.
For those who don't remember, this was a Finnish
company, I believe, Finnish, Finland. They said,
we have. The magic battery. It does not use any
rare earths. It charges forever. It's got more
energy density. It doesn't catch on fire. It
helps you lose weight. It makes your breath fresh.
And we were all waiting for it. They said by
the end of the first quarter in 2026, we will
have a production ready vehicle out on the road.
They did not. Because now it's like I said, it's
June. First quarter already ended. There's a
good breakdown from Zeroth. It sounds like a
silly person, but he's legit. Electric has a
good article on this. You can watch this full
45 -minute video or so where the guy really breaks
down the nonsense of Donut. Has anyone else watched
this video or just me? No, I watched it, too.
Yeah, thank God you watched it. It's not a solid
-state battery. Long and short of it, it is just
a lithium -ion battery. That's it. You know,
it's a scam. So I'm going to just hit some of
the background of this. So we were all kind of
like, all right, this is great. But instead,
this guy breaks down and says, okay, so this
is what's behind it is there's a company called
CT Coatings. They were going to be the technology
provider. Nordic Nano was supposed to be the
manufacturer of the battery. And then Donut Lab,
the name that everybody knows, was the commercializer.
Nordic Nano never manufactured a single battery
cell. So not a thing. Nordic Nano nothing? Nordic
Nano nothing nada nero. Instead, what these guys
did is basically the straight Elon Musk playbook
said, we will promise you magic unicorns. They
didn't go after venture capitalists who have
people who are like, let's dig in and do the
research. They went after mom and pop investors,
average people and said, give us your money.
And then they just took it and just made nonsense.
I'm going to quote from the article further down.
The most troubling aspect of the investigation
centers on how the money was raised. Like I was
just talking about, Donut Lab had over 1 ,300
shareholders with over 900 holding 50 or fewer
shares. Like Rosette, likely representing investments
between $3 ,000 and $23 ,000 per person. Many
came from a crowdfunding exercise on Finland's
SpringVest platform in 2023. So that's the troubling
part, and that's straight Elon Musk playbook.
But this video, it breaks down basically saying,
oh, is it a sodium ion battery? And they look
at the power curves and everything else, all
the I do not believe website where they're saying
this is a real thing. And you can see the power
curves, the power discharge curves, all of it.
This is just a lithium ion battery. Nothing fancy.
Complete. Lie. But Fred, you're more technical
than I am. What was your takeaway? My takeaway
is it's complete bullshit. And it was a scam
and a fraud. I do remember that we were counseling
caution when people thought of this. I mean,
it sounded it was the ideal. It was perfect.
It was wonderful. But there was no data backing
up their claims in their original releases. We
did advise caution, and it turns out that was
warranted. But as far as the analysis goes, yeah,
it's just a complete scam. Wonderful. It's a
shame, because it was one of these things where
like, hey, how often do the Finnish pull this
kind of late -stage capitalism nonsense? We didn't
think they did. Turns out, hey, America's everywhere,
baby. Yeah, well, it's a lot like the AVE scam,
which is, you know, that... Yeah, we're going
to do everything for everybody. It's going to
be perfect. It's going to be safe. It never sleeps.
It never takes drugs, never has sex. All wonderful
claims, but they have little to do with the actual
safety associated with the vehicles. They paper
over the aspirations with PR, and basically it's
the same thing. There's a, I don't know what
to say, a star that they're looking for. It's
a gold rush. And people are willing to capitalize
on their gold rush. I don't think there's a lot
of integrity behind people's desire to get rich
off of an illusion. Yeah. The sad thing is the
CEO of the company, this researcher who did the
battery deep dive, when he reached out to them,
the CEO of the company and their CTO, I believe
as well, they're still doubling down. They're
like, no, just give us a little more time. It's
all real. No, no, no. Just in two to three years,
we'll have full self -driving. No, no, no. Everything
Cathie Wood says is amazing and true. It's just
that whole, just give us a little more. It's
someone leading an abusive relationship. Fake
it till you make it, right? That's the ethos.
Yeah, yeah. Sadly, it is fake it till you make
it. And I regret to inform you listeners that
I hoped it was real. But, you know, sadly, I
think, Michael, I think you hoped it was real,
too. I want, you know, I just want solid state.
technology moving into cars as quickly as possible
i mean reduction in weight and lower fire risk
is huge right and you know as long as they don't
use that that that gain in energy density to
add all range and, you know, equal out the weight
that we're already putting on cars. They use
it to lighten cars. I think it could be really,
really important for vehicle safety down the
road. So we were cheering on, hopefully, hoping
that Donut was going to get this done. But, you
know, there's still a lot of, I think BYD announced
this week that they were going to start installing
solid state into at least a small line of production
vehicles as soon as next year. I don't think
with all the firms that are involved in this,
we're going to be waiting too long for actual
solid -state batteries to hit the road. Yeah,
Toyota's going after it pretty hard, too. So
I think that that is the technology that everybody's
pursuing. I don't think it's an illusion that
it can happen, but it's an illusion that it has
happened. Right. Especially at Donut. Yeah. Yeah.
So I Donut believe. because you're yeah we do
not believe anymore we do not believe anymore
shame shame shame on you moving on this is an
interesting one because this is again something
i didn't know about until i started working with
you gentlemen that the uh that that car life
when we talk about auto safety the thing is hey
the new the new fancy safety feature that comes
out it takes how long before that becomes you
know goes through the entire fleet in the u .s
Around 30 years. Yeah. So, you know, airbags,
about 30 years before it goes to fleet. Our dream
scenario of automatic emergency braking highway
speeds releases today, starts selling today.
