AEB works today, traffic cameras and a collander for your car?

Hi folks,

Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) and its impending regulations is our first topic. AEB works but the industry shill fights against it. Subaru gets hacked (and they are tracking you), traffic cameras in NYC reveal some marital issues, Vietnam and Norway have excessive (?) but interesting (?) fines for traffic violations and recalls.

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Transcript

note: this is a machine generated transcript and may not be completely accurate. This is provided for convience and should not be used for attribution.

[00:00:00] Introduction to the Podcast

[00:00:00] Anthony: You’re listening to There Auto Be A Law, the center for auto safety podcast with executive director, Michael Brooks, chief engineer, Fred Perkins, and hosted by me, Anthony Cimino. For over 50 years, the center for auto safety has worked to make cars safer.

Hey listeners, welcome back to another episode of there ought to be automatic emergency braking requirements. Good morning. I’m Anthony Cimino. Concur. Good. Michael, do you agree?

[00:00:40] Michael: I do agree. Yeah.

[00:00:41] Automatic Emergency Braking: An Overview

[00:00:41] Anthony: Listeners, we’re going to start off this week, I’m going to talk about automatic emergency braking. We’ve talked about it quite a few times but it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Automatic emergency braking is a great little system that will automatically stop your car if you’re headed towards a crash. It’s great. It’s been around for [00:01:00] over a decade at this point. A lot of manufacturers have it in their car. If you’ve bought a car in the last decade, your car probably has some version of it.

Is it perfect? No! Is it useful? Absolutely. Does it save lives? 100%. But now, the Trump administration is reviewing whether this should be a thing or not. Because, as we’ve talked about in the past, NHTSA has put a more advanced Requirement for Automatic Emergency Braking. It’s FMVS one something blah blah.

One two seven. One two seven. That by 2029, will require Automatic Emergency Braking to work at highway speeds. And the auto industry is Ha! We can’t do that. And we’ve talked about the man John Bozella. From the Alliance for Automative Nonsense. Who says, this is nearly impossible to do this.

[00:01:51] Toyota and Industry Resistance

[00:01:51] Anthony: And I’m going to jump right into my Gaslight, because this is related to it.

And I’m going to choose Toyota, because Toyota funds the [00:02:00] automotive for nonsense thing I just named. That claims The Alliance

[00:02:04] Michael: for Automotive Innovation.

[00:02:05] Anthony: Yeah. Some nonsense thing. Toyota’s not the only one, a bunch of auto companies do. But they contribute to this organization’s existence.

That claims that these things are not possible, but at the same time, Toyota sells multiple vehicles that sell, that have automatic emergency braking that works at highway speed. So I contend, either Toyota is committing fraud, or this is just all BS.

[00:02:32] Michael: Toyota is one of many members. So the, even if Toyota had a vehicle that the, and they do have a vehicle that meets the effect, they’re the only automaker, I believe that produced a vehicle that passed all of NHTSA’s tests that it ran before it issued the final rule.

But there are other manufacturers in the, in, in the Alliance. That frankly could have outvoted Toyota on this. Toyota might be perfectly happy moving forward by 2029 with this, but, General Motors and Ford, maybe not [00:03:00] so much, so that could be what’s going on there. But nevertheless, it stands.

Toyota has a vehicle that I, it’s one of their, I think it’s a Corolla. I was looking at this last week, but I forgot the exact model, but it’s a model that, is costs between the mid twenties to the mid 30, 000. So it’s a. Relatively low cost model.

[00:03:20] Anthony: What I looked up it was that the 2022 Prius Prime does this and they have the current Corolla Hatchback has this it’s their they call it like Toyota Sense 3.

0 plus pedestrian detection or something like they have some weird acronyms but it’ll work at over 50 miles per hour and we’ll do pedestrian detection even at night again how effective. The fact that they’re, they have this in their owner’s manual, because the model I have, the 2020, it says this will not work above 25 miles per hour.

Since then, they’re like, yes, we, this will work.

[00:03:59] Michael: Yeah, [00:04:00] and you even see, I believe, if you look in the owner’s manuals, and I believe this was in the Wired article that we’ll link, They have maximum activation speeds listed for automatic emergency braking. And, they looked at Toyota, Hyundai and other manuals and there’s, Toyota is showing activation at up to 112 miles per hour.

Hyundai is up, up to 124. 27 miles per hour. Very specific. So we know that there are vehicles already out there that are capable of doing this. They seem to be claiming, beyond the claim by the alliance that the technology, it’s impossible to do this with available technology, which is utter bullshit.

There are also claims that consumers are going to be very, are going to be frustrated, extremely frustrated by, by them putting technology into vehicles that meets the standard. I say better frustrated than dead, that’s our opinion, but it’s just really sad that, after four we’re looking at this will be, they’ve been putting [00:05:00] automatic emergency break into vehicles in some form since around 2005.

It’s going to be. They’ve had 25 years to get this stuff up to the point where they can put it into vehicles. They’ve been selling it for 20 years, essentially as an option. And NHTSA is coming in saying, Hey, we just want this to be standard. We want you to put it in all vehicles because frankly, everyone deserves this protection and we want it to work at actual speeds where we see the most incidents.

And you guys are out there. Touting this technology and touting the safety benefits of it. Meanwhile, it’s only working up to a 25 miles per hour in most of your cars. We’re going to make you do better. The technology is available. You’ve got five years to do it.

[00:05:45] NHTSA Regulations and Industry Pushback

[00:05:45] Michael: And as the time approached for, the administration to change and we saw that there was going to be, less favorable attitude towards regulation of the new administration.

The Alliance said we’re just going to play off of this and eliminate this problem. [00:06:00] And, make a lot of money on this as we have been doing for years without making it work and without putting it into every vehicle. So this is just a very bald faced, profit centered motive that.

The industry is using to try to force the government to back off of requirements that, frankly, the industry has plenty of time to meet and are technically feasible and could save hundreds, if not thousands of lives and prevent tens of thousands of injuries. So it’s very disappointing, but it is, big business gets what they want in America these days.

[00:06:38] Anthony: From the Wired article, we’re linking to quoting, The per capita crash death rate is three times higher in the U. S. than Ireland, Norway, the U. K., Germany, or Japan. Only those living in Costa Rica and Colombia fare worse. That’s insane and the article also points out that the big change that’s required on this is for most of these manufacturers just due to a software update.

They’re [00:07:00] not rebuilding their cars and they’re claiming we got to think about redesigning things, but this article, I don’t know how accurate it is, but it keeps repeating that they just have to update their software. They’ve got to update their software to work at higher speeds. Um.

[00:07:15] Fred: There’s more than software to be fair. There’s hardware involved in this as well and communication links and yada, yada, yada. So there is some development involved in it. But the fact is the technology is there now. Also, it’s a little bit of a subtlety. The industry likes to discriminate between AEB and PAEB.

So AEB is basically vehicle oriented and PAEB is for personal. Or pedestrian automatic emergency braking in particular, 1 of the requirements that’s coming is that cars will be able to avoid and not kill pedestrians in the dark. That’s challenging, but it’s [00:08:00] been demonstrated in at least 1 vehicle already.

I think the only people who would be frustrated by this technology are those people who are actually trying to run somebody over and find that they can’t. That’s a really small population. I don’t think they should get in the way of the rest of us who would see only benefits.

[00:08:18] Anthony: So maybe they just need to change the marketing on this and say this is an anti terrorism feature for your car.

This will prevent terrorists from running over crowds of people.

[00:08:29] Fred: That’s a good way.

[00:08:30] Anthony: Good idea. Brad likes it. Michael votes no.

[00:08:34] Michael: There’s a couple of things also, I think, are worth noting around what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is doing here. It, the final rule that created Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 127, which is automatic emergency braking for light vehicles, just to give you the full title there, that requires automatic emergency braking, pedestrian, Pedestrian automatic emergency braking and foreign collision warning on these [00:09:00] vehicles.

What this, what the Trump administration is doing is delaying the effective date of a November version of that, that that granted petitions for reconsideration, partially granted some petitions for reconsideration from the industry and made some minor adjustments in the rule. It looks that the Trump administration is trying to go back and review.

That decision, not the main rule that was, that came out in May, we’re going to see how that develops, but there’s some serious legal questions about what they can actually do in regard to the original rule that was created in May that’s something that’s important to point out from the federal registered notice that came out on this, the other thing that is.

Impossible to miss is the name of the new chief counsel at NHTSA, which is Peter Simshauser. If you look into his previous history, his last job was as counsel with emotional dot. AI. [00:10:00] com, which makes driverless vehicles. Shocker there, right? Someone from the industry coming directly into the top legal job at the national highway traffic safety administration.

And another thing to keep an eye on, not unusual particularly in Republican administrations from. agencies to bring in people directly from industry. I know that the, many years ago when I started at the center the Chrysler’s chief counsel was brought directly into NHTSA as the chief counsel and even served as the deputy administrator for some time.

So this is the kind of, this is the kind of thing you get when you put people in charge who really favor corporate profits over saving lives.

[00:10:40] Anthony: I’m going to disagree. I think this is unusual in a Trump administration, because this person, I looked in their background, they have zero experience being on reality TV.

Oh

[00:10:51] Michael: and they didn’t work at a casino either. They didn’t

[00:10:53] Anthony: work at a casino, didn’t work on reality TV, and were not a television commentator.

[00:10:58] Michael: And they weren’t into professional [00:11:00] wrestling? No.

[00:11:00] Anthony: So how did they get this job? It doesn’t make any sense. Because the new head of the Department of Transportation Sean Duffy is a former reality TV star.

We’re all gonna die. Sean Duffy was he is the head of the DOT, and he says that he is would focus on improving aviation highway safety. He thinks that highway safety is very important, and that he’s gonna let NHTSA continue their investigation of Tesla’s full self driving. I don’t believe either of those things, but I could be cynic.

I don’t know.

[00:11:36] Michael: I believe most of our listeners are probably aware that nominees to to run agencies in their, in the process of confirmation will say almost anything To pass muster for their confirmation and then are free to do whatever they want while they’re actually in the position.

While for the most part, we haven’t heard incredibly negative [00:12:00] things about Duffy, I think compared to some of the folks that have been nominated for other. Positions running agencies in the federal government. He does have some experience. He did serve in Congress. He served I believe also in, in some local capacity in Wisconsin.

And there’s maybe he’s going to follow up on his pledge to allow NHTSA to investigate Tesla and the rest of the automakers Freely, ultimately, a lot of this is going to come down to who’s running that’s and when, where they came from, because it’s the administrative and that’s a, that in consultation with the secretary sometimes is going to be the one determining whether recalls are allowed to proceed against Tesla.

If the agency decides there’s a safety defect in full self driving, which they should. So we’ll see how that works. And we’ll also see, a big part. Yeah. Of what the Trump administration is looking to do is to cut budgets. And Duffy’s going to be playing a major role in that process as he’s [00:13:00] ultimately the guy in charge of advancing the budget for the Department of Transportation, NHTSA, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and all the other safety agencies that work under his purview.

I’m not paying attention so much to what Transportation Secretary Duffy said during the confirmation process. We’ll wait to see what his actual actions are.

[00:13:20] Fred: Two

[00:13:20] Anthony: votes

[00:13:20] Fred: for Senator. We should also note that the last round of Trump and budget cutting resulted in an extraordinary expansion of government spending and an explosion of government debt.

So I, I think our listeners should recognize that you can sometimes tell when administration appointees and the president are not telling the truth because their lips are moving. Badoom doom tsh.

Sorry. End of joke.

[00:13:49] Anthony: Ah, okay. I didn’t even know it started. Ha! If you’d like more of Fred’s Catskill comedic stylings, tune in to Fred Perkins Oy Vey. [00:14:00] I got nothing. Sorry. I,

[00:14:01] Michael: That wasn’t too bad. That wasn’t too

[00:14:02] Anthony: bad. All right. But let’s continue with Mr. Duffy here. Cause as the head of the department of transportation, He is saying, you know what?

Fuel efficiency regulations? Bad. I’m gonna link to an article from Ars Technica and quoting from it. Then quoting from Sean Duffy himself says, The memorandum signed today specifically reduces the burdensome and overly restrictive fuel standards that have needlessly driven up the cost of a car in order to push a radical Green New Deal Agenda.

The American people should not be forced to sacrifice choice and affordability when purchasing new cars. And if your kid can’t breathe, I don’t care. So yeah, his first act is to say, Yeah, fuel economy? We don’t need that. Let’s pollute more. Roll coal!

[00:14:48] Michael: Yeah, this is something that we’re expecting NHTSA to be forced to be involved in early on in the administration.

There’s a lot of resistance to electric vehicles and there’s always [00:15:00] been a pretty heavy resistance by the manufacturers to increase fuel economy standards. Not surprising that this is one of the first things they take up. In fact, it’s one of the first things that the Biden administration took up when they took over NHTSA in 2021.

So they, the, often, and unfortunately, environmental concerns trump safety. We’re seeing that. from, we see that from both sides, for instance, electric vehicles being pushed as a complete and total replacement to gas vehicles. And yet we have some serious concerns about the weight of batteries, about battery fires and about many other things involving EVs, and we’re not sure the technology is quite ready.

To be scaled all the way out when we’re seeing, hybrid vehicles that perform quite well and reduce gasoline and emissions intake or use significantly. So it’s, it’s very frustrating that as a group that’s primarily focused on safety and we have [00:16:00] supported increased fuel economy over our years, but it’s frustrating to see such a main focus on vehicle fuel efficiency, take precedent over safety under, many administration.

[00:16:11] Anthony: What I have to ask, so maybe Fred, you can answer this, is so as an auto manufacturer, you’re designing a car, a fuel system, a propulsion system, your engines, there’s a lead up time of a number of years before it comes out. So for the last few years, at least the last four years, they’ve been focused on, hey, we have to hit these fuel economy standards.

And so we’re putting in place more hybrid systems, more fuel economy systems. All of this stuff is in the pipeline for the last four years. They’re not going to be like, ah, let’s remove the battery systems,

[00:16:41] Fred: right? No, that’s right. Yeah. There’s a long lead associated with a lot of engineering developments for automobiles or any other complex technical system.

So that’s part of the reason why incoming administrations jump on these initiatives early on, because it takes a while before any of them [00:17:00] can actually find themselves in the market. It’s probably worth pointing out that primary fuel efficiency works in favor of the oil industry, and it continued to pump oil.

So there’s these are not isolated events. It’s part of a. Dare I say project 2025 to make sure that as much of the world is wasted as possible in order to enhance corporate profits.

[00:17:30] Anthony: I love that. I’m a bit gloomy

[00:17:31] Fred: about this administration. I admit that.

[00:17:36] Anthony: Oh, no. Let’s see.

[00:17:38] Ford Blue Cruise Investigation

[00:17:38] Anthony: Oh, it’s I’m going to go back to, we were talking automatic emergency braking.

This is related somewhat. NHTSA has upgraded the investigation into four blue crews. Into a, to an engineering analysis. Now for Blue Cruise, for those not paying attention, this is their level three ish automatic driving system that happens on predefined roads at highway [00:18:00] speeds, so it’s geo fenced.

And unfortunately, it’s it’s not doing so well. From this article from AutoEvolution, I’m gonna quote, The investigation revealed that the crash has happened because Ford Adaptive Cruise Control, a key component of the Blue Cruise System, is programmed to ignore stationary objects in the car’s path.

When the speed is above 62 miles per hour. Oh my god. The decision was made to prevent false detection of objects that could lead to unnecessary braking. This is a phenomenon that drivers of many modern vehicles are familiar with, known as phantom braking. I like to call it staying alive. Whoa.

Ford engineers are like, A, phantom braking’s a problem. Some people are gonna die. What? How? How did this happen? Where their system is just Hey, above 62 miles per hour. Whatever. You had a good life.

[00:18:56] Fred: We’re sliding into Tao of Fred here. I’ll give you [00:19:00] 10 seconds for the introduction.

Seconds one, seconds two, seconds three. You’ve now entered the Tao of Fred. Just go ahead.

[00:19:05] Anthony: Yeah, just do it. Just, nice and tight Tao, