You're listening to There Auto To 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, folks. Today
is Wednesday, July 29th, and we're going to talk
all about the wonderful world of Waymo, because
that's all we seem to ever talk about. Really?
Well, we're not going to start off that way.
Actually, we are. We are going to start off that
way. Geez, is that true? No, we're not. I don't
know. All right. You know what? We're going to
start off with this article from Bloomberg. We're
going to start off with Tesla instead, our other
bugaboo. Thank you. Yeah. Whoa. Every time in
the past, just rewind this show to about eight
months ago. Anytime we'd mention Tesla, Michael
would cry. And now he's saying thank you. Well,
you know, Tesla's been kind of brushed, brushed,
brushed off lately with all the autonomous vehicle
stuff. So, yeah. I like, you know, I like to
get back to some of these normal defects occasionally,
you know, rather than all this crazy AV stuff.
Right. And I would like to remind listeners,
first of all, thanks for being here. But secondly,
we are not focused on autonomous vehicles solely.
It's just that's what a lot of what's happening
in chaos. We would love to get back to the topic.
You know, I'm assuming that's just because a
lot of the news is obsessed with the future.
That's true. But and we want to be ahead of the
curve. So anyway, so let's talk about is this
is an article from Bloomberg titled U .S. to
begin work on new car door safety rules after
deaths and Tesla's. And we've talked about this
previously where the Tesla door handles are electric.
And if the 12 volt battery dies or gets disconnected
that controls these door handles, people get
trapped inside and people externally trying to
open the doors can't access the door handles.
And it's resulted in a number of deaths. It's
horrific. But I'm a quote directly from this
article. U .S. auto safety regulators will start
developing new requirements to ensure drivers
and passengers can safely exit their vehicles,
a significant move to address issues exposed
by sometimes deadly incidents in which people
have become trapped inside their cars. So, wait,
there is no requirements for safe egress from
a vehicle before this? There are some minimal
requirements that can aid with safe egress, but
there are no requirements around manual escape
from a vehicle when you have electric door latches.
That was the part that blew me away. I just,
you know, naively assumed again. I mean, there
are regulations around door latches and how they're
supposed to work and that type of thing. There
just aren't any regulations in the door latch
area that have, you know. In fact, they discussed
that a little in the document. Basically, we
got a document the other day, right? NHTSA releases,
it's essentially a denial of a defect petition.
A consumer filed a petition saying, hey, I got
in a crash. My car, I had to exit out of the
rear seat, I believe, because I couldn't find
or couldn't locate or we couldn't operate the
manual release for the front. NHTSA took that
petition and... I would say, you know, there's
kind of good news and bad news from this petition.
You know, I guess the good news from it is that
we find out that NHTSA has approved a petition
for rulemaking on this issue, which means they're
going to start the rulemaking process to put
out a federal motor vehicle safety standard that
establishes minimum safety protections in this
area that they don't have. I guess kind of the
downside of this is that NHTSA... That's going
to take, first of all, minimum five years, maybe
10, who knows, with NHTSA. But the downside is
I don't feel like they really sufficiently conducted
a defect investigation here. They're kind of
just kicking the can to rulemaking, ignoring
the fact that there are still millions of these
vehicles on the road with this problem. They
didn't dive into the hidden manual releases and
how it's... you know, virtually, they relied
a lot on the owner's manual and some of the things
that we've talked about in the past. You know,
they're saying, oh, I'm sorry, you burned in
a car. You should have read your owner's manual
kind of excuse, which is nonsense. And so I guess
I'm disappointed in the response by NHTSA here.
I mean, it sets a path for the agency to maybe
fix this problem in the future by rulemaking,
but it does nothing. to prevent people from continuing
to die in all these vehicles that are still on
the road with these hidden manual releases. I
don't think this is unique to Tesla, isn't it?
It's not. Rivian, to some extent, has a problem,
but the vast majority of vehicles with this problem
on our roads are going to be Teslas. And, you
know, I think Rivian only had one model that
had some issues, and they immediately corrected
it for the next year after this problem was pointed
out. Tesla has said, oh, we're correcting it.
I haven't seen the evidence that they've done
anything concrete. Well, Tulsa's got another
problem for safety, which is they use laminated
glass on the rear doors and passenger doors.
Yeah, well, that's an industry -wide issue, right?
That's because NHTSA set its ejection standards
to allow for glass to... to help them pass the
test. And so manufacturers started putting laminated
glass on side windows instead of the traditional
glass that you could actually break with those
tools that are sold everywhere. So folks, just
in case you're not aware of the difference, laminated
glass has two panes of glass separated by an
adhesive layer. It's like you have a new windshield.
And of course, for the windshield, it's important
because if a stone bounces on your windshield,
you don't want the whole thing to collapse. as
it would if it had tempered glass. But for the
side windows and the rear window, tempered glass
makes a lot of sense because you can easily break
it and get out of the car in an emergency. So
that's the difference. Yeah. And, you know, it's
a really interesting kind of, it's one of the
main areas where I think we see the safety trade
-offs involved in some of the NHTSA decisions
that are made right there. They know that people
are going to have a more difficult time escaping
these vehicles if laminated glass is used on
the side windows and die, right? They know that's
going to occur in some numbers, but they also
know that if tempered glass is used on the side
windows, that there's a greater risk of passenger
and driver ejection. And that risk is... Much
greater than the numbers that are going to be
over in the category of people who aren't able
to escape the vehicle because vehicle fires are
going to be much, much more rare than the potential
for ejection through a side window and all sorts
of crash scenarios. And so they purposely, even
above objection, stating that, you know, that,
you know, some more people are going to die in
fires if they can't escape through their windows.
A whole lot more people are going to be saved
by not being ejected in those same in these other
crash scenarios. So it's you know, it's kind
of one of those the give and take of regulation.
All right. Let's get back to door handles. I
don't know how we got on this sidetrack here.