It's, you know, we're talking 30 years. Is that
right, Michael? Yeah. Before it's in, you know,
every vehicle. Before you can just expect to
see the total gain that you're going to get from
that technology. And, you know, there's, you
know, things like automatic emergency braking
that are. could be drastically improved over
time you know having it you know having just
aeb across the fleet is one thing, but if it's
the 2015, 2012 kind of kindergarten version of
AEB that's out there, then obviously that's not
what we're hoping proliferates through the fleet.
We're looking for the high -speed AEB, the AEB
that protects pedestrians, the AEB that can actually
sense motorcycles and bicyclists. So we've still
got, you know, I would guess, five to 10 years
before we see NHTSA put a standard in effect
that addresses those and the auto industry start
to put vehicles out with the better automatic
emergency braking. So I think we're still looking
at maybe 35, 40 years for full penetration of
that in the fleet. So it takes a long time. And
that's why it's important for NHTSA not to take
15 to 20 years to mandate these types of technologies.
Because you're You're looking at a 50 -year safety
gap there when a lot could be getting done. So
here's the way I look at that. The technology
is being developed for AVs, right? And people
are taking whatever successful technology they're
developing and they're wrapping it into an AV
package and saying, well, in the future, the
AVs are going to be saving all these lives. And,
you know, all we have to do is wait and let industry
do its thing and get the government the hell
out of the way. But here's the safety problem.
If you took this technology that works, if you
took the technology that's actually reliably
steering cars and doing good things, and you
put it immediately into all vehicles as some
kind of supervisory controller, analogous to
terrain avoidance technology for airplanes, right?
Something to back up the driver and... All aspects
of the driving, not just one or two. If you start
that today, you're going to start saving lives
immediately. It's not a question of saving lives
30 years down the road. Right. So every year
that NHTSA delays putting regulations in place
and that industry delays taking the technology
that they've developed and making it available
to conventional manufacturers to start saving
lives in other cars is. you know, unnecessary
loss of life. There's no reason for delaying
this technology now, particularly if they say
it works. You know, if you go to every AV website,
they say, well, it works. It's great. It's saving
lives now. Great. Let's have it save lives across
the full spectrum of the automotive manufacturing
industry, not just this very narrow aspect of
AVs, which may trickle in eventually. and someday
become measurable benefit from the standpoint
of saving lives. Let's do it now. And so, I mean,
and the article is, you know, really about kind
of not technology coming into vehicles, but we're
keeping our cars so much longer now, you know,
average of 13 years, you know. 13 years ago,
your car wasn't required to have, you know, backup
cameras. You know, in 2029, when the AEB standard
comes into play, the older vehicles, you know,
aren't going to have the latest AEB. And, you
know, you have, I mean. Yes, the average age
of the vehicle is 13 years, and there's a new
market that auto manufacturers and dealers and
independent repair shops are trying to take advantage
of that. There's a lot of questions for people
about newer technology. There's a lot of reasons
people aren't buying new cars. People don't like
the dashboards. People don't want their privacy
violated with a bunch of connected features.
People don't trust software -defined vehicles
because they're glitching out a lot and they
have a lot of problems with it. They may be a
little too complicated for some people. You even
see Jeff Bezos' slate pickup truck that's coming
out is actually... pushing back on some of those
trends and not being a connected vehicle and
not putting in a lot of the software and electronics
that tend to not last as long or tend to have
bugs and other issues. So it's interesting how,
you know, I guess the trend towards older vehicles
is, you know, Good in some ways for consumer
pocketbooks, but as far as adopting the latest
technology and saving lives on the road, it's
kind of a negative trend. So I got to jump in
because we got slightly ahead of ourselves here.
Michael, you started going right into the article
there. We haven't mentioned to listeners what
the article we're talking about is. This is an
article from the Wall Street Journal titled Americans
are keeping their cars longer than ever and remaking
the auto industry. Quick summary is people used
to hold onto cars average for 12 years. Now it's
jumped up to 13 years. And part of that is just
what Michael was talking about is some people
don't want to upgrade because of the software.
They don't like the dashboard. They don't like
their cup holder size change, whatever, or the
fact that cars are really expensive right now.
That's really, that's I think a big part, but
so I'm going to quote from the opening of the
article here. Timothy Mason drives a pair of
Honda Accords. One is a 2010 model with fewer
than 40 ,000 miles that he uses for his daily
commute in Massachusetts to his accounting job.
I assume his accounting job is right next door
because that's such little mileage. The other,
a 2001 V6 with more than 280 ,000 miles he uses
for tough winter driving. Where's the financial
sense in a new car? Mason, 41, says, better fuel
mileage? Maybe. Or is it going to save me $800
plus per month? That, I think, is a great summary.
You know, why is a consumer, especially somebody
who owns two Hondas that, I mean, he's got one
with 280 ,000 miles on it, and that thing's going
to last until it melts. I mean, he's probably
got another 100 ,000 miles on that thing. I mean,
there are a lot of us who are, you know, point
A to point B car people, right? We love our cars.
The fact that they get us from one place to another
and beyond that do not really care about all
the features and heated seats and new stuff and
keeping up with the Joneses and all that. We
just want a car that works. I think those kind
of folks are probably driving this trend because
cars are expensive. You know, familiarity is
great. And, you know, cars, you know, it's not
an article that cars. tend to last longer than
they have in the past. I'm not sure how that
interfaces with, I guess, my view that a lot
of the software and bugginess of these features
and the electronics are contributing to problems
in that area. So, you know, who knows what's
going on there? Yeah. Even further down in the
article towards the end, I'm going to quote,
today, buying a new car isn't on his radar. They're
talking about a man named Chris Gleason in St.
Louis or in Illinois. And he's saying that his
wife is also keeping her 2007 Toyota Prius. It's
all unkillable. I can count on one hand the number
of repairs I've needed, and I've never been stranded.
Which makes me wonder, who the hell is buying
a Ford and a GM? What are you guys thinking?
Is it just nationalism? Is it racism? Why? Why?
Because there's no Ford or GM vehicle you could
buy from 2007 that doesn't have a stack of recalls
and needs a billion repairs. Sorry, that's mine.
rant i mean you're a toyota guy right i'm a i
i'm not brand loyal i am a this is a car that
will last a long time toyota will last a long
time honda's a long time pretty much all the
japanese make it will last a long time with some
rare exceptions to some mazda weirdness that
happened at one point and mitsubishi yeah i think
mazda's actually improved significantly in the
past decade without a doubt you can't really
say that in about an american auto manufacturer
I'm not a big fan of Nissan. I saw a Nissan Cube
a couple of days ago that had a big rust stain
running down its back hatchback. Oh, I haven't
seen rust on a vehicle in forever. Yeah, right.
Well, that was why it was outstanding, I guess.
And these cars are only a few years old, so I'm
a little circumspect about Nissan. I mean, a
little rust might make a Nissan Cube look better.
Well, that's a good point of kind of raising
stripe. I'm a fan of Nissan's former CEO, how
he escaped Japan. Carlos Ghosn, I mean, talk
about failing upwards in life. Look, that guy.
Yeah, anyway, so this is, so keep in mind, listeners,
when we talk about safeties, yes, we're talking
about new technology that's coming on, but how
long this takes to get through the fleet. And
I think part of manufacturers' responsibility
to ensure that the roads become safer with new
technology is not planned obsolescence. No, it's
make more affordable cars. Stop trying to, you
know, the average price of a new car is what,
$50 ,000? Yep. That's insane. You can't even
get a rear view camera to work. What are we doing?
I don't know. Hey, and if you agree, go to autosafety
.org and click on donate. If you disagree, donate
twice. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Now let's
talk about the future, shall we? Another article
from the Wall Street Journal titled driverless
trucks are here and they're delivering bags of
Doritos. So years ago, we talked about how Pepsi
was using Tesla's cyber. cab things to deliver
Doritos. Well, Pepsi, I guess, no longer uses
Tesla's Cybertruck things because inside this
article, it talks about Pepsi. I'm going to quote,
PepsiCo's operation using trucks outfitted with
sensors and computers from an autonomous trunk
company called Gattic is a step beyond, on par
with the technical hurdles being cleared by much
smaller, lighter, driverless passenger taxis
from Waymo, Tesla, and others. Don't include
Tesla, please. But that's just lazy journalism.
These operations that we're running today are
real, said Jim Farrell, PepsiCo's senior vice
president of supply chain. They're running in
multiple markets in a live network, not like
some experimental test environment. So these
have others on the road. And further down, many
of the company's delivery drivers have always
been sales representatives, too. And not having
to travel with the truck allows them more time
to interact with store owners to pitch them on
the latest promotion, the company said. Farrell
said the driverless trucks are more reliable
than human drivers. The on -time arrival performance
for driverless trucks reached 99 % after factoring
out uncontrollable variables like weather and
traffic. Last quote. Plus, humans can call in
sick or hit up against service limits that cap
how many hours a day they can be behind the wheel.
This is absurd. I mean... I get they're trying
to save a couple bucks because they're selling
Doritos. Like in every, you know, you don't have
to, a truck driver probably have to pay more
than the guy who's in the store wearing the Frito
-Lay shirt that says, Ruffles, sour cream and
onion, get you a discount. If you buy a whole
bunch of cases of Pepsi with it, I don't, I don't
know. I mean, is that guy not calling sick? But
I guess he's a replaceable cog. And the store
owner is like, where's Barry? Well, I'm Gary
and I'm here to tell you about Cool Ranch Doritos
and Diet Pepsi. I mean, are they also hoping
to offload the process of, you know, loading
the items they're carrying into the store they're
delivering to? I mean, typically when you're
at a convenience store somewhere, it's the truck
driver that's delivering the goods. What's happening
here? Right. And having worked in a convenience
store for. from the age 12 to 20, I do not remember
ever the delivery guy being like, you know, trying
to, you know, sell us on stuff. It was like,
you need Pepsi? Great. Here's the order. Great.
Oh, we've got something new. You know, like,
all right, you try it and you, you know, whatever.
But they really weren't trying new things. It
was like, you know, potato chips. Okay. Fuck.
I, you know, maybe the world's changed. Maybe
it's all AI potato chips now. Fred, do you have
a thought? Yeah, the GADEC was audited, according
to the website, per UL 4600. And this is something
that we've been advocating for a long time for
people or companies that are interested in autonomous
vehicle operation. So it doesn't really say how
they did with that audit or who performed the
audit, but that was in a hurricane. a foundation
stone or a foundation for safe AV operation.
We've been supporting that for a long time. So
I need to dig into that a little bit more. The
website does say that they have used an audit.
At the core is adherence to the requirements
of UL 4600, one of the key safety standards for
SAE level four and five autonomous systems. I'd
love to know the details of that. It's like they're
working with Edge Case Research, former guest
of the podcast on that. Yep. So this may be something
that is actually more interesting than it appears
at first. We'll keep you up to date listeners
as we find out more. Maybe we can get some information
on who did this UL 4600 audit and what they found.
I'm curious about the direct quote. The on -time
arrival performance from driverless trucks reached
99%. I don't know what that means. I mean, I...
It could mean it had two deliveries and, you
know, they came on time. Who knows? But I don't
remember ever having... You know, granted, this
was a 7 -Eleven I worked in. I don't remember
there being like, God, it's Tuesday, 11 -04.
Where's the Pepsi guy? There was never a thought.
Like, no one... no one cared it was just like
yeah they're probably coming on tuesday you know
and the guy would come in and he'd fill up a
big gulp with coke anyway uh let's jump more
into the future waymo i've never examined your
resume yeah anthony there's a lot of interesting
stuff there now it's years of trauma i uh i'm
i'm against recycling because i had to work when
people would Bring in their bottles for the five
cent deposit. I'd have to sort them and people
would do horrible things. Horrible things. But
that's that's that's a different safety podcast.
OK, this is an article from CNN titled Driving
Like Teenagers. Waymo robo taxis have run red
lights and nearly hit pedestrians. CNN finds.
Yeah, I wonder how they found that. There's one
on YouTube. Quoting from the article, Waymo told
CNN its robo taxis have already made roads safer
and are better than human drivers, especially
when it matters the most. They are 13. They are
13 times less likely to be involved in serious
injury crashes, the company said, and its own
peer reviewed research concluded that typical
human drivers would have gotten in more than
500 additional injury causing crashes. over the
more than 170 million miles driven by Waymo vehicles.
The amount of wrong with that. The laziness of
the CNN people cutting and pasting from Waymo
press releases. And, Fred, is there a particular
part of that quote that you have offense to?
Well, except for all of it, no. Really? Because
I thought the, where is it? The company said,
and its own peer -reviewed research. I always
love that. I always love it. Dear journalist,
stop. I'm surprised you can earn a living being
this lazy. Really. You know, they just pop up
their AI agent and they say, well, you know,
what's the story? And the AI agent repeats the
propaganda that's populating all of these databases
due to... Waymo's parent. It's amazing. And for
those who aren't familiar with how AI works,
basically, it looks at buckets full of data and
says, okay, what's the most common data that's
in here? And so if you want to skew the results
somehow, all you do is you use your machinery,
and Google certainly has a lot of it, to put
endless repetitions of false data into the AI
database. Then when some third party references
the AI database through Clod or Glide or whatever
the hell those are called, or Microsoft AI, what
it does is it looks into the barrel and says,
what's the most common thing in here? And it
says, oh, the most common thing is a dead goldfish.
So it says, all right, that's the answer, dead
goldfish. That's what this CNN correspondent.
Even the New York Times correspondents apparently
are doing. I guess they must have a quota they've
got to fill. Of stupidity? Maybe Judy Miller
is just writing under a different name now. I
mean, look, that was basically the quote that
Waymo gave them, right? They asked Waymo a question
and Waymo said. Spit that out. But this is not.
Yeah, this is not presented as a quote from a
Waymo spokesperson. This is just lazy, lazy CNN
cutting and pasting, saying it's peer reviewed
research because, you know, I work in this department
at Waymo. My partner at the desk next to me said,
yeah, it looks good. That's their version of
peer reviewed. Well, it is. It is sad and startling
that people have so perverted the idea of peer
review. That is now just another propaganda item.
It used to mean something. And so let's give
the CNN report the benefit of the doubt that
they are still naively believing that peer review
means something important. But now you've got
to dive in. You've got to say, who are the peers
and what exactly did they review? And people
should do that before they purport to offer proof
to the... public that's relying upon your integrity
but uh you know if your integrity is based upon
somebody else's lack of integrity you got a problem
yeah i i want to know if the way most pr people
they know there are they naive stupid or just
actively participating in bullshit i don't know
oh it's the latter it's got to be the latter
because the engine i've met a lot of the engineers
there and the engineers are good they're competent
people They understand what they're doing. But,
you know, the PR folks are sorting through the
results and saying, well, this doesn't look right
to me because it's not laudatory enough. So there's
a lot of p -hacking that's going on. The p -hacking
is, I'm sure, not at the behest of the best engineers.
It's at the behest of somebody who understands
how to sort through data to find the answer that
you're looking for. I don't know if you're a
fan of Doonesbury, but they've got a company
on Doonesbury called MyFacts where you can call
up and get any kind of facts that you want validated
by the company. It's a great business. I didn't
know that. I met Gary Trudeau once, but that's
a different story. So further down in this article,
I'm going to quote because this is going to tie
us into our next story, which drove me up the
wall this morning. Further down in the CNN article,
when problems arise, Waymo has 70 remote assistance
agents on call at any point in time for its fleet
of nearly 4 ,000 vehicles, the company recently
said. These operators, half of whom are based
in the Philippines, where Waymo does not operate,
have the ability to provide real -time advice
to the vehicles, though they do not take over
driving, and Waymo would not tell CNN how often
they need to intervene. So they got 70 remote...
drivers for 4 ,000 vehicles on the road. That's
not even a rounding error. That's just a smudge.
You just wipe off your little fact sheet there.
And with that, I mean, I'm going to jump to this
next article, which I think Michael sent around
this morning, titled Body Cam Shows Cop Trying
to Move Stalled Waymo That's Blocking Firefighters
Rushing to an Explosion. Watch this video. It
is three and a half minutes long. It is outstanding.
You see this cop in, I believe it was Dallas,
trying to move a Waymo that stalled in the middle
of the street while fire trucks, there's an active
fire scene, big industrial fire, trying to get
it out of there. The guy, I'm gonna look at my
notes here. Where did it go? Basically he takes,
okay. So the cop is trying to talk to Waymo support
because there's no one in the vehicle and he
takes over one minute to connect with support.
Over one minute before someone starts responding,
And their responses are, can you give me another
minute? Who are you? What's your badge number?
And the cop saying, I need you to move this vehicle
immediately. I need you. He's trying to unlock
the door. He can't. And he's like, let me in.
I will move the vehicle for you. Again, this
is an active first responder incident. This is
causing a problem. It takes three and a half
minutes in total, which doesn't sound like a
lot. But in a fire scene, that's a lot. for the
cop to get into the car and the cop to move the
vehicle. That's unacceptable on any level. Again,
imagine there's a human in the vehicle and they're
wasting that much time of a cop. The cop at this
point has pulled you physically out of the vehicle
if for some reason you're rebelling and not responding
to his commands. Instead, you're like, what's
your name? Can you spell it? What organization
are you with? Because that's what Waymo support
is wasting over a minute doing. How do you spell
your name? What's your badge number? I don't
know if I can give you access to this vehicle.
It is beyond insane. This is literally lighting
taxpayers dollars on fire. This is an officer.
The town has spent, you know, six figures on
at least training to do their job. And they're
being treated like a valet. Like it's it is.
It really got my blood to boil this morning as
I watched this video. There clearly needs to
be something quicker there than going to a chat
agent when a cop is there trying to clear a road
for emergency vehicles to go through. When he
connects the support, it starts off with, we're
connecting you with Waymo support. This message
may be recorded and monitored for customer service.
What the hell? It should be a direct line to
a human and their emergency operations, right?
I mean, this scenario shouldn't happen. Move
your fucking car. Like, what is happening? Remember,
they have a whole triage mechanism ahead of their
response. So they've got, what, each of their
responders has got 35, 40 cars, something like
that. So they've got to sort through all of these.
before they can get it to the right person. So
that's what's going on in the background, right?
And then they've got to do 20 questions to figure
out what's going on, develop their situational
awareness. So it's terrible enough when this
happens in a situation like this. But, you know,
the police have nothing more important to do
than drive Waymos around, right? There's no other
good thing for them to do. So that's all perfect.
Think of the car that suddenly has, well, hits
a deer, we'll say. It's going down the road 50
miles an hour, hits a deer. What do you do? Because
I've had this experience, and the deer completely
destroys the windshield. It destroys all the
sensors. The car is going 50 miles an hour, and
a report goes through to their support staff,
and you've got a minute to figure out what to
do. You're dead at this point. Because there's
no way in the world that that support system
can effectively protect you in a situation like
that. It's got an emergency evolving as the car
is running. It's absolute madness. And I'm going
to have, this is going to be my first gaslight.
I'm doing this right now, changing it up as an
audible. This is my gaslight. Waymo being we're
safer than humans. And I know I won't went off
of this and that we have remote assistance agents
available for you and they'll handle things.
Cause you're saying, I know Fred, you're being
sarcastic. You know, what else could a cop do?
Well, he has nothing else to do. You can watch
in this video while he's trying to deal with
Waymo support to unlock the vehicle and let him
move it. He's also guiding traffic down this
road. Like this poor guy is like doing, you know,
having to deal with, you know, some Waymo stupid
support. you know, vehicle situation nonsense
and telling people to actively stay away from,
you know, from a fire hazard. It's, it's, it's,
yeah. Waymo, if they only had some money, cause
you know, they're, you know, basically just burning
taxpayer dollars for their experiment because
a bunch of people in Silicon Valley have issues
with talking to strangers. Yeah. And I mean,
and don't forget that their entire political
movements, suggest that they just want to eliminate
local control over anything, right? They want
to preempt states from being able to tell them
what to do, even when they're creating havoc
on streets in some situations. So my solution
is you need to figure out all your problems,
whatever state you're in, just like the rest
of us human drivers. Right. I applaud this officer
because he actually, like, he moves this car.
and drives it away and says great i parked it
here for you guys uh and he's still checking
with the waymo support person which you know
like is this okay with you are you good with
that i would have driven that car up onto a lawn
and just left it it's like left the door because
you have other things that are more important
to deal with than some guy in a call center and
where is it north dakota i can't remember him
to respond and you know ask me how to spell my
name again that's my gas light I hate Waymo.
This is bullshit. I wonder if they asked the
cop to like and subscribe. All right. Who else
has got a gaslight? Because don't worry. I'll
have another one for next week. Similar theme
is Zooks. Oh. So we haven't talked about our
friend in Zooks in a while. So I went to the
website to see what's up there with safety. And
the first thing I noticed going into it is they
do not give you any option to reject cookies
on their website. So they're already selling
your data and monetizing you before you even
think about signing up for a Zoox ride. So that's
kind of shitty. A couple of quotes from their
website. Our safety strategy prevents collisions
in the first place and comprehensively protects
passengers when they're unavoidable. Well, that
sounds pretty good. No single point of failure.
Well, that sounds pretty good. Except... Who
is looking at that? And, you know, single points
of failure often come back to bite you that you
don't expect to find. For example, when there
was power out in San Francisco and the entire
Waymo fleet went down, this is a bold claim.
And I don't know. I didn't see any evidence that
they've got any independent support for that.
They say it's a new bar for safety. Zoox protects
all riders equally with over 100 safety innovations.
that don't exist in conventional cards, including
seatbelt monitors, an innovative airbag system,
and a safety -focused active suspension. Well,
one of the reasons they've got a hundred safety
innovations is because there are no federal motor
vehicle safety standards that are applicable
to the unique aspects of AV operation. So per
their website, none of those hundred features
were designed or built in conformance with the
standards because they don't exist. or validated
by independent audit. Next quote is building
the safest possible ride. Well, that's simply
not true. Conformity with established safety
protocols, such as UL 4600, has apparently neither
been attempted nor achieved. Instead, Zoox sought
and received an FMVSS exemption from NISA so
that they won't have to conform to any safety
standards. And Michael, I think you noted that
The exemption they got has never before been
applied to this kind of vehicle. Special exemption
from the secretary. Their exemption request to
be able to deploy the vehicles commercially under
a temporary exemption, that's part 5 .5 of NHTSA's
exemption authority, is still pending. So currently
they're... They received a demonstration special
exemption from the Secretary of Transportation
that allows them to operate, but they can't operate
commercially and take riders until they get the
proper exemption. Thanks. Yeah. So there's no
notification on the website if you want to sign
up for a ride that you are riding in a vehicle
that does not conform to existing safety standards,
which seems to me. contrary to establishing the
safest possible vehicles. So they failed to mention
they've got the exemption. There are no applicable
standards for AV operations. And noting also
that their terms of service prohibit lawsuits
or participation in class action lawsuits by
any passenger who's injured by the Waymo. So
I'm giving their safety claims a big gaslight.
