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. We're going to be
doing this one twice. No, we're not. I've got
this recording now. Oh, say everybody it's a
Wednesday, July 1st. It's a very hot day. I hope
wherever you are, you're staying cool. Half the
year is over. I hope you've achieved all of your
objectives for the new year resolution. I got
six months left back off. Yeah. I didn't even
start that list. It goes fast. It's all downhill.
Yeah, I know. Anyway, let's talk safety and automobiles
and things of that nature. Sounds good. That
sounds great. Worth a shot. All right. So we
talk a lot about these autonomous vehicle companies.
And we say, hey, Waymo, they've got their approach
in using cameras and radars and LiDAR. And Tesla's
using their approach, which is just, we're going
to lie to the public repeatedly. There's another
company. It's a British company, I believe. It's
called Wave, W -A -Y -V -E. And their approach
is saying, hey, we're not going to build the
car. We're going to build basically add -ons
to existing vehicles that we can then sell to.
you know oems and try that and their approach
is saying hey we don't need lidar we're just
going to do cameras and radar which i guess is
slightly better than tesla's approach but i don't
know a friend of the show missy cummings would
approve because i know she said you know vision
only will not work and i think that's proven
itself to date i don't know if vision and radar
itself will work but we have a the wall street
journal does a long piece on this this company
wave, and I want to quote from the article. On
a test drive in one of the Grand Cherokee prototypes
last month, a Stellantis engineer took his hands
off the wheel and the vehicle navigated through
stop signs and traffic lights around the automaker's
sprawling campus in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The
ride was smooth, save for a split second when
the Grand Cherokee had trouble finding its way
amid faded road markings. So reading that and
kind of, the article is a little bit of a puff
piece, but reading that, I say, oh, it's, you
know, not that, much different than what's been
on the market for five years from everybody else.
Is there anything new here? Is it just a new
approach? It's not even a new approach. It's
the same approach that's been used in the past
by, well, Tesla, of course, and Waymo has done
the same thing. They basically started off with
putting a software suite into an existing vehicle
with their Jaguar. iPace, I think it was. And
so they retrofitted it with new software and
some new sensors. So there's not a lot different
with this approach. Different suite of sensors.
They're not using the LiDAR, but we'll see how
that works out, I guess. It's interesting, though,
that they're doing it on a test track first,
which is interesting because there's been some
renewed discussion about graduated licensing
programs. and how that could be applied to AVs.
So this is the first step in a rational graduated
licensing program to take the technology onto
a test track and put it through its paces before
you try to bring it out on the road. So maybe
we're seeing a trend. Well, that's optimistic
because in the article, it talks about how it
convinced Stellantis to even try this is that
they drove it around the streets of London. You
know. Well, I am an optimist, but that's London,
you know. Oh, yeah. That's easy driving there.
No worries whatsoever. I mean, there's a couple
of things in this article that I want to point
out. One is the title. You know, Wave is challenging
Tesla and Waymo in the race to automate driving.
I mean, from my perspective, either you're challenging
Waymo and you're way past Tesla or you're challenging
Tesla and you're way behind Waymo. You know,
conflating the two and the approach here doesn't
really work. And I don't even know if Waymo should
be brought into this discussion because pretty
clearly what Wave is doing is a lot more analogous
to what Tesla is doing. I mean, essentially,
they're trying to build a full self -driving.
hands -off software suite that's going to face
a lot of the same problems with takeover as Tesla
has. And then they're going to install it in
Chrysler. It's a great idea. But I will, another
thing in the article, you know, I just have concerns
about the way people discuss this. You know,
a couple of the people, it says a couple of the
people, you know, at Wave, said Wave spent years
working out how to make its AI driver compliant.
And that solution had been accepted by the safety
experts at Stellantis, Nissan, and other automakers
with which it is in talks. There is no, there
are no regulations, right, around the AI driver
and how to make it compliant. So I don't understand
what the hell they're talking about there. And
I don't know why safety experts at these auto
companies are accepting that determination, given
the fact that there are no compliance standards
for an AI driver. Yeah. Well, I think there are
some regulations in Europe, but I don't know.
Again, the reference is obscure, so we don't
know what they're doing. But I'm not that familiar
with the European regulations, but I do know
that some exist. I mean, I think my takeaway
from this is get rid of all the hype and all
of that nonsense. I think it's interesting that
other companies are trying to do these things.
But I also think it's just beyond hype and, hey,
maybe, you know, you guys claim that these autonomous
vehicles will do everything, including we don't
need brake pedals anymore, which we're going
to get to in a second, because the automated
driving system will take care of that. But at
the same time, you have every auto manufacturer
saying, we can't get automatic emergency braking
to work. Or even in this case, we can't find
lanes when the markings aren't there. Right.
So it's pretty dangerous, right? So this is the
Wright Brothers time frame of autonomous driving.
I don't even know if the Wright Brothers. No,
because they only did it by themselves on a sand
dune. Yeah, but if you get rid of all the hype
and the nonsense, what do you have left, Anthony?
You're trying to ruin an industry. I don't know.
I hear the word Chrysler and a Tesla -like autonomous
system, and I think people are going to die.
Yeah. But maybe I'm just taking that too far.
No, no. I hear the word Chrysler, and I just
think of Lee Iacocca. You know, safety doesn't
sell. What was his quote? Yeah, that was. Yeah,
there we go. And let's continue with our world
of autonomous vehicles. Since I mentioned the
lack of brake pedal. So the NHTSA has proposed
last Thursday to end the government require requirement
for manual brake pedals and self -driving vehicles,
a move that would make it easier to deploy such
vehicles on U .S. roads. Now. Right now, we said
Waymo's taken the Jaguar vehicles and they've
just basically modified them. So they still have
steering wheels and brake pedals and accelerators.
And this has come in really handy when Waymo
has blocked emergency responders. I mean, because
eventually cops have to get in there or fire
department folks have to get in there. After
dealing with customer support somewhere in the
Philippines says, let me in the vehicle, let
me in the vehicle. People are dying. Let me in
the vehicle. And then they get in there and they
move the vehicle. I don't know how this works
without steering wheels and brake pedals, but.
Well, I mean, I think it works up to the point
where the operator, the police officers talking
to, you know, there's no choice there for the
for for an emergency responder. to move the vehicle.
They're completely reliant on remote operators
or a supervisor coming to the scene in order
to get that vehicle out of a dangerous situation
versus being able to jump into it and drive it
away. So it's, I mean, that's a scary scenario
that we're purposely putting cars on the road
before they're ready when they haven't proven
that they can work in all these scenarios and
then taking out the only way for a human operator
to clear the road. It's bizarre because they're
saying exactly that we don't need brake pedals
because the car will stop itself in all emergency
situations. But again, as we pointed out repeatedly,
automatic emergency braking, every single original
equipment manufacturer, every single car brand
has said, we can't do this at highway speeds.
Absolutely not. This is an impossibility. And
NHTSA in this proposal has said, we don't need
brakes in here because that could pose as a safety
risk through intentional or... unintentional
misuse by a vehicle passenger. So we want to
agree. If you're in the driver's seat and there's
a brake pedal that's available and turned on,
you're not a passenger, right? Exactly. So they're
improving safety by removing the thing that could
provide safety. Is that what we're? Here's the
thing about this whole process. And this is,
I'll just go ahead and jump into my gas light.
What they're doing here. is a administrative,
political -driven effort to get autonomous vehicles
or loosen any reins that might be keeping autonomous
vehicles from being able to comply with federal
motor vehicle safety standards. What they're
not doing and where we're being gaslit on this
whole thing is that essentially they're allowing
for autonomous vehicles to be deployed on our
roads without setting any sort of corresponding
safety metrics that these vehicles have to meet
before they can be deployed. So essentially they're
allowing vehicles that they are unable to safely
regulate at this point. And I think, you know,
this is something that has been doing for years.
We've said they're putting the cart before the
horse. We've proposed a number of solutions to
this, including gated certification that gives
the public an independent, verifiable source
of information that can weigh in on the safety
of these vehicles before they go onto public
roads. NHTSA does not want to take that approach.
They want to go right along with the manufacturers
who don't want any rules and want to be able
to deploy whatever they want onto our roads without
sufficient safety checks. All over my gaslight
of the week for this. That's a good gaslight.
But Michael, this is just the NHTSA has proposed
this. Well, it's a proposed rule. They're moving
quickly. In the last, I think, four months, they've
proposed new rules that will allow autonomous
vehicles to operate under, I think, five or six
different safety standards that apply to traditional
cars that are preventing autonomous vehicles
from operating. So a proposed rule is the...
A notice of proposed rulemaking is essentially
the last step before a final rule comes out.
And in this case, you know, there's nothing stopping
it. What typically blocks the movement of rules
through the rulemaking process at NHTSA is opposition
by automakers. Automatic emergency braking, perfect
example. still suing the agency after it put
these rules out on automatic emergency braking
two years ago, trying to hold up the process.
So far, they've, you know, been successful in
delaying good automatic emergency braking with
pedestrian automatic emergency braking coming
to cars by two years to 2029. Who knows if that's
going to be extended even longer into the future.
And so it's, you know, the automakers. are opposing
safety on your normal human -operated car, opposing
any type of minimum safety standards there. And
here, they're just being a gift by NHTSA, saying
you can operate, you can deploy these vehicles,
and we're not going to force you to do any type
of safety checklist before you put them on the
road. Crazy. Fred, do you have a gas light this
week? Oh, I do. Our friends in Dearborn, Michigan.
That's Ford. It's a four -letter word, yeah.
Aren't familiar with the quality. Now, Ford traditionally
stood for fix or repair daily. And they've been
kind of consistent with that. But last week,
they took out a full -page ad in the New York
Times that says, I'm quoting the top, you put
quality first. Now Ford is first in quality.
And they're touting their J .D. Power Award.
Well, the headline is a lie because Ford is not
first in quality according to J .D. Power. They're
forced in initial quality. What that means is
it's only the first 90 days of history of quality
issues. That's the basis for J .D. Power's award.
Wait, I gotta jump in here for a second. Wait,
they actually have a reward? That says it's like
your first equality for the first 90 days. This
is not a disposable product. This is not like
a shaver or something. Well, that's true. Most
people keep their cars for more than 90 days.
So basically, they go on to tell it their own
quality without ever notifying people within
this. This is only an initial quality award,
number one. Number two, who the hell is J .D.
Power? So I looked into that a little bit, and
I find there's a lot of criticism. J .D. Power
is actually a PR firm, and there's no public
disclosure of what they use to determine first
-in -quality. They just say it's based on reports.
But there's been a lot of shady stuff going on
for a long time with these outside endorsements
of car quality. So I did a little research. And,
you know, Motor Trend also puts out an award
for Car of the Year, right? You're familiar with
that? 1960 Car of the Year was a Chevrolet Corvair.
Michael, is that got any particular history with
the Center for Auto Safety? The Chevrolet, you
know, Chevy Corvairs are obviously were a bad
thing at one point in the past. And that problem
was was fixed. Side note, I have to mention this
because. It must have been like 20 years ago.
There's a Corvair owners club. And I think it
was about 20 years ago. They invited as their
guest speaker for the annual gala was Ralph Nader.
Yeah. And for those who aren't aware of this,
the Chevrolet Corvair was basically the source
for the entire consumer advocacy movement because
it led to a book by Ralph Nader called. unsafe
at any speed, which then motivated people to
start wondering if the industries are really
doing all the wonderful things they said they
were doing, or is there something nefarious going
on? So, and here we are years later, wondering
if J .D. Power is pulling the same kind of trick
with Ford Motor Company and the American public.
So when you read that Ford is first in quality,
interpret that as Ford's got some strong PR for
the first 90 days of consumer experience with
their cars in 2025. So pretty limited if you
look into it a little bit. So that's my Gashlight
of the Week. That's pretty good. I think we should
change the Ford acronym to File One Recall Daily.
Yeah, that's a pretty good one. I was going to
ask you, Michael, what is the recall history
compared to other... cars for 2025? Well, Ford
has led, I think, in recalls from 2024 through
the present. And we'll get to more today. A lot
to do. I think we talked last week with the consent
agreement they had to enter with NHTSA because
they were violating federal recall law. So the
experience by the federal government. Directly
contradicts the award given by J .D. Power. Is
that what you're suggesting? No, because most
recalls don't arise in the first 90 days of ownership.
But day 91, that's a shit show. Day 91, you're
screwed. I mean, I guess I always want to make
the alternative argument here, which is that
Ford's massive number of recalls suggest that
they are taking safety seriously and maybe quality.
But, you know. Adorable. Yeah. My gaslight this
week is the U .S. Commerce Department. That's
right. The U .S. Commerce Department. Because
now they are saying Polestar, I believe, right?
They are banning Polestar from being able to
sell vehicles in the United States. And this
is all part of we're banning Chinese connected
cars. Bum, bum, bum. I'm going to quote. What?
Yeah, so I'm going to quote from the Commerce
Secretary under Biden because this is when this
started even. Wow. When foreign adversaries build
software to make a vehicle connected, that means
it can be used for surveillance, can be remotely
controlled, which threatens the privacy and safety
of Americans on the road. That was the Commerce
Secretary Gina Raimondo. In an extreme situation,
a foreign adversary could shut down or take control
of all the vehicles operating in the United States
all at the same time, causing crashes, blocking
roads, creating plots of cheesy movies, said
the secretary. A scenario which we saw depicted
in the fate of the furious. Oh, my God. Well,
I remember we talked last week about the reality
of this happening by GPS jamming. And that's
a that's a fact. Our friends in Russia are shown
to have done that. Sure, but this is all scaremongering
around. China is going to do this. They're surveillance
vehicles. And this is just straight -up protectionism
for U .S. automakers that can't compete at this
time. I don't think that's going to help the
resale value of anybody who's already bought
a Polestar. I think if you've got a Polestar,
I mean, as far as we can tell right now, you're
going to be driving it. you know, for 13 years
minimum. Whereas if you have a Ford, day 91,
you're like, ah, shit. This one's interesting.
I mean, I don't know if this is part of your
gaslight, but, you know, the parent company is
Geely in China, which also owns Volvo, right?
And is responsible for manufacturing Volvo, some
of which, you know, I don't understand. You know,
the administration gave Volvo approval in this
area and have banned Polestar. You know, there
are Polestars that are built in the United States.
They have a factory here. I think they're being
serviced at Volvo dealerships. So if you did
buy a Polestar, you're not totally screwed as
far as warranty and repair and support because
you'll be able to visit a Volvo dealer. That's
my understanding. But you really have to question,
you know, here whether or not, you know. Polestar
made the appropriate payments to get commerce
off their back. I don't know what happened here.
Why does Volvo, with the same parent company
and shared manufacturing, why do they get a pass
here? And Polestar is, you know, banned, essentially.
It makes no sense. And the whole Chinese scare
monitoring saying this is a surveillance threat,
if this was a real national security issue. They
would stop the sale of these vehicles immediately.
But no, they're waiting until 2027 because it's
not a threat. American -made vehicles, they have
all of those same problems, right? Everything
that was named about the problems with potential
Chinese -connected vehicles goes for American
vehicles as well. And if they could be hacked
into, which I'm going to guess they can, don't
foreign adversaries still have the exact same?
power i guess you know to to surveil and remember
every every car uses what's called a can bus
and the can bus is inherently insecure so every
car that's on the road can be hacked by virtually
anybody who's really interested in doing that
there's uh you know i'm not sure what the unique
properties of the polestar are that make it a
unique threat except for the yellow peril That's
it. Lurking on the horizon. This is just, you
know, every corporation says, we believe in the
free market, but we really want a bunch of subsidies
and don't let us actually compete against people
who are doing stuff much better than us. So my
gaslight for the week is the Chinese fear -mongering
out of Biden's Commerce Secretary and the current
Commerce Secretary under Trump. It's ridiculous.
And this week I win because I haven't won in
a couple weeks. So there we go. Yeah, I think
it does make sense. You got a subsidy. You get
subsidies as well. Yeah, great. Of course. Let's
continue with our world of autonomous vehicles
and self -driving, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. There's a company called Tesla. And
they settled a lawsuit over a deadly crash involving
full self -driving. This is from a Bloomberg
article. I'm going to quote from it. In crashes
reviewed by NHTSA, Tesla's system did not detect
common roadway conditions that impaired camera
visibility until immediately before a crash,
the regulator said. A review of Tesla's responses
revealed additional crashes that occurred in
similar environments and where the system either
did not detect a degraded state and or did not
present the driver with an alert with adequate
time for the driver to react. In each of these
crashes, FSD also lost track of or never detected
a lead vehicle on its path. In this case, what
happens, there was a crash, a woman got out of
a vehicle and was helping to guide traffic around
this crash. Tesla's cameras were blinded by the
sun and ran into her full speed and killed her.
One of the interesting parts of this is a few
years ago, Elon Musk said, and this is from his
Twitter feed, my commitment, we will never seek
victory in a just case against us, even if we
will probably win, he wrote. We will never surrender
slash settle an unjust case against us, even
if we will probably lose. Well, this is clearly
a just case because he said, you know, everyone,
you know, he's full of shit completely, obviously,
because this I mean, this case was filed, what,
three years ago? Yeah. So this person, the surviving,
I think the daughter of the lady who was killed.
filed the case in 2023 so you know once again
elon's straight up liar i mean it's pretty clear
here that the camera system in the tesla was
blinded by the sun glare we know that's a huge
problem with with the teslas it's something that
they haven't done anything to work around as
far as we can tell there's still nits investigations
open on it with no resolution so um once again
this is one of the stronger arguments by the
way for not relying on a single sensor for driving
the car right if they'd had radar the radar would
not have been blinded by the sun if they had
light or the light hour would have been blinded
by the sun so a strong argument for doing things
right and not relying upon a single sensor yeah
it's uh it's it's crazy uh related to this senator
blumenthal from connecticut He said, I'm going
to quote from him from an NBC article. You know,
bottom line here is Tesla's owned by the richest
man in the world. Elon Musk is an asshole. No,
he says Elon Musk is a trillionaire. He could
well afford to make this system safer or at the
very least provide the public with complete and
accurate information about the potential dangers
of full self -driving and make information fully
transparent and accurate. But he's failing to
do so because he's an asshole. He's doing the
opposite, right? They're publishing statistics
claiming that this vehicle system is so much
safer than drivers without any type of, you know,
obviously we can't verify any of that information.
They're not sharing the data with anyone. You
know, given the history of the company, I'm happily
willing to suggest that that's just another lie
they've created out of their private data. Well,
I'm shocked that you guys would accuse Mr. Moscow
of creating a Ponzi scheme based upon his lies.
Prevarications and hyperbole. I mean, at this
point, it just couldn't be any more obvious,
right? I mean, we've been watching this for 10
years, and the only people who disagree are the
people who want to make money watching the stock
go up. By the way, he's no longer a trillionaire
if you're following the latest news about the
stock market. This is a good segue for, hey,
listeners, go check your SpaceX stock price.
And while you're doing that, go to autosafety
.org and click on Donate. We prefer that you
don't donate SpaceX stock, though. Yeah, it's
just more obfuscation from the world of Tesla.
So let's jump on to one of their competitors,
who's also got a little Elon in him, which is
sad. Rivian. Now, Rivian, what I like about them
is their CEO is an actual engineer. Unlike Elon,
who's just a carnival barker. The head of Rivian
is a legit engineer. But unfortunately, I think
he got sucked into the Elon distortion field
and started saying things to his customers that
are also not true. And this is related to a lawsuit
around their system called Driver Plus, which
is their kind of level three autonomy. And as
we've repeated repeatedly on this show, redundantly,
all the time, level three is probably the most
dangerous form of driving ever. I'd prefer that
you drive drunk as a teenager. texting on your
phone to try to use a level three system okay
it's none of that's i don't don't drive as a
teenager uh there's an article in tech crunch
and i'm gonna quote the lawsuit alleges rivian
falsely promised over a five -year period and
through a coordinated nationwide marketing campaign
that would that it would make its hands -free
driver assistance system known as driver plus
standard in every vehicle it bills among the
appearances cited in the suit rivian ceo rj scarring
scarring scarring Appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt
2022 were reportedly made representations about
the company's autonomous driving ambitions. No
software update, no matter how sophisticated,
will enable its Generation 1 vehicles to perform
as advertised in the complaint reads. This is
very similar to what we've seen with full self
-driving and Tesla saying, hey, back in 2016,
2017, this will become an autonomous vehicle
one day that will pick up people while you sleep
at night and you'll never have to mop your back
seats out. And this is, you know, and Tesla clearly
was like, well, we got to replace the cameras
and replace the computers. How about you just
go away and buy a different car? And Rivian fell
for the same nonsense. Yeah, I mean, essentially,
they just replicated Tesla's promises that one
day this vehicle will be able to do X. Well,
we're at that one day and it's not doing X, certainly
not doing it safely in the case of Tesla. I don't
think Rivian even deployed the system at all
or will be able to deploy the system at all on
their older vehicles. That would be like Piggly
Wiggly. They're getting their just desserts by
being taken to court for lying to consumers.
That would be like Piggly Wiggly advertising
a head of iceberg lettuce as a full -blown salad.
Wow. That was something. It's a salad that makes
itself. Oh, my God. Ladies and gentlemen, I can't
tell if you can tell, but we're melting in the
heat. Well, Piggly Wiggly would never do that,
by the way. They would not. I can't imagine Piggly
Wiggly would even sell vegetables, just given
the name. Oh, come on, man. I've never been.
I don't know. I don't know. You got to get out
more. I don't need to go that far in the south.
So let's jump to one of my favorite bugaboos,
the airline industry. What does the airline industry
have to do with auto safety? The airline industry
does it better. That's what it is. They actually
have to get things certified instead of self
-certified. And I'm looking at the two of you
and making sure that I'm correct. No one's giving
me body language that says I'm wrong. All right.
So the Wall Street Journal has an article titled,
Airlines are installing new luxury seats, but
no one is allowed to sit in them. Quoting. You
don't think of seats as novel technology. We
see seats, suites, especially in the premium
section of the airplane that just don't pass
our human factors tests for impact. The testing
isn't new, but more complex, customized seat
designs and new materials are raising new questions
for a regulator, said Gary Weisel, a consultant
who has assisted airlines developing, certifying,
and installing new interiors. Again, he helps
them certify. Wow. When seats are installed at
an angle, like the herringbone configuration
airlines have used to fit more flatbed seats,
passengers can experience different types of
injuries in a crash compared with the forward
-facing seats that have populated coach cabins
for decades. Room rear pods and other spacious
premium seats allow bodies to go flailing in
unusual ways. I think of Zoox now. Like, you
know, Zoox allows you to sit in any direction
you want. Well, you can face forward or backwards,
depending on which way the vehicle's moving.
And the auto industry, they get to say, yep,
we've tested it. It's good. Show us the bodies.
Whereas the airline industry, that's not what
the FAA or is the FAA who regulates this, I assume?
Says, no, you've got to show us that this is
safe. I remember when the Airbus A380, the massive
double -decker thing, they had to do all these
tests to make sure that all 500, 600 people could
get out and evacuate within like under 90 seconds.
Whereas an auto company is just like, hey, man,
there's level three driving. Go for it. Well,
you mentioned Zoox, and Zoox is allowed by the
NHTSA to operate a commercial service with an
uncertified vehicle and a vehicle that has variants
on all of the FMVSS requirements, or at least
some of them. And they're allowed to do that
without even notifying their passengers that
the vehicle is inconsistent with the safety regulations.
So it's a whole different world. Just to clarify
there, Zoox is not currently allowed to operate
commercially because their exemption petition
has not been approved. They were given a special
exemption by the secretary, but they can't yet
take paying passengers. Oh, I'm staying corrected.
But they're trying to and they will any day now
when that's presumably approves that exemption
petition. So I know I've asked this question
a thousand times and I'm going to ask it again.
Why does why does the regulations around autos
suck compared to the airline industry? More people
die in car crashes than an airplane crashes.
You know, I think there still remain questions
about whether a manufacturer can self -certify
novel seating under the federal. minimum safety
standards that we have now. It's not something
that the standards even really contemplate. They're
almost exclusively concerned with forward -facing
seats, maybe providing for rear -facing seats
in some circumstances that, for those of you
who have ridden in an old station wagon with
the rear -facing seats. But, you know, I question
whether a lot of newfangled seats can be certified
to the FMDSS at this point. So that's going to
take a lot of research. I mean, imagine a seat
that, you know, some of the campfire seating
type things that we've seen autonomous vehicle
companies talk about where, you know, you essentially
have a desk chair that spins on an axis. How
on earth do you secure someone in that seat with
a seatbelt, protect it with an airbag? Is there
a way to do that? I don't know that any seats
like that could be validly certified at this
point unless NHTSA does the same thing to the
seating standards that it's doing to every other
standard that gets in the way of autonomous vehicles.
I remember back in the – it must have been the
80s. Cousins had a new minivan. It was a thing
at the time, and they had these captain seats
in the back, and they would spin like – I don't
know if it was a full 360, but at least 120 degrees.
Was it a – Larger vehicle? It was a larger vehicle,
yeah. Like vans and other vehicles don't have
to meet the same passenger standards. Like, you
know, back in the day, you don't see bus drivers
with the spinning type seats and other things.
They weren't subject to the passenger car safety
standards. So that was allowed. That's not allowed
anymore, I assume. I don't know. It might be.
I mean, a lot of the safety standards that would
apply to our passenger cars don't apply to vehicles
over 10 ,000 pounds and buses. There's a whole
other wild world and lack of regulations once
you hit certain weights. Isn't there a difference
for aftermarket modifications, Michael? I mean,
aftermarket modifications by me or you aren't
regulated. I mean, you could put a spinning seat
in your car, you know. And you wouldn't face
any type of retribution from the government,
although if you get in a crash, your likelihood
of being dead or injured go up significantly.
So, Michael, you're saying there has to be a
lot of research on these new seat designs and
layouts. I mean, just think about virtually every
passenger test and vehicle safety test that's
ever been carried out on occupant restraint and
airbag systems. Did so in a forward facing seat
and considering like all of the, you know, the
physical and biological dynamics of crashes,
all of the research we've done focuses on that.
And so now you're going to expand that to 360
degrees worth of impact. I don't know. It just
seems like a very heavy lift to be able to certify
something like that is safe. I mean, how on earth
are you going to design a system that protects
occupants in, you know, at every degree of potential
seating direction? I don't know if that's feasible.
And right now the current testing is for a 5
'10", 175 -pound male. So, yeah, we'll get right
on that. Sit wherever you like. Strap yourself
to the roof rack, people. It's a good thing.
It's a wonderful world. And with that, let's...
Fred, you ready for a little Tau time? Tau time,
yes. Clearing his throat and everything. He's
still going. The small company called NVIDIA
wants to get into this game even more heavily
than it is now. So they've put out an article
called For RoboTaxis, safety must be built in,
not bolted on. Can't argue with that. But before
building it in, you have to know what it is.
And what is safety? It has to be defined and
certified to be acceptable for commercial service,
but neither of which is apparent here or anywhere
else in the AV constellation. The article quotes
ISO 26262, International Standards Organization
26262, and says the Halos core. which is their
software, is compliant with ISO 26262. Well,
that's great because ISO 26262 doesn't really
address software. But what it does do is it defines
safety as absence, quoting, absence of unreasonable
risk. Now, hiding behind this is essentially
a get -out -of -jail -free card for AV developers
because what's reasonable? There's no international
standard of reasonable. And so what's reasonable
is whatever the developer thinks is reasonable.
So you can't be brought to court and say you
violated the safety standard because your company
would say, well, no, we didn't. Here's a list
of things we think is reasonable. And so it would
be up to the court to determine what's reasonable
and what's not. So this kicks the whole problem,
the whole engineering problem of safety design
down the road somewhere in the future. That saves
them money and puts their customers at risk,
of course, but that serves their corporate interest.
NVIDIA is silent on their own idea of safety,
so who knows what they're really up against.
Quoting again, the software development kit includes
safety -certified support for NVIDIA CUDA and
TensorRT. It provides blah, blah, blah, open
source framework for high performance, blah,
blah, blah. But it's silent on whom other than
NVIDIA or what are the definition of safety might
be the basis of the safety certification. So,
you know, Anthony, did you say, did you tell
them that their safety is okay? I keep trying
to email them, but they just keep bouncing back.
Well, it must have some other basis, but they're
not clear on what that basis is. They go on to
say, Halos SDK provides the runtime building
blocks that blah, blah, blah. Application level
scheduler for predictable timing, blah, blah,
blah. Moves data without added latency, blah,
blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. A lot of that.
So delivering the foundation for highly reliable
and low latency automotive applications. But
it introduces lots of single point failures.
And I'm not sure exactly whether this is possible
or not. But, you know, how low is the latency?
Latency is only one factor in the safety and
not the limiting factor in the OEDR, which is
the object or event detection and response. Because
that's OEDR is the whole loop from detecting
the problem to sending the problem back to the
remote center, getting the response. then putting
it into the car and actually responding. Nobody
has ever shown a system that has a human in the
loop like that can respond in time to solve an
operational problem when the car is running down
the road at highway speed. They say that Halo
AOS can be combined with end -to -end AI models
for which explainability and transparency are
essential. Well, that's good. But the problem
is that AI is never explainable or transparent.
When you go into AI, you're abandoning human
understanding of what the logic is between the
input and the output, because that's intrinsic
to AI, right? So this is a very interesting statement.
That's me every Friday night. Yeah. Then they
say the HALO -AS is certified to automotive safety
standards. Well, that's good because those standards
don't exist. It says it's audited, documented,
and proven to behave predictably under fault
conditions. Well, audited by whom against what
standard and under what fault conditions? Inquiring
minds want to know. But they implicitly agree
that that's not sufficient because they've introduced
the idea of a hypervisor. which is a specialized
software layer that isolates safety -critical
functions so failures can't reach vehicle controls.
What? Well, yes. What they're saying is... But
it fails all the time. We're going to catch it
before it happens every time. Yeah, yeah. And
it's deterministic, which means it's not the
AI, right? So you know exactly what's going to...
You're able to find out exactly what's going
to happen between the input and the output. It's
like an AI babysitter. It's like an AI babysitter,
yeah. And so does it really work? I don't know.
But if it does, this is something that should
be in every car to act as a supervisor for stupid
things or mistakes that the human operators might
introduce. Oh, my gosh. I think it should be
there to... correct mistakes that stupid AI introduces
too, right? Absolutely, yeah. We should have
the same thing online on LLM to prevent them
from saying dumb shit, which happens constantly.
It's good for the goose and good for the gander.
Yeah, but then every car would be in limp home
mode all the time. So I want to just dive into
numbers. I won't do too much of this, but they've
got a block diagram that shows 18 logical blocks.
You add on a number of sensors, a reasonable
number of sensors and some electromechanical
components, failures and all that stuff. And
assuming that they've built it to be too failure
tolerant, which is reasonable for cars, you end
up with a number of combinations that you would
like to test of around 20 ,000. It's not financially
possible to actually validate the safety response
of the software. Even for NVIDIA. Even for NVIDIA,
yeah. For more than one or two cases, and probably
not even that, because if you validate something,
what you need to do is verify through statistical
tests that the response that you're going to
get is suitable in all circumstances that you
would plausibly encounter. Think of the simplest
one, which is steering, right? Steering would
involve ice, mud, snow. It would involve a rainstorm
after a long hot spell where the oil leaks out
of the road. Just so much. Locusts. If you've
got 20 ,000 of these, you're never going to do
that. And if you have AI involved in the control
response, then you can't have a deterministic
study that says we've done all this. All you
can do is just throw situations at it and see
what happens. Can you, can you simulate based
on real world data? Oh, look who's setting up
a softball for Fred. So the point of all this
number mumble is softball. He skipped it. Mike's
question was so softball as you just ignored
it. I'm sorry. I didn't try your, it doesn't
matter. It doesn't matter. All right. So anyway,
The relationship between this and edge cases
is that for edge cases, people talk about a long
tail of probability, and that's absolutely correct.
But the reason it's such a long tail is because
you've got all these underlying safety issues
that have never been studied, that have never
been validated, that are going to pop up. And
if you've got 20 ,000 some odd circumstances,
each with a very low probability of happening.
In not very much time, you're going to find some
of them are going to happen. Fred, you clearly
don't subscribe to Kathy Wood's newsletter where
she has said that Tesla has over a billion miles
recorded so they understand every possibility
that could ever possibly happen. I might take
some issue with that. There is something, by
the way, called a state in the industry called
a failure modes and effect criticality analysis,
which is exactly. something that addresses this
situation of trying to figure out what the hell
is going to happen when you have a problem. I've
never seen a FAMICA touted as part of the safety
qualification process for any of these AVs. I
don't believe it's ever happened. I don't think
the AVs do any criticality analysis or any systematic
analysis for even one of the likely failure modes.
I think they just, you know. Put the car on the
road and see if it steers straight. And that's
good enough. Did they do that after they start
running past school buses and into floods? Hard
to know exactly what the sequence is. But so
I'm going to conclude by saying NVIDIA is not
immune to reality, no matter how slick the software.
Well said. Look at that. But Fred, I got to point
out that the puff, the thing you're reading from
NVIDIA, that was not designed for. That was written
for a tech journalist who got a C in calculus,
who had a subscription to Scientific American
and Popular Mechanics and has a... This is hitting
too close to home. You see, that's where geofencing
comes in. They should have geofenced that away
from the engineers. I agree. Let's jump into
a... Before we hit recalls, we're going to jump
into a story that Michael and I wanted to touch
on last week. And it's one that you don't think
about. And it is from this is from safety research
and strategies. And it's titled aftermarket car
bling continues to inflict harm. Now, this is
not something that I think I've ever thought
about. And I think I've seen it. The only time
I've seen it was with like a teenage girl where
they put in like bedazzled little stones on their
steering wheel and personalizing it. It's adorable.
And you think, oh, that's OK. But you don't realize
you're putting these little stones. over these
little plastic beads or whatnot over your part
of the steering wheel that deploys when your
airbag comes out. So these are no longer cute
little things. These become missiles of death.
So the quick takeaway, and I'm sure, Michael,
you'll have something to add, is don't mess with
your safety systems. Don't put any stickers,
stones, anything. Nothing. Never touch them.
Highly engineered for your safety. Fair? Yeah,
I mean, that's a good consumer warning side of
things. I mean, I think what we're looking and
hoping for is that the folks who are in charge
of selling these things to Americans are going
to take responsibility. You know, we've seen
NHTSA warn, I believe, at least twice, warn consumers
about this issue. But NHTSA faces a lot of headwinds
in trying to regulate this behavior, mainly because
these are aftermarket. They're not even necessarily
hard points, right? I mean, whether or not this
is even regulatable by NHTSA is a question. Now,
what NHTSA has done is reach out to Amazon and
other online merchants to try to get them to
cooperate in not selling these to consumers.
And they've been met with some varied compliance.
Ultimately, the problem is these things are still
all over. the internet and available to anyone
and a lot of people you know they're not being
warned when they buy these things and make you
know even if they are what's the point right
like you know we've seen we've seen recalls from
you know ornaments that the manufacturers installed
their steering wheels right i think there was
a recall on a nissan or on a nissan's shiny little
chrome plated uh badge ornament in the middle
of the airbag for problems. And that's one of,
I think, you know, two or three or more other
recalls around that issue. So ultimately this
comes down to, you know, NHTSA has the authority
to regulate OEMs, the cars and aftermarket parts
that create a safety condition in vehicles. But
when it comes to these like random consumer things
that you can buy to decorate your car. they don't
really have the ability to go after, you know,
a manufacturer in China who's making jewels that
stick on your steering wheel. So ultimately,
I think corporate responsibility is going to
be necessary in this area, which is why it's
a scary area, because corporate responsibility,
you know, may or may not exist, depending on
who's the CEO and who's in charge of the government
at the moment. For those lucky people who have
not experienced an airbag deployment, It's a
lot like getting punched in the face. So if you
would prefer being punched in the face by brass
knuckles rather than an open hand, go ahead and
put a sticker on your steering wheel. But that's
really the way to think about the consequences
of putting this bling on your steering wheel.
And by the way, this is why we have to ban Chinese
cars because, you know, Chinese are out to get
us. Fair enough. Before we jump into recalls,
as I sit here in the sweltering heat, I'd like
to warn listeners that July is the deadliest
month for children left in cars. Last year, 31
children died nationwide from vehicular heat
stroke. In 2026 so far, eight deaths have been
reported. We've talked about this in the past.
It's nine now. It's not. Ah, gee. And this week's
going to be hot. Half of America is going to
be over 100 degrees. And when that happens, the
higher the temperature, the quicker the temperature
is going to reach deadly levels in cars. And
so, you know. And while we're on this, we want
to wish Janet Fennell, who was injured in a car
crash, all the best and a quick recovery. Janet's
been all over this issue for a long time. So
I think you're listening, Janet, and we're thinking
of you. Yes, we are, Jeanette. We really, really
hope that you have a great recovery. And this
issue is, I want to point out that the article
that we're looking at here, I believe it's from
USA Today. It's Detroit Free Press. Detroit Free
Press, published, I think. Oh, yes, USA, yeah,
okay. It really, you know, it glosses over a
really important issue. You know, it goes through
a lot of things, you know, advice for parents
and goes through, you know, how the heat can
climb fast and all of that. But, you know, in
the end, it says innovations in vehicle technology
help prevent hot car deaths. Automakers have
added rear occupant alert systems to cars in
response to the rising number of kids and pets
left unsupervised. How it works when a car is
shifted to park, rear occupant alarms advise
drivers to check the back seat. If sensors identify
anything or something there, rear seat reminder
systems are available from several manufacturers.
Right now, that's not what happens. Right now,
the vast majority of vehicles that have any sort
of technology in this area are door sequencing
alarms. Essentially, you put the car in park
if you opened your rear door before you got in
the car or while the car was operating and maybe
parked. with the engine on and you let let a
child into the car then when you put the vehicle
in park and get out of the vehicle again it's
going to um give you an alarm saying hey you
open the back door you may have left some of
the back seat what they're not doing right now
is actually sensing a human being in the back
seat of the car and um doing anything to prevent
prevent that situation from happening automakers
have completely strongly resisted installing
child presence detection in vehicles in order
to prevent this problem. And instead, they've
gone with a very cheap solution, does that sound
like the industry to you, of door sequencing
software that basically just identifies when
a door's been opened in the back and then gives
the driver an alarm when they park the car, which
is obviously... Not even remotely perfect or
as close to the efficacy of having an actual
child presence detector in the vehicle, which
is what the Infrastructure Act in 2021 required
NHTSA to put in place. They are dragging their
feet. They're saying that manufacturers aren't
putting out enough of this technology for them
to properly. regulate it essentially you know
NHTSA requires something to study in order to
put out minimum safety standards and right now
I believe there's only two manufacturers that
are putting any type of child presence monitoring
on their vehicles and so Essentially, it's created
this quandary where if the industry doesn't put
safety equipment in their vehicles, NHTSA has
no way to evaluate it, and consumers may never
see it, which gives the industry far too much
power in determining the future of safety, in
my opinion. Oh, my God. You're blowing my mind.
There's so much just horrible with what you just
said. Not that you're horrible, but… Well, I
mean, that's essentially what's dragged this
out, right? Five years after NHTSA hasn't done
a damn thing to move a rulemaking forward for
minimum safety standards on detecting children
in cars. And it's because the industry doesn't
want to invest in the child occupant presence
detection. And by, you know, this is where I
think, where I'm concerned about things like
collusion within the industry, right? As an industry
as a whole, with the exception of maybe two manufacturers,
they're resisting putting this technology into
their vehicles, which means NHTSA is not going
to be able to put a rule out on it to mandate
minimum standards for all manufacturers. So that's
a tactic that I don't think is limited to the
child's occupant presence sensors. I think it's
something that... That we're going to see a lot
of in the areas of autonomy. So what I'm learning
a lot from this show is that the industry has
a solution to a lot of safety issues. They don't
want to do it. Instead, they want to blame the
driver. It's the same thing as LIDAR and Tesla
in some respects. And it's your fault. You bought
this product. We sold you. And it's your fault
if something goes wrong. Wells, we could have
added in a whole bunch of things to not make
it your fault. It's your fault, even though we
could have spent $200 on LIDAR that could save.
Right. Or we could have spent $30 on a child
presence system that would have prevented a child's
death. While noting that the automotive industry
is squandering billions on autonomous vehicles,
also fund an organization ironically called the
Automotive Alliance for Innovation. Which is
dedicated to stopping innovation in automotive.
I would say it's dedicated to promoting profitable
innovations for the auto industry. Yeah. You
want to play Tetris while you drive? Hey, that's
our innovation. Yeah. I mean, if you think about
this in terms of how much do you think automakers
have spent on convenience features over the past
10 years versus safety features like child presence
detection, you start to get an idea of, you know.
why I may be a little cynical on this. You can't
take away my heated cup holder. And with that,
let's go to recalls. First up, Hyundai 96 ,310
vehicles, the 2025 -2026 Hyundai Tucson plug
-in hybrid, the 2025 Tucson hybrid, and then
just the regular Tucson, and the instrument panel
display in the subject vehicles may intermittently
reboot during vehicle operation. potentially
resulting in this is becoming our new uh rearview
camera yeah this is now we're really starting
to see a jump and the the screen display is failing
um which is very similar to what we saw in the
rearview but this is more frightening because
this is your instrument panel like this is like
well your rearview camera i can turn around and
look whereas this is i'm driving like what's
my speed now ah Yeah, you don't have an alternate
speedometer like you have mirrors, right? Right.
Oh, my God. But they want to get rid of mirrors,
too, man. So what happens here? You know, it
takes away their fuel gauge, too. Oh, boy. What's
the remedy here? It's software. It's always software.
They're basically adding software that's going
to prevent the instrument panel cluster from
resetting while you're driving. owners should
have that i think it's two months away late august
i think owners will be hearing about that one
oh boy next up general motors 26 ,541 vehicles
the 2026 chevrolet express 2025 chevrolet express
2025 gmc savannah the 2026 savannah gm has decided
that a defect which released to motor vehicle
safety may exist in certain these vehicles they
may have a steering gear assembly with a nut
that was not properly tightened Oh, so basically
you're driving along this loose nut and you lose
steering control. And is it just because you
need someone to tighten the thing? Yeah, essentially
you're going to bring it in and the dealer is
going to inspect it and tighten the nut. They
may replace the steering gear assembly if there's
been damage. I think that's going to be rare.
You've probably noticed if you've had damage
to your steering gear assembly. But who knows?
Get it fixed, people. Yeah, that's another one
that's coming in mid -August in this case. All
right. Toyota up next, 20 ,991 vehicles. The
2026 Subaru Solterra, the Toyota BZ, and the
Lexus RZ. These battery electric vehicles are
equipped with a battery that supplies electricity
to the drivetrain. It's controlled by an ECU
that has two integrated circuits where one could
immediately override. Data in the same memory
address location that the other I just written.
This could run into an EV system malfunction.
Oh, wait. So while power steering and power assist
braking continue to operate, the electric drive
system will shut down. So this is a real big
software screw -up. It's overwriting itself.
That's a mess. Overwriting data at the same memory
address. You know. I think that you're just going
to get another software update here if you're
an owner. Then this is Toyota and Subaru. I guess
they've combined to make the battery behind these
vehicles. Yeah, well, Toyota owns 20 % of Subaru,
so there's a lot of... Parts and components being
exchanged between the companies. Cross -contamination.
And that's another one that you'll hear about
in mid -August for owners. Up next, ready for
it? The reigning heavyweight champion, weighing
3 billion recalls with their favorite automobile
being made in China, not by them, but by their
competitors. It's Ford 741 ,195 vehicles. The
2021 F -150, the 2020 to 2021 Lincoln Aviator,
the 2020 to 2021 Explorer, Navigator, a 2018
to 2021 Expedition. Effective vehicles may experience
temporary engagement of their transmission parking
paw while the vehicle is in motion when certain
shifts are commanded by the transmission, potentially
damming park system components. So I'm driving
along and all of a sudden my automatic transition
decides to go into park? Is that? No. No? Okay.
So you were driving and you park. Okay. And you
get out and your vehicle rolls over you. Oh,
God! These are rollaways. So essentially the
vehicle, I guess, thinks it's in park and everything's
good, but it's not. Once again, this is going
to be a software update. To prevent the transmission
from commanding those shifts, which may result
in temporary engagement of the transmission parking
pole while the vehicle is in motion. I don't
think this should be a software update. I think
this should be a therapist update. So why did
you buy this Ford vehicle? What were you planning
to accomplish? Well, because J .D. Power said
it's high quality. But that person was soon run
over by their Explorer. Self -limiting process.
Oh, boy. This one looks also if you're an owner
of one of these vehicles, this is going to be
a long term process. So you need to be really
careful with these vehicles. In the meantime,
it doesn't look like owners are even going to
get notification until next April. Oh, April
2027. Oh, yeah. And they're not going to have
they're going to do it in a phase recall. So
this one's going to take a while. So what? Do
we recommend people do? Because the F -150 is
the best -selling car in the country. Use the
parking brake. Use the parking brake. I don't
know if all of them have a parking brake, like
a manual one. Yeah, you do. You've got a parking
brake somewhere. Okay. You need to find it. But
remember, putting the vehicle in park locks the
transmission if it's working properly. Okay.
Using the emergency brake locks the wheels. Okay.
So they're completely different independent systems.
So the answer is use the parking brake. Okay.
Or find out where it is, Anthony. Yeah. And even
in the description. If you read the user's manual,
you'll often find a suitable, but nevermind.
Yeah. In the description of the safety risk,
they say, which would give owners a clue as to
what's going on here and what they can do. They
say that the parking brake. If it's not applied,
the transmission may fail in this situation.
So use the parking brake is the proper recommendation
for owners who are worried about this. Or read
the owner's manual, whichever comes first. Parking
brake wins. With that, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to quote from Diamond David Lee
Roth and stay frosty. It's very hot outside.
And try not to melt. And be safe out there on
the roads. And drive like everybody else on the
road around you is your grandmother that you
love and is fictitious and baked you pies as
a kid and was really wonderful. And so let them
go. No need, especially in these hot temperatures,
to flip them off every five minutes. Like, I
want to. Till next week. Bye -bye. Bye -bye.
Thanks, everybody. For more information visit
www .autosafety .org