OK, so there's this is just putting in a proposal
for a rulemaking that would affect future. doors
door handle so that what we've talked about in
the past is these things should work by like
if you yank on it twice it goes to manual mode
and pops the door open who knows what solution
will come up with but michael what i what i just
heard from you is they're not listing this as
a defect which would require a recall yeah and
it would require recall that i think would be
heavily fought by tesla because going back and
fixing this problem is i i think would be rather
expensive i mean you're talking about i i mean
i don't know tesla could probably agree just
to give people stickers to put on their manual
releases um and to do that in the future that
warned that that let people know where the manual
releases are so that the hidden manual release
problem doesn't occur but that doesn't fix a
lot of the problems here around electric door
latches right you know we still have the issue
that we're not even talking about here of first
responders and good samaritans being able to
open doors and access the cabin compartment from
the outside when there's someone inside the car
that may be incapacitated or unconscious and
desperately needs to exit the vehicle or have
help to exit the vehicle. So this is kind of
half of the problem here that NHTSA's rule looks
like it's going to address. I'm interested to
see if they address kind of the full scope of
the safety issues that electric door latches
pose. So going forward, good news potentially
is that NHTSA has a role in place. fix these
electric door handles, save lives. Bad news is
if you have a Tesla, you don't have any friends
still. Yeah, you're not going to be able to get
a recall to fix this. But if you have a Tesla
and you're keenly aware of this problem, you
know where the manual release is already. I think
what we're really concerned about are just. you
know, ride share passengers, people hopping into
these cars who have no idea where any of this
stuff is, who have no duty to read the owner's
manual, who are going to be put at risk. And
also owners who, you know, I would guess 90 %
of owners aren't reading their owner's manual
as well. And, you know, when it comes to critical
safety issues like this that can be fixed and
designed in a way that's, you know, it's not
like designing with a better manual release is
cost prohibitive. They can just reroute it, market
better. I mean, there's a world in which this
can be done even more cheaply than what they're
doing now. So there's no real. cost argument
here. And I think that we'll see that in the
regulation. I guess the real cost involved here
would be forcing Tesla to go back and fix the
vehicles that are already on the road that have
this problem. And I think, you know, even though
the defects office kicked the can down the road
here, I think that it would have been a very
tough, a tough road to hoe given Tesla's resistance
to effective recalls generally. Well, if we all,
Work and put Elon into a K -hole. Maybe he'll
see the light. Let's continue with more Tesla
fun. I know, because I just got to hold off on
going away more to make my. Oh, I just want to
mention one more thing about that last one. One
of my other thing I didn't point out was that
what the agency did in evaluating this defect
petition is also kind of suspect because they
looked at a very specific make model, you know,
year of Tesla vehicles. pointed out this one
complaint they found in their database, you know,
and said, oh, that's kind of the extent of the
problem here, where we know, you know, there
have been 15 deaths that have been identified
in these vehicles as related to this issue, right?
That's what we've learned through the Bloomberg
reporting. NHTSA doesn't mention any of that,
nor does it mention any of the other years, makes
and models of Tesla that are having the same
issue. So it was some sleight of hand there that
I... I don't think there was a really good look
at the problem. Now, I don't want to move on.
You said there's 15 deaths related to this, which
is clearly a defect. Is there? That's what I'm
saying. Isn't this a defect? Isn't this a defect?
Why are we blaming the owners for poorly located
manual releases? I mean, there's been other issues
that we've covered where less people have died
and recalls have been issued. Certainly. So how
the hell are they getting away with now? This
is ridiculous. Like, how are they getting away
with that? I'm seeing a real trend here. Blame
the human. Right. I mean, this is pointing out,
you know, in their denial that you need to read
the owner's manual, essentially. So that's just
blame the human as it gets, because. you know
obviously everybody that rides in a certain car
is not going to be the owner nor are they going
to have access to an owner's manual nor should
they have to read the fucking owner's manual
to figure out how to get out of the car when
it's on fire right does the robo taxi thing does
that have not their not their model threes that
you know don't have a driver have a driver thing
their standalone two -seater thing is that electric
door handles as well Who knows? I have no idea
what's in those cars. Because they're not real.
You mean the ones they're manufacturing without
any use case? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Well, let's go to a different Tesla subject.
This is from Electrek. So other AV companies,
or not even AVs, let's say ADAS systems, they
use cameras to view things. They use radar. Some
use LIDAR. Some use ultrasonic sensors. A lot
of them use combinations of two or more of these
things to get a view of the road for automatic
emergency braking, lane detection, blind spot
monitoring, a whole bunch of things like that.
And Tesla, under the guise of the world's greatest
engineer, Elon Musk, says we can just do this
vision only, bro, because I use my eyeballs and
that's how I get around the world. Because apparently
when he gets in a car, he plugs his ears and
puts on blinders, whatever. So they're trying
to do this vision -only approach, and as we've
seen, it's been not a failure, but you're going
to summer school. If we're grading this, this
kid's got to get extra help. So Electric, I guess
somebody found this, or NHTSA found this, that
Tesla had an internal document, the Radar Saves
Us document. And I'm going to quote from this.
NHTSA says Tesla submitted an internal document
titled Radar Saves Us in response to the earlier
preliminary investigation, PE, blah, blah, blah.
The agency now wants everything around it, all
internal communications, technical documentation,
test records, and any data the document was built
from. Here's how the ODI describes why it wants
to file the Office of Defect Investigation. This
document appears particularly relevant to related
design changes to the degradation detection system.
And Tesla's understanding of the limitations
imposed by a vision -only OEDR system, object
event detection ranging, something like that,
close enough, system, and how they relate to
the reduced visibility conditions that the subject
vehicles encounter in each of the nine countable
crashes. Quoting, read that again, the federal
safety regulator is telling Tesla that as an...
It has an internal Tesla document apparently
called Radar Saves Us that it believes goes to
Tesla's own understanding of the weakness of
a camera -only system and exactly the conditions
that produces these crashes. These conditions
were basically sun, glare, fog, airborne dust.
You know, Elon at one point said that this system
will work in a complete whiteout conditions.
They don't. Continuing. The name has never appeared
in public before this letter. Tesla handed the
document to NHTSA privately during the earlier
phase of the investigation, and the agency is
now formally pulling it into the record. So I
have two amazing things for this. Tesla had an
internal document called Radar Saves Us. actually
three things to tesla even know what that means
yeah i don't know what that means but i love
the title to tesla is it facetious or is it you
know you just never know what's coming true and
but then tesla slipped this to nits as investigators
um but three what blows me away is hey we have
federal whistleblower protection laws where you
can get a ton of money from all these fines why
didn't somebody just do that instead of you know
slip it because someone clearly inside tesla
is like yeah we're gonna let this one go to the
investigators hey hey person who slipped this
in come on man could have gotten whistleblower
protections you could be sitting in fat city
big old payout and you know five to ten you couldn't
get it for slipping it and you would get whistleblower
protectors for reporting that somebody didn't
didn't provide it to that right and and the request
right So this is fascinating. I don't know. There's
something else behind this whole issue. The timing
of when Tesla pulled front -facing radar and
then ultrasonic sensors from its vehicles is
right around the time of serious supply chain
issues in the COVID era, I guess I would call
it. And so you really have to kind of squint
your eyes when you're reading about this and
wonder, you know, was it a cost move? And a supply
chain move to save Tesla money ultimately versus
an engineering matter. I think it was definitely
a cost move, but every other manufacturer was
still using radar systems like Tesla wasn't unique
in this. I think most cars. Nobody has stopped
as far as I know, except Tesla. Right. Yeah.
I mean, since 2019, pretty much every new car
has a radar, a front facing radar system. And
I think plus it gave them what they thought was
this great marketing opportunity of saying, hey,
we've got Tesla vision. We don't need this other
stuff. We're going to do it with cameras only
and do it the cheap way. And investors love that
kind of stuff, right? But that's what's going
on with Tesla. So this will be interesting when
NHTSA gets the rest of this documentation. I'm
curious. I'm curious what happens to the people
who titled this document. Michael, you have a
good question. Good point. Was this an internal
facetious thing given the culture of Tesla? I
could see that, but that's not normal standard
operating positions inside an engineering environment.
I think there's maybe a bigger issue here, which
is that NHTSA continues to allow these vehicles
to operate on the road without having any safety
standards that they must comply with. You know,
we don't know about Waymo's compliance with any
reasonable safety standard. We don't know about
Tesla. We don't know about Zoox. There is no
standard. It's a wild west. And this is just
another illustration of the kind of gaps in safety
that can occur when the government allows vehicles
to be on the road without having to conform to
any safety standards applicable to the vehicles.
It's long overdue for the government to come
up with those standards, put them into the FMVSS,
and require those companies to protect the public.
Yeah. End of rant. We're going on 10 years now
where, you know, this technology has been available
in some form or another, and it has significant
safety implications. And the government has done
a relatively piss poor job of enforcing recalls
that worked, getting recalls done in a timely
manner before other people are killed or injured.
And so. We're functionally in this limbo world
where NHTSA is saying, we're going to take care
of this by recall, not regulation. And we want
to be technology neutral. We don't want to force
a company to use something beyond its vision
if we can't absolutely 1 million percent prove
that that vision system is unsafe. So it's just
a, you know. Again, somewhat kicking the can
down the road and not really doing what a safety
authority should do in the face of new technology
posing, you know, pretty significant safety risks
in a lot of circumstances. Well, and I also want
to point out the companies are not doing it themselves.
There have been a lot of circumstances that have
been documented where self -driving vehicles,
and I won't even discuss whether level 23477.
A lot of circumstances where self -driving vehicles
have been involved in fatal accidents, fatal
crashes. None of the companies developing these
are replicating those circumstances in their
test ranges, as far as we know. None of them
are doing anything before releasing these vehicles
to make sure that they are safe in known fatal
circumstances. There's an astonishing void. End
of second round. So Michael said this has been
going on for 10 years, but you know what? This
podcast has almost been going on for five years,
a couple more episodes, and that's five years.
Really? Yeah. I thought it was four. Last week
was episode four, season four, episode 49. So
this is episode 50 of the fourth year of doing
this. Oh, my God. If you support this show and
you like it, go to autosafe .org and click on
donate. Is Piggly Wiggly a sponsor yet? No, the
pig is really being tough. You know, I've been
in negotiations with them for about four years
now. Yeah, you're down in their territory, too.
You're negotiating coupons. They tried to give
me sweet tea. I don't want sweet tea. Speaking
of sweet tea, we've been talking about it since
the start of the show, or I have. It's Waymo
time. Waymo. So as. Listeners of the show will
know Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet, which
Alphabet is best known for making a thing called
the Google. And it's this. Been for years, this
Silicon Valley darling. It's the greatest thing
in the world. Blah, blah, blah. All these California
petition or lawmakers, these California lawmakers
like, yeah, they can be exempt from any law.
They can crash into things, speed, run over people.
Nothing. Don't worry about it. Parking tickets,
marking tickets, blah, blah, blah. But I guess
people have been listening to this show because
all of a sudden now, California state regulators
and California state lawmakers are like, wait
a second. We don't like this stuff anymore. According
from Politico, Mullins, which is a state lawmaker,
this guy Mullins. No, he's not. Mullins is a,
damn it, who's Mullins? There's a combo here.
I'll just explain it real quick, right? The San
Francisco mayor has been pretty vocal about,
I think, a California law that was introduced,
I think, in February. that kind of works on some
of these issues, but also a bill that was just
announced yesterday by Representative Kevin Mullen
out of California that essentially is going to
do a few things, some of which are already kind
of taking place, but some of the things are not,
which are important, right? They're going to
mandate emergency responder guides for every
AV company. I know an emergency hotline that
you have to answer in 30 seconds, right? But
then long term, you know, they've also got a
list of a lot of things that have to go into
those emergency responder guys, guides and, you
know, how you need to respond to local authorities
when they're making demands so that, you know,
Zooks and Waymo can't sit on their hands and
say, well, we don't we don't have we don't want
you in our cars. We don't want you touching our
cars. We don't have a steering wheel to move
out of the way. Like, you know. entitled teenagers
is what they sound like essentially. But beyond
that, the bill requires NHTSA to engage in creating
minimum standards for appropriate responses in
these situations. Plus, there's a provision that
would allow local, state, and federal authorities
to all issue geofence orders in certain circumstances
where there's an emergency, where there are problems
like we've seen continuously on the roads across
America with autonomous vehicles. So it's a good
bill. And we're still kind of reviewing it, but
it looks like something we'd support. And this
all kind of comes out of the San Francisco mayor
and the local folks in San Francisco really speaking
out a lot on this. And so there's a pretty significant
movement afoot. to get some regulations onto
autonomous vehicles. And I imagine we're going
to see this legislation coming up a lot in the
near future. Yeah, I apologize. Representative
Mullins, he represents he's a congressman who
represents areas south of San Francisco, kind
of the northern section of Silicon Valley. The
fact that somebody in that area is saying, hey,
tech companies, slow your roll. That's. That
is not something that's common. So that's pretty
interesting. And I would also note that Representative
Mullen's office is also behind a couple of other
pending legislative proposals that we really
support, too. Once the AB Safety Data Act, which
would expand on what the current standing general
order does significantly and allow authorities
and the public kind of a better glimpse of the
safety operations of these companies. And he's
also behind the study on touchscreens and how
they're affecting driver attention and distraction
and other things. That is a really important
thing that NHTSA needs to get on and take a look
at immediately. Related to this is State Senator
Dave Cortese of the South Bay. He introduced
this from the San Francisco Standard. He introduced
a bill in February that would set legal standards
for AV companies to promptly move their robo
-taxis off the road if they stall or break down.
Under Cortese's bill, AV companies would be required
to immediately dispatch a technician to move
a car if it has a steering wheel or allow first
responders to move it. If a robo -taxi doesn't
have controls, the company has to remotely move
the car or put it in neutral so it can be towed
as soon as emergency responders ask. If there
is a fleet -wide system failure, AV companies
would have to tell cities and first responders
where their cars are and deploy technicians if
their vehicles can't be moved and are creating
traffic or safety issues. This sounds great.
I have a couple of questions, though. It says
they'd be required to immediately dispatch a
technician. I don't know what the word immediately
means. No one does. That's nonsense. As we've
seen, Waymo, what we know, has limited technicians.
Especially as they expand all throughout the
country. Instead, they've been using DoorDash
drivers to close their car doors and help things.
Does a DoorDash driver suddenly become a Waymo
technician? No. No? Eh, you know. So these are...
I like the thrust of this. I like the push behind
this. I hope... I hope the adverts are removed.
I think it's right. I mean, I don't know how
you're going to enforce it. I mean, I think.
I have a really bad idea here, but I think it
would prompt autonomous vehicle makers to take
better action here and stop acting like entitled
teenagers, right? If there's an autonomous vehicle
blocking the road, a fire truck just rams it
to the side, right? Like they would do with another
vehicle that's blocking an emergency situation.
Maybe we need an AV fleet of Bearcats out there
to get the message across to AV operators that
you can't just block roads at will. And then
when, you know, their fix is proposed, you throw
your hands up there and say, no, we can't do
anything about it. And we don't want you touching
our cars. It just doesn't work that way. You've
got to get your ass off the road. It's really
simple, whether you're doing it remotely or even,
you know, if your vehicle doesn't have a steering
wheel, why aren't law enforcement authorities?
you know, provided with some type of way to get
in and plug in a joystick or something to move
the vehicle. How are you moving that vehicle
in your, you know, your parking lot or onto transport
trucks or in any time you're showing the vehicle
off roads and non -road environments, that kind
of thing. Like there has to be a way to manually
operate these things. And I think it would be
really helpful to all of the emergency responders
if when there's a situation like this, it's not
a matter of calling and waiting for a responder
on the line to tell you what needs to be done.
It's just a matter of plugging in the joystick
and getting the damn thing off the road and alleviating
the problem immediately. What's wrong with that
situation? Why aren't we just fixing it in the
easy way versus going through all this nonsense
involving calls and sending out people? to retrieve
the vehicle when there's an emergency taking
place. The car's got to move. It's just like
when there's a car in front of a fire truck or
a fire hydrant, you can break the windows and
run the hose through it. You've got to take emergency
action. You can't sit there and worry about the
person or the car that is causing the problem.
They are an obstacle and they need to be removed.
I agree. Is that a hard line? I mean, is that
too hard of a line? I mean, and I think if you
started, you know, wrecking a million dollar
Waymo's because they're blocking emergency responders,
they're going to figure out real quick how not
to get into that problem. I think that's the
way to do it. And I think this leads, I don't
think, I know this leads me to right into my
gaslight. My gas, I don't know if we qualify
this as a gaslight so much. It's more of, yeah,
I'm going to say it's a gaslight. My gaslight
is Waymo's PR team. That's right, because in
the past they had us convinced that they were
the best PR shop in the world. Unbelievable what
we can see from these two bills that they're
slipping. They're not as good as they could be.
You've got a state rep who's like, boo. You've
got a congressional rep who's like, boo. It's
you know, the narrative has been changing slowly.
And Waymo's PR team is just saying safety is
our number one priority. We work closely with
local officials. They keep repeating the same
thing, and it's just not holding up. What they're
still managing to slip past the goalie is that
we're safer than humans, which I believe we'll
get to later in the show. But that is my gaslight
of the week, is that Waymo's PR team, they had
us convinced that they were the best in the business.
But now we can just see they're cut and paste,
cut and paste. Anyone else want to... I thought
you said you had a really good gaslight. Come
on! It's a unique gaslight. No one else has that
gaslight. Well, I'll go next because mine doubles.
I'm going to cut Fred off. Yeah, you just did.
Mine follows up on what Anthony did, so I'll
go next. Go for it. There was a collision last
week in Los Angeles between a... Blue car looks
like a Toyota, maybe. And a Waymo that sent several
people to the hospital. And according to the
report that's in Los Angeles Times, the accident
was initially reported as auto -pedestrian. Apparently,
the blue car hit the pedestrian, then veered
across the road, smashed into the side of the
Waymo. According to the company, the Waymo car
was traveling at 27 miles per hour on Venice
Boulevard. It seems like a lot for Venice Boulevard.
When a blue sedan going 47 to 50 hit a pedestrian
and swerved into the opposite traffic lane, striking
the self -driving car. And quoting from their
PR person, Ethan Tyker, the safety of our riders
and other road users is our top priority. We
are coordinating with first responders and are
grateful for their quick response. So the PR
team jumped all over it, made a very quick analysis,
and they added that a Waymo spokesperson suggested
the company's vehicle was not at fault. Well,
okay. How did they determine that when the smoke
is still coming out of the vehicles and the emergency
responders are still on the scene, number one?
Number two, so what? At fault is it legal? It's
got nothing to do with the engineering or the
kinetics or the dynamics of the crash. If this
had been a human driver, no doubt they would
have seen the crash between the blue car and
the pedestrian happening. They would have put
the brakes on to slow down and probably avoided
the secondary crash, which injured the people
in the Waymos completely. So the context is very
important. For any driving event that happens,
when you go down the road and the speed limit
says 30 miles per hour, but you see a bunch of
children all holding hands crossing the road,
that's context that says you really ought to
slow down. And when you're driving down a road
and you see one car smash into a pedestrian and
then start veering across the road, that's another
contextual clue. that you should slow the hell
down and get away from the scene of the accident.
So it's just simply not true that the safety
of the riders and other rodeos is their top priority.
It's way down the list. I mean, the top priority
is really continued operations. Secondarily,
it is continuing to promote their expansion into
other cities. And it's probably all dependent
upon the ideas of an IPO soon or sale of the
company that's going to make some money for Alphabet.
So, end of rant. And that's my Gaslight for this
week. Once again, nominating Waymo. So, you're
nominating Waymo as opposed, because it seemed
like you were nominating their PR team as well.
I'm giving it to Waymo. The whole thing. It's
the same thing. I'm going to start naming individuals
in their PR team next week. Now, Michael, what
do you got gaslight wise? Mine is the one I'm
going to take since I suggested to you both and
you didn't want it, but it's short and sweet.
We have the DOT announcing that they've launched
a new initiative using AI to modernize transportation
infrastructure. So they go on this big spill
about how they're doing that. They don't provide
any details whatsoever about what they're doing.
But Duffy, you know. Duffy's starting to get
up there in the gaslight rankings. He may get
a g -lawn soon. It says, we're leveraging cutting
-edge technologies to deliver a better travel
experience for American families and stronger
supply chains for business. This is another tool
we could use to usher in a golden age of transportation,
and it's all thanks to President Trump's leadership.
Doesn't that sound great? It does. That's not
even the problem necessarily. I mean, they're
not telling us what any of these technologies
are. They're not telling us how they're delivering
a better travel experience for American families
and stronger supply chains for businesses. Why?
Probably because it's all bullshit. But the next
line from the U .S. DOT Assistant Secretary for
Research and Technology, I believe her name is
Seville Oz, is the one that really got me. For
the first time in history, we possess the computational
power to treat our transportation network as
a single solvable mathematical equation. Yeah,
that's a good one. I love that. I'm just going
to stop there and you guys can discuss it. Well,
but I know how this is going to work, because
now with the phones, they're into your personal
history. They're into the cars. They're into
the transportation system. So what's going to
happen is they're going to have. displays up
on the highway that says suzy has to pee so you
need to pull over yeah it's just nonsense i mean
i just haven't seen i've seen a lot of nonsense
and press releases from the current d .o .t but
i i there's nothing here first of all this is
a giant nothing burger with no substantive you
know sites to anything they're doing here. But,
you know, the fact that they're saying that our
transportation, first of all, that we possess
the computational power to treat our transportation
network as a single solvable mathematical equation
is kind of absurd, given the complexities in
the transportation system, the differences between
states. And I could probably go on for two hours,
but I won't bore you with all the differences
here that have to be taken into account. And,
you know. We are AI skeptics to some extent here,
but claiming that AI can solve things which you
have no evidence of. And, you know, frankly,
until the entire transportation network is somehow
connected, connected up in a way that can be
continuously monitored, it's just not there yet.
It's not even close. And you'll see these same
transportation folks. you know, bemoaning the
lack of cooperation between states on data and
other things. Well, if you can't get information
out of the states now, how is the AI getting
all that information in order to solve this great
mathematical equation? Anyway, nonsense. And
that's Gaslight for this week. That's a good
one. But I think what we're missing here is the
Department of Transportation is clearly downplaying
their capabilities and their achievements. To
do this, I think it's not an exaggeration to
say they've solved the unified field theory.
Like they have they have created the mathematics
that ties all science together. I don't see how
else you do this because they'd have to pull
in weather dynamics. They have to pull in expansion
of roadway joints. I mean, this is they've created
the physical unified field theory. This is unbelievable.
Why didn't they win the Fields Medal last week?
I don't know. Don't forget Susie. She's still
got that need. That's true. I mean, biological
processes. I mean, it all comes down to. Yeah,
this is this is a very materialistic view of
consciousness. This is everything altogether
is unbelievable. With that, Michael, you win.
You win the gaslight. And you thought you were
just giving us a handout. The way you started
that paragraph sounded like you were going elsewhere.
No, no, I think this is actually, I really think
the gaslight goes to Savelle Oz, the U .S. Department
of, Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology.
That person has, I mean, did they used to work
for Waymo's PR team? He did used to work for,
I think. Wait, no! Oh, my God. Savelle Oz, you
are the winner. I mean, we gave the Lifetime
Achievement Award to Phil Kopman, but I don't,
I think, Phil, I'm sorry, we have to, can you
mail the trophy back to us? Yeah, she was Senior
Business Development and Global Partnerships
Lead at Google. Of course she was. Before they
were Waymo. That's amazing. show is over i don't
it's my birthday tomorrow but that's yeah that
wow hey listeners that you're listening to this
tomorrow which is today for you and which is
also michael brooks's birthday and if you like
michael brooks go to autosafety .org and click
on donate donate one thousand dollars for every
year of his life Oh, my God. I'm not telling
you how many of those there are. You're just
going to have to guess. All right. That could
be next week's Gaslight. So let's continue with
Waymo. And I think this might eventually lead
into the Tau. So Waymo's PR team has gotten every
single publication, The New York Times, The Guardian,
The Wall Street Journal, to repeat over and over
again that Waymos are safer than humans. And
we've said, where's the data? And, you know,
as Fred's pointed out numerous times, the data
is their own self -reported data. And it's very
limited subset of stuff. And it's voodoo. And
then we find out a little bit more. Oh, we're
only comparing ourselves to the very best human
drivers, not the average human driver. Oh, we're
blah, blah, blah. Have they ever really done
that? I don't think they've ever compared themselves
to the best. Well, the best human drivers are
the ones who are sober. That's what I mean. So
my version of the best is because they're including
everybody. Your version of the best driver is
just whoever's not drunk. Well, my version of
the best driver is the one who's paying attention.
Okay, well. Paying attention, not speeding, not
drinking is a great start. So I think the three
of us qualify as the best drivers. Yeah. There
you go. I mean, I always wonder about this. I
wonder, well, anyway. Anyway, let's continue
with this. So IIHS, the Insurance Institute for
Highway Safety, A highly reputable organization
that I know sometimes when I talk, they always
sound like the sarcasm of my voice, but there's
not. They have an article on the website, Waymo's
driverless cars crash less often than people.
And I'm going to quote from it. Per vehicle mile
traveled, Waymo's driverless vehicles deployed
in San Francisco, Phoenix, LA, and Austin were
involved in 68 % fewer crashes than human drivers
researchers found. The sample was restricted
to crashes that a person would typically report
to the police. That's one caveat. Continuing.
The results show that on a limited scale, these
driverless cars are safer than human drivers
who can be impaired or drowsy or suffer losses
in attention, IIHS President David Harkey said.
However, the present data collection system isn't
good enough to allow continuous monitoring of
a large scale expansion. Further in this, we
can see, I'm going to quote from a section in
Jalopnik related to this. In using that common
sense standard, they estimated that only 22 %
of the 736 public road crashes in which the automation
was engaged were likely police reportable. 89
crashes involving Waymo, 50 involving Cruise,
10 involving Zoox, 10 involving other companies.
Because mileage numbers were only available for
Waymo, they used its crashes to calculate self
-driving crash rates. Of Waymo's 89 police reportable
crash involvements, 64 were in driverless operation,
and others involved supervised use of the automation.
After all this number crunching, here's IIHS's
conclusion. Overall, Waymo's crash involvement
rate was 68 % lower than that of human drivers,
76 % lower in Phoenix, 35 % lower in San Francisco,
71 % lower in LA, and 4 % higher in Austin, where
the sample size is relatively small. Waymo vehicles
were in 85 % fewer single vehicle crashes and
81 % fewer injury crashes per vehicle than human
drivers. IHS has come out with looks that, oh,
that that that quote that way most PR teams always
saying that we're safer than humans is true.
Now, gentlemen, is it true or is it true ish?
What is it? Well, I mean, I think you need to
dig a little deeper into what I just said. First
of all, I mean, there. Their biggest struggle
in all this, I think, was just trying to match
up the type of crashes that humans report versus
what Waymo reports. Just to get to that point
is excruciating. In fact, they say you probably,
once this data, you know, particularly if these
vehicles hit scale or if we've got a lot more
on the road, we're not going to be able to do
this analysis anymore because it's too complicated.
Right now, they could do it because there's so
few numbers. to kind of dial down on one thing,
you know, here, this study compared Waymo L4
vehicles with human drivers, which is an important
baseline for comparison. I think we can all agree
on that. Nevertheless, simply having lower crash
rates than humans does not mean that a level
four deployment is safe, right? Human crash rates
include impaired, distracted, and aggressive
drivers. You know, if we move, if we remove all
the shitty drivers, what? you know, what's left
there, right? Is it unfair for Waymo to say we're
safe when they're comparing themselves to a subset
of drivers that includes the absolute worst drivers
known to science, right? And I would say that
if you're only 60 % better than that, then I
don't want to be on the road with you, right?
I really think we need to start looking, and
maybe this is a project for Fred, but looking
at what at the crash rate and the incident rate
for really good human drivers is because i think
that's what it's going to take for the public
to actually accept autonomous vehicles all over
their roads particularly if they continue to
cause a lot of the headaches that they're causing
And I think what ultimately this entire study
points to is not that Waymos are safe and need
to be deployed all across the roads in America,
but that, you know, both consumers and the government
and AV operators and researchers all really need
better data, more transparent data, and that
the entire AV industry need to support that goal
or no one's ever going to trust you to, you know,
to operate in their cities. And, you know, essentially,
I think we need to. You know, a plea, IHS isn't
saying this, but I'm saying this, you know, I
would make a plea to Waymo and the other operators
to just stop feeding us garbage, right? Stop
telling us that just because your vehicle, say
we accept that these vehicles are 60 % safer
than the average human driver. Is that even close
to enough to trust them on our roads? And my
answer is no. I mean, I think you need to look
at a factor of at least 10 times safer than that.
before, you know, I think humans are going to
accept some of the inevitable deaths and tragedies
caused by robot cars. I'm sorry, I'm pausing.
I'm looking at Fred. I imagine he was going to
jump in. You don't have to. I have follow -up
questions for Michael. Well, I don't have any
questions for Michael because I read the same
report, but I think it's really curious that
IIHS put this out. I don't know why. The data
were limited to cars. No newer than 2014. 2024.
2024, excuse me. And in 2024, they were operating
in very limited circumstances in only a few cities.
They've since expanded a lot. So how they can
project into Austin, which had no drivers in
2024, I think, and other cities. is really interesting
to me. They also have a lot of subjective criteria
in there. They threw out most of the data that
they had because they thought it didn't represent
typical drivers or typical vehicles or whatever.
A lot of subjective considerations went into
it. And the fact that they used numbers like
78 % is really questionable because they didn't...
I'm going to slip right into my towel here. Okay,
go ahead. Because whenever you see a statistic
that says 78%, you know it's wrong. And why do
you know it's wrong? Because, number one, if
you say 78 % is somehow different than 77%, you're
really overstating the precision of the numbers.
If you said somewhere around 70 % to 60%, I could
buy that. But when you say 78%, you're just creating
this illusion. that you've got microscopic resolution
of what the safety or what the parameter really
is. You don't have one part in a hundred accuracy
in these things. It just doesn't exist. To illustrate
that, I'm going to ask you a question, Anthony.
If you have a die, a standard die, and you roll
it, what's the odds of getting a six? One out
of six. And what are your assumptions in that?
Well, that I didn't get it from Benny, who's
that weighted die. That's my assumption. I'm
going to assume that I rolled it on a flat surface.
And again, Benny didn't shave the corners. Right.
So you're assuming the die is fair, which is
the expression. And what that means is that the
actual center of gravity is exactly in the center.
The geometry is exactly right. The same amount
of friction on each surface is the same. The
surface finish is the same. Same size of all
faces. All corners are perfectly 90 degrees in
all three directions. The resiliency is the same
in all faces, edges, and corners. And there's
no bias in the handling. You didn't always put
a certain number up top and do it the same way.
So there's a lot of data that goes into this,
a lot of assumptions that go into it. And you
didn't tell me any of those assumptions, Anthony,
when you said it's one in six. If you roll the
dice... large number of times, you find that
you can have different results in terms of the
margin of error. Margin of error is some way
of looking at the uncertainty of the results
that you're getting. It doesn't mean that if
you have candidate A is 3 % ahead of candidate
B, that's within the margin of error that they're
tied. What it means is that if you did the sampling
over again with the same results, you would be...
within the same statistical area with a certain
frequency, certain what they call confidence,
right? Whenever you see a reliability statistic
or some number like this, and they do not attach
to it a level of statistical confidence, you
know somebody's trying to pull the wool over
your eyes. Because statistically, a number like
78 % 44%, whatever, is meaningless unless you
also give the statistical confidence associated
with that number. And you never see that. Certainly
we never see it in any of the safety statistics
that are coming out. So what Michael said is
exactly right. If you throw out all the bad actors,
then things can look pretty good, right? But
if you then put a number on it with a stamp and
you don't talk about the confidence level, It's
really meaningless. It's very persuasive, but
it's really meaningless. So in this IIHS study,
they should have attached a meaningful level
of confidence to these numbers they're putting
out there. And it would not be a high number.
It would not be 99%. It would not be 95%. It
might be 50%. They have statisticians. They should
have done that so that they don't mislead the
public with the results. So, you know, what is
the margin of error and how should you address
that? It's different for the different levels
of confidence that you are associating with the
data. There are mathematical formulas for how
you figure out what that is. But the point is,
the higher the confidence level that you're associating
with it, the wider is the margin of error. tests
and results. And you need to make sure that all
of the circumstances associated with the test
are identical. Just like talking about the dye
and all the things that have to be put into the
manufacturing of the dye. When you're talking
about traffic accidents, you're talking about
real world statistics collected on roads with
all the variables of drivers and everything else
that goes into driving and just existing. Your
margin of error cannot be very high unless you're
looking at hundreds of millions of incidents
where the circumstances are so numerous that
you can assume that the variability of the individual
results washes out of the calculation. So anyway,
boiling that down to the bottom line, mercifully
for our listeners, if you see a number that says
it's 78 % safer, It's 95 % safer than 94%. As
we've seen, Waymo's numbers vary from 94 % to
75 % safer within the last two weeks. You know
it's nonsense because they don't give you the
data. You can't analyze it. They do not give
you any confidence levels. They don't even give
you a margin of error associated with it. So
be prepared and beware those numbers. End of
rant. That's rant number three. That's good.
So even IHS says, and I'm going to quote from
Eric T. Ho, their director of statistical services
and the lead author of the studies, quoting,
now we need to get the data collection systems
right so that we can ensure the level of safety
continues as these technologies become more prevalent.
And from the paper itself and their conclusion,
basically they say that, hey, Waymo looked to
be safer than a human in their level four systems.
uh it is the method of coding narratives is unsustainable
as these deployments the number of incidents
continue to grow so it is very confusing saying
hey right now this limited snapshot snapshot
in time this looks better but there's no way
for us to scale this model we used going forward
which strikes me as as i'm not a statistician
and i'm sure these guys are incredibly smart
that strikes me as maybe your math doesn't work
so well it seems very i'm just surprised this
was ever released to the public i don't i don't
get it inconsistent with the results ultimately
the question here isn't you know whether that's
right or not in those limited circumstances i
mean obviously there could be variability all
over the place but is this even a comparison
that we should be making right you know You're
not proving that Waymo is safer than a human
here. You're proving if this data and everything
is right, assuming it's all perfect, you're proving
that these vehicles are operating more safely
than an amalgamization of humans that includes
the very worst and the very best and everybody
in between. So I just don't think that acceptance
of AVs is just... beating the human average.
It's doing that by a level of 10, 100, to the
point where human beings aren't going to be concerned
about robot cars running over their relatives.
All right, we need to set up standardized tests
that can compare human response to stimuli with
the automated response to stimuli. OEDR, object
event detection and response, becomes very important
in this circumstance. And clever people can figure
out how to do that on a test track. And let's
just do it. Let's get it done. Yeah. And make
it better, right? Beating the human or a human
or whatever humans they're trying to beat out
in the stats ultimately isn't going to matter
because their goal should be. Utter perfection.
And no one killed. Right. Right. Well, I like
that they said this is only involved. Police
reported crashes because I've I live on a street
corner where there's crashes at least once a
month and half of them are never reported to
the police. But they're real crashes because
I watch the owners of vehicles get out and like
hand each other cash. Because they don't want
to involve their insurance companies. Yeah, that
was discussed in there. The rate of reporting
by humans is pretty low, even in the case of
injuries. A lot of injury -related crashes aren't
even reported. Right, so that is definitely a
skewing thing. But yeah, this is fascinating.
I think our view, and Michael, stop me if I'm
wrong, is that money would be better spent on
technologies we know that work. Alcohol detection.
things alcohol detection in general just right
there boom that eliminates you know what was
it not like 70 of bad drivers right there like
that reduces crashes dramatically let's let's
follow it up with automatic emergency braking
the same that i says for how well that works
that's another 50 right there and follow it and
at the same time make the data collection that
are going on much better whether that's your
black box in your car, whether it's NHTSA's FAR
system tracking fatalities, whether it's NHTSA's
estimate systems, the standing general order,
like we need better data on how well humans drive,
how well AVs drive. And right now there are a
lot of gaps there. And that's something that
IHS took pains to point out because it's ultimately
the problem here. One of the big problems here
is we just simply don't have accurate data to
make apples to apples comparisons. So they did
point that all out, but they understand everything's
going to get So could we have made IIHS a gaslight
this week? Because we know the headline. I know.
I know they're a great organization. But, you
know, they had to know this will get reduced
to a headline. And maybe my I think I think the
headline here is more about the difficulties
in parsing the data and then ultimately relying
on the conclusions when you have bad data like
that. That's not the actual headline. That's
the problem. Now, the headline was a little over
the top. Right. So but I wouldn't call it a gaslight
because it's not clear that they had a nonsense
objective they were trying to promote. Right.
I mean, there's also here there is a pretty.
Decent title for the paper, right? Rise of the
Machines, Crash Experiences of Highly Automated
Vehicles and Human Drivers, right? That's a lot
different than, you know, the headline on the
press release, which is Waymo's driverless cars
crash less often. And that's the headline that
Waymo's PR team will come out. Oh, my God. I
did horrible on Gaslight this week. Oh, their
PR team's back at it. No wonder I won. Yeah.
Before we jump into recalls, we're going to do
a story on my favorite subject. Which, if I can
find it, is do backup cameras make driving safer?
That's right. Every, almost seems like every
hour, there's a backup camera recall. We've talked
about it continuously. We had Phil Copeland on
to explain how difficult it is. And so this is,
we're linking to this from MSN. And I'm going
to quote, automakers were required to start equipping
their cars with rear view cameras in 2018. And
the results have since been dramatic. According
to research presented at the American Academy
of Pediatrics 2025 National Conference Exhibition,
The federal mandate has helped reduce the number
of severe injuries caused by backovers by almost
50 % among kids younger than five, while fatalities
in that age group have decreased by 78%. Meanwhile,
a study by NHTSA, albeit from pre -mandate error,
found that people age 70 or older made up some
26 % of deaths from backup accidents. There's
also evidence that rearview cameras are especially
effective in helping older drivers take the helm.
Per research from IHS, the cameras help cut back
crashes involving folks age 70 or above by 36
percent. That compares to a drop of 16 percent
for younger drivers. Backup cameras are awesome.
That's my takeaway from this. And I find it more
and more disgusting that they keep getting recalled.
This is a proven safety technology. Fix it. I
mean, look, we want to we want to move this technology
to the front of the vehicle to, you know, higher
vehicles, front overs, you know, visibility problems
are addressed. And maybe we'll see some similar
life savings and injury preventative results
like like we have here. But I think it's obvious
to anyone that that got into their first car
with a with a backup camera in it that they're
safer. Right. Don't you remember? I mean, maybe
you don't remember the moment like you remember,
you know. when the Challenger exploded or something
like that. Yeah, we had to learn fractions. You
certainly remember that experience of getting
into a car with a rear view camera and saying,
wow. Yeah. This is a game changer. I get blown
away when I get into friends, more cars that
are more modern than mine, where you back up
and it has the arrows turn as you turn the wheels,
like the guidelines. It's cool. That's cool.
And also the systems that deploy, you know. Most
do this in some way or another. Sensors that
aren't just camera -based, right? Ultrasonic,
yeah. They include ultrasonic or radar sensors
that can beep in relation to objects around you
and let you know something's there that may not
be noticeable on the camera. Right, locks and
brakes. I'm a big, big fan. That's why I need
them all. Now they just have to learn how to
build these systems without having to bring them
back into the shop 12 times. Right, and not tie
them into the entertainment system and have housings
for cameras that allow water to enter. Well,
then you should go straight to recalls. I'm going,
oh, recalls. First up, Ford. Yeah, Ford, Ford,
Ford. 565 ,691 vehicles. Have they just recalled
every vehicle they've ever made? The 2021 -26
Ford Bronco. A short in the engine compartment
wiring harness may create heat or spark, resulting
in fire in the engine compartment area. Oh, no.
Following a short circuit, a driver may notice
smoke in the air vents or a cluster warning prior
to observing flames coming from the passenger
side engine compartment area. This is horrible.
I think it's so funny. You're driving down the
road and you see flames coming out from under
the hood and you say, oh, well, this is on the
right -hand side, so I know what this is caused
by. No, I'm sorry. This is the first time I've
seen you laugh so long in the show. Is this a
park outside, Michael? It is not. No, no, because
it's only going to occur, it looks like, while
you're driving. Although, I mean, there are,
you know. circumstances where you have, you know,
I think with some of the Hyundai and Kia fires
that we saw with the engine failures or, you
know, partial failures of the engines that produce
fires, you can see a situation where someone's
engine fails on their way or nearby their home
and they pull into their garage and these things
happen. But no, it's not a park outside. Long
way to answer that. Looks like owners, you know,
you're basically they're going to fix this with
tape. Right. So you're going to you're going
to bring your vehicle in and they're going to
put some they call it convolute sheathing with
abrasion tape added to the engine compartment
wiring harness to fix this problem. So you'll
be hearing about that in later in August so you
can get taped up. Duct tape is great stuff. Is
that what it is? Duct tape, isn't it? Fancy duct
tape. Next up, Ford. 79 ,579 vehicles, the 2026
-27 Aviator, which gets recalled, it seems, constantly
the same years for the Explorer. Customers may
experience unintended and unattended driver seat
reclining movement. Oh, this can occur while
remotely unlocking their doors, remote starting
their vehicle, approaching their vehicle in possession
of their key fob. Or after recalling one of the
save button activated seat memory positions.
So the car is like doing like a vaudeville act
on you. Like you're going to sit down and it's
moving back on you. What kind of nonsense is
this? Well, it happens. It's a really bad. I
mean, you know, they cite the safety risk as.
you know, entrapment of the second row passenger,
unintended reclining if there's no obstacle detection
of the person in the car. But I also wonder about
this in crash situations. You know, could this
happen in a crash? Or could you get out of the
vehicle, get back in the vehicle, and the vehicle
seats recline into a different position that
doesn't support you in a crash, that type of
thing. But anyway. I don't know how many issues
there were involved. I don't see a note, but
they have been getting a lot of complaints. It
looks like, you know, they've got 133 reports
of this happening. So it's happening in significant
amounts. So definitely something they need to
work on. I don't see a description of the recall
schedule in here. They're still trying to figure
it out. They're trying to figure out. Yeah. Like
usually when this happens, they at least say
there's an interim, like. You might want to let
your people know, your owners know that this
is happening and that you might want to notify
them directly that there's a potential, that
there's a recall versus relying on them to check
the NHTSA database. So I don't know why they
haven't put any dates in their 573 here. There
is a note that says if owners can realize this
is happening, if when they open their card starts
playing yackety sacks. I don't even know what
that is. It's from the Benny Hill Show. Next
up, Jaguar, which Ford owned at one point, didn't
it? It did. 15 ,535 vehicles, the 21 to 25 Land
Rover Discovery. A concern has been identified
where you bought a Jaguar, where the water management
system on the tailgate of the vehicle may not
be sufficient to allow water to drain away from
the rear view camera. It's going to load one
of the, oh, come. See, this is the same bubble
gum, people. A water damage camera may not display
an image or may display an unclear image. Oh,
come on. I hate this show. You're so tired of
these. It looks like there's no final notification
here either. Owners are going to hear about the
problem, unlike in the last recall, at least,
from the manufacturer around September 11th.
I don't understand why these fixes take so long.
I mean, you've got water draining onto a camera.
Plug the damn holes. Why this extended period
to get a relatively simple recall fix? Maybe
it's not as simple as I think. I don't know.
It sounds to me like the whole rear tailgate
is filling up with water because the camera is
usually above the bottom, and their solution
is to drill holes in the bottom of the tailgate.
I don't know how the hell the water is getting
in. That sounds like a fuel economy issue. Yeah.
So maybe they're going to put little bilge pumps
in there. Awesome. Yeah. All right. Last recall,
Volkswagen, 57 ,851 vehicles. That's a pretty
big number for Volkswagen in 2024 to 2026 Atlas
Cross Sport. and the regular Atlas. Under certain
circumstances, a vehicle may experience a low
-voltage electrical event that can cause camera
images, including the rear -view cameras, to
not appear on the display. So what happens here?
They got bad wiring. Yeah, it looks like they're
going to try and update software to fix this.
Yeah, it's a software issue. It looks like it's
only going to require software updates, so I'm
not sure if you would say it's bad wiring. It's
something in there, wiring. It says they're going
to upgrade the rear view camera system software
to a version that is more robust in its handling
of potential low voltage events. More robust
software. Fred, you know what that means? If
voltage low, don't quit. So that's going to come
out around September 18th. Also wanted to note,
since I forgot to when we were talking about
Ford, that Ford is up to 60 recalls in the year
and 13 and a half million vehicles recalled.
Second place goes to Chrysler with 24 recalls
and 2 .5 million vehicles. So even Ford has got
a lot of vehicles and these recalls that are
going. And so how many total vehicles have they
recalled? 13 .5, just this year. 13 .5 million
and a little over half a year. But how many vehicles
do they sell per year? That's probably about
that many. Maybe a little. No, I think that the
total new car sales in the United States is around
17 million. Oh, my God. As part of my research
into Ford recently, I did find that there was
a, I think it was the 2020 Ford Explorer had
30 or 31 recalls on it. Oh, no, I just checked.
That's a record. In 2025, Ford sold approximately
2 .2 million vehicles in the U .S. 2 .2 million
and they've recalled over 16 million. I mean,
they're going back 10 years. I know they're going
back 10 years, but come on. That's like still
like that's not a great advertisement. So you
don't think that just shows their attention to
safety and their commitment to the entire. Safe
life cycle of their vehicles, Anthony? No, I
think it shows to the power of the federal government
to keep people safe with a consent decree order.
Exactly. Thank you for not making me bring that
up. Yeah, this is... Ford's still got another
year where they have to have an independent monitor
and prove that they're doing all this stuff right.
So I don't think this is going to end anytime
soon, this recall rush by Ford. Wow. All right.
And with that, ladies and gentlemen, thank you
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Bye bye. This is where you say goodbye, Michael.
Thanks. Thank you, everybody. For more information,
visit www .autosafety .org.