Okay, so you mentioned a unique airbags in the
Zoox, and that, of course, scared me. Do you
have any more information on that? I do not,
and none is offered. And they just say that they've
got all these airbags, and they don't talk about
how they work or where they're applied. Yeah,
they're very novel airbags. They've got these
horseshoe airbags that deploy from the roof and
the seats. compartmentalized passengers. A lot
of this is because I think that the seating in
the Zooks is sideways, too. So there aren't a
lot of vehicles developed that way. You know,
almost all the safety standards that apply to
passenger protection and crash worthiness envision
forward -facing seats. So... All right. And to
explain why that's significant. The Zoox, it
goes equally well forward and reverse, or there
is no forward and reverse, I should say. It goes
in both longitudinal directions equally, depending
on some decision process that's not obvious.
So what Michael said is absolutely right, because
all the standards associated with forward -facing
seats, if you don't have forward -facing seats,
what do you do? And so they're making it up as
they go along. you know, 100 years worth of crash
testing and injury prevention that's looked specifically
at forward facing seats and not at the sideways
seats, certainly not at some of the other things
autonomous companies are proposing, like swiveling
seats and, you know, the campfire seating and
things like that. So there is a lot of testing
and validation of those seating systems that
has yet to be done to ensure that they're as
protective as current forward -facing seats.
And I would like to point out too, Fred, that
the inability, cookies does not necessarily mean
that they're selling your privacy. The Center
for Auto Safety website uses cookies and some
of it's for security tracking issues and things
of that nature. And we're not selling your data,
I promise. And the next revision of the New York
Auto Safety website will use even less cookies.
There'll still be ones there for security issues
though. The reason I noted that is because Usually
when you go to a website, it gives you the option
of rejecting the cookies. And I don't know about
ours. Zooks has no option to reject the cookies.
So you're in whether you want to be or not. And
I find that personally offensive. Okay. I understand.
Yeah. Well, you know, we're tracking you on autosafety
.org. Not you as an individual, because I don't
care about you as an individual. Anyway, Michael,
gaslight me. Gaslight year. My gaslight of the
week is the state of Texas. Michael wins. So
Texas did what, you know, on the surface looks
like a great thing, right? They passed a law
last year that says we want all of our school
buses to have three point seatbelts now. And,
you know, and all of the school districts who
are operating out there. You know, there's a
mix of bus seatbelts in Texas. They've had a
two -point seatbelt requirement for years. They
want to move to the more protective three -point
seatbelts. And then there's still some vehicles
on the road that are grandfathered in in Texas
that don't have any seatbelts at all. So the
legislature came and said, look, we've got to
resolve this. We're going to force everybody
by 2029 or 2030, I think it is, to have these
three -point seatbelts. The problem here, and
the reason this is my gaslight is because they
did that, but they provided zero funds for school
districts to do this. And it can be, as we often
discuss, we talk about school bus seatbelts and
school districts. It can be incredibly expensive
to do this. You're talking about retrofitting
some vehicles that are 20, almost 30 years old
in some cases with new seatbelts, you know, in
however many positions there are on a school
bus, 40 different seating positions. So it's
a significant investment. And, you know, school
districts have long been opposed to the school
bus seatbelts being put into place across the
United States because of this exact problem.
When you address that legislatively, like they
have in Texas, you've got to address the big
sticking point and the problem here, which is
the fact that school districts can't afford to
do this. And it's not at the top of their list
of priorities. essentially creating an unfunded
mandate. They mandated that school districts
comply in the next three to four years, but they
didn't give them any money to allow them to comply.
So that's a problem. I think it needs to be resolved,
hopefully, by the Texas legislature, by budgeting
some money to local school districts that can
allow them to proceed. Once that's done, Texas
will have the, if not the strongest, one of the
strongest school bus seatbelt laws in the country.
All right. And with that, listeners, Gaslight
scoring is similar to the Olympics where you
get points for difficulty. Mine was the least
difficult because it was Waymo. Fred's second
least difficult because, again, Zooks and AV
companies are just, you know, it's like playing
whack -a -mole. So, Michael, you win because
you went after the entire state of Texas, even
though the recycling camp or their litter campaign
was don't mess with Texas. Good. That's my first
win in months, it feels like. Well, now you won
a couple weeks ago, I think. I think. And with
that, Fred, are you ready for some towel? Sure.
Hit me. There was a notice this week that I think
it's Toyota, is it? That's going to have a demonstration
Formula One vehicle that's powered by liquid
hydrogen run a few laps in an upcoming race.
What was it? Wait, Toyota doesn't make F1 cars.
Oh, but I think they made this demonstration
vehicle. Anyway. And it's Toyota. Oh, neat. It's
at Le Mans. Oh, that's not F1. Okay. No. Okay.
That's my ignorance or racing. That's okay. But
anyway, we want to talk about liquid hydrogen
as a fuel and why it might be a good idea and
why it might not be a good idea. So one of the
things that is good about liquid hydrogen is
that if you burn it in an engine, it doesn't
release any carbon dioxide. So that's good. It
does release some. Nitrous oxides, NOx, as it's
called. So why haven't we always been using this?
The good part is hydrogen has the highest energy
per mass of any fuel at 120 megajoules per kilogram.
I won't bother with the units. But in comparison,
okay, liquid hydrogen is gravimetric, meaning
per kilogram. 120. Gasoline is 46. So that's
less than half, around a third. Liquid natural
gas is around 50. And compressed natural gas
is about the same, 50 per kilogram. Well, it
should be because it's the same fuel, right,
per kilogram. But if you look at the volumetric
energy, which is the energy that you can actually
fit inside a volume for storage. Liquid hydrogen
is at 8 .5 megajoules per liter. Gasoline is
32, which means you can put about four times
as much energy in gasoline into a given volume
than you can liquid hydrogen. Liquid natural
gas is about 22, so again, that's three times
as high as liquid hydrogen, roughly, and compressed
natural gas is at nine, which is roughly the
same. as liquid hydrogen so the net of that is
that liquid hydrogen can provide much more energy
on the basis of weight but much less energy for
a given tank on the basis of volume that's why
it's great for rockets because rockets are really
big and so you can store a lot of uh a lot of
fuel in there that's why they're maybe reluctant
for gasoline because you are for conventional
cars because you have to have a really big tank
to hold all the liquid hydrogen. Plus, it's really
cold. And so you need a special tank, very strong,
much stronger than a gasoline tank, which could,
for example, be made out of plastic. You're never
going to get away with that with hydrogen. And
the hydrogen engine is different than a conventional
gasoline engine because of the burning characteristics
of the hydrogen. There's a lot of potential there.
But you've also got to deal with the fact that
gasoline got there first. And so there's a nationwide
or actually worldwide distribution system for
gasoline. And you can just pull up to a pump
anywhere and it'll do about the same thing. But
much more limited distribution for liquid hydrogen.
And you've also got to look at the overall cycle
for producing it. And most liquid hydrogen is
made from natural gas. There are very few, and
until recently people thought there were none,
but there are very few wells that you can drill
in the earth to get a hydrogen supply. Turns
out there are some, but they're only in the very
early stages of exploiting that. So those are
the kind of pros and cons of a liquid hydrogen
fuel. It could provide a lot more energy. I'm
just kind of surprised they don't use it in dragsters
because it can put so much energy in and has
much higher. burning temperatures and therefore
potentially much higher power than a hydrogen
carbon -fueled engine. But you've got a big problem
with the amount of volume you need in the tank
to make it go. There's a couple of things here
that I was wondering about. I mean, when we've
talked about hydrogen cars previously, we're
talking about the ones that are powered by gas
hydrogen, right? Gas is hydrogen, yeah. Yeah,
and that seems to be something that's, to me
at least, that seems like something that could
be more readily stored and distributed and transported
and, you know, become part of the infrastructure
than liquid hydrogen, which, you know, I think
you have to store it at like negative 423 degrees
Fahrenheit at the facility it's being kept at,
plus in the car. And that seems just like a remarkably
low temperature to have to maintain. Yeah, it's
hard. Of course, it's also very high pressure
too. So the scientific way of approaching the
temperature is to think of it in terms of absolute
zero, where if absolute zero is zero, meaning
no thermal energy at all, liquid hydrogen is
at about 20 degrees Kelvin, which is minus 273
degrees. Standard units, SI units. Hydrogen is
a minus 20. Liquid nitrogen, which you see in
a lot of offices, is at 70, I think 73 degrees
Kelvin, if I remember right. So that can be stored
in what's called a dewar, which is like a fancy
thermos bottle. And hydrogen isn't as storable
because it's a little bit colder. Yeah, in both
cases, it's a cryogenic fluid, cryogenic temperature.
Does keeping it at that temperature result in
energy losses that kind of invalidate the entire
exercise? It just seems like it would require
a lot of energy to keep hydrogen at that temperature.
When you say energy, it implies over a long term.
So it depends on how long you're going to store
it. Right. Depending on the application, it might
work, it might not work. Like if you've got a
ship and you wanted to have a cargo ship traveling
to another country, it might make sense because
you could have a gigantic tank. And when you
have a gigantic tank, the efficiency of storing
it increases because you have less surface area
per unit volume. Okay, so does that make sense?
Yeah. So if it's really small. you'd have a tremendous
problem storing it because you have a lot of
surface area where heat can leak in and out.
Yeah, and I'm thinking, like, you park your car
for a week in your garage. It evaporates. Yeah,
I mean, I don't know how much. It depends on
how it's built. You can store things under very
high pressure at liquid, like argon, hydrogen.
nitrogen at very, very high pressure, and it
may stay liquid. I'm not sure what the triple
point of hydrogen is, but in any event, it's
very cold and or under very, very high pressure.
So yeah, there's all those problems. The one
problem it does not have is nuclear explosions.
A lot of people think that if you have hydrogen
fuel, oh my God, I have a hydrogen bomb in my...
In my garage, no, that's not the case. It's different
technology burning versus exploding in a nuclear
reaction. I mean, would liquid hydrogen pose
less of a threat than gas? I mean, I think we
covered it. There was an explosion of a hydrogen
tanker of some sort in Los Angeles a few years
back. I think we were talking about how the hydrogen
burns kind of. You know, it's not like a gasoline
fire as far as you can see it. It had some dangers.
Is liquid hydrogen safer from that perspective?
I haven't done an analysis of it, but there's
pros and cons. So one of the pros is that if
you have a liquid hydrogen leak, it's going to
evaporate very rapidly. It's not going to pool
underground. It's not going to run into the sewers,
right? Because it does evaporate very rapidly,
you're unlikely to have a big problem with accumulated
fuel. The Hindenburg, for example, burned because
that was filled with hydrogen. It didn't drip
underground. The reason you can see the Hindenburg
burning is not because of the hydrogen. It's
because of the material that encased the dirigible
burning. That was the visible flames that you
saw there. But you're right. The flames from...
The hydrogen burning are very, very subtle at
best. It's really not nearly as visible as gasoline
burning or diesel burning. No smoke either. It's
just a water vapor. So is it safer? It's hard
to say. It depends on so many variables. You'd
have to deal with an individual scenario to figure
out if it was safer or not. Oh, it's not coming
to a car near us anytime soon, right? I wouldn't
think so. No. Okay. Not a commercial gas station
anyway. There are people selling vaporous hydrogen
or gaseous hydrogen now in some places in California,
and there were mandates for it. And if you want
to, you have something like a fuel cell driving
your car, which is a very, very efficient way
of generating electricity in a car. You need
to have extremely clean hydrogen. That's another
bit of a problem for the distribution, commercial
distribution, like in a gas tank, right? Or a
gas station. So, yeah, I don't think we're going
to see it anytime soon. I think the bigger, and
it's not going to be a driving safety issue for
a long time. The driving safety issues are all
associated with technology that's, most of which
is available now. The government is reluctant
to force people to put it into their cars. That's
going to continue to be the leading issue for
a long time. Get that government off my Medicare.
That's what I say. Yep. Now let's jump into recalls.
First up, Kia 6 ,264 vehicles, the 2027 Kia Telluride
Hybrid. 2027 Kia Telluride in honor. Invaluable
occupant restraint increases the risk of an injury
to an unbelted driver in the event of a collision.
Oh, wait, what? An incorrect vehicle sensor is
installed in certain driver's seatbelt assemblies.
Oh, so you can't extend the driver's seatbelt.
Oh, wait, I can't pull out the driver's seatbelt
and clip it? Yeah, it looks like, you know, I
think, I mean, I've had the problem like this
in a number of vehicles I've been in before with
when there was an issue with the retractor, you
know, where you... Pull the seatbelt and it doesn't
want to move. And that sounds like what's going
on here is that there's a sensor causing these
seatbelt retractors not to function properly.
Well, get that fixed, folks. Yeah, looks like
that's coming to owners. Probably you'll be able
to get a fix at the end of July, early August.
Up next, hey, the world heavyweight champion
from Dearborn, Michigan. It is Ford! 419 ,967
vehicles. 2018 to 2022 Lincoln Navigator. 28
same years, the Ford Expedition. And inadvertent
deployment of the retractor pretensioners result
in the seatbelt being, is this just all seatbelts
now? Are seatbelts my new rear view camera? What
is happening? I think there are a couple this
week. This is this one's interesting. You know,
essentially, you know, the propellant in these
pretensioners degrades in high heat where we've
heard that before. They oxidize and that can
allow inadvertent deployments, which essentially
means you could be driving randomly down the
road and your seatbelt gets really tight all
of a sudden. You know, and I think that that's
not compliant with my chest. Yeah, with the seatbelt
standards to some extent, I think, but it's,
you know, I think when this happens, you're not
going to be able to use the seatbelt anymore.
The seatbelt's no longer safe, so it needs to
be repaired immediately. All right. Next up,
Subaru 69 ,663 vehicles, the 2026 Forester, the
Forester Hybrid. The power moonroof assemblies
where the glass panel has been improperly bonded
to the sliding frame. Over time, the bonding
adhesion between the glass panel and the sliding
frame may deteriorate and the moonroof glass
may become detached during usage of the vehicle.
Oh, my God. You're driving down the road and
all of a sudden your moonroof collapses on you?
No, essentially it flies off the car and is a
danger to other people on the road. Oh. I don't,
you know, I guess they said it could cause a
crash. Maybe, maybe. Maybe it could. I don't
know that it can fall inside the car or not.
It's not really noted here, but clearly they're
concerned about it striking other road users
or people around the vehicle. Oh, strikes me.
Next up, Chrysler. Oh, yeah. Chrysler America.
This is what we do. One million seventy six thousand
nine hundred ninety nine vehicles. The twenty
one to twenty five Wrangler Gladiator. In certain
circumstances, high resistance electrical activity
may take place in the area of the EHPSP. That's
the electric hydraulic power steering pump. Connection
causing overheating of combustible materials.
Oh, and this may lead to fire, which may result
in injury. And this is, you know, this came after
a NHTSA investigation. You know, Jeep. has been
getting reports of fires in these vehicles for
quite some time now. They've been investigating
fires in these vehicles. Jeep has for over, I
mean, they started the investigation internally
in May of 2023. And, you know, they note that
there have been something like, you know, a lot
of field reports. So like, you know, 63 customer
assistance records, 72 field reports. and 12
other records of customers who have had a fire
or related problem on these vehicles. So it looks
like owners can expect to get a fix sometime
this summer. They're not real specific, but I
would expect a notification in August. They're
not very specific about what's going to happen
here. They say the remedy is an inspection and
repair of that electronic hydraulic. It's a power
steering pump, which appears that they were manufactured
somewhat out of out of specification, causing
a problem at the connection point, high resistance
and potential fire. So they're coming up with
a fix for that. They're just not real, real specific
on what it's going to be. Is that a park outside?
This is a park outside. All right. Last recall.
Chrysler again. Another park outside. There we
go. Ooh, 17 ,277 vehicles in 2020 to 2022 Chrysler
Pacifica in HV battery, which is high voltage
battery, which fails internally may result in
thermal runaway leading to a vehicle fire. Oh
no, that's, that's not good. I love that they
have to write a vehicle fire can result in increased
risk of occupant injury and injury to persons
outside the vehicle. Is that what a fire could
do? Okay. Yeah, and owners are probably going
to hear about this pretty soon. It looks like
in a couple of weeks, they're going to get notice
out. What they're going to do is inspect your
vehicle. They may replace the battery pack, depending
on what's going on, but they're definitely going
to put revised software in your vehicle that
will help detect a potential condition where
the fire might occur. And owners can expect that
in about two weeks. All right. With that, listeners,
that's going to wrap up this episode. We will
be back for you next week. Until then, bye -bye.
Thank you. Goodbye. Thanks, everybody. For more
information, visit www .autosafety .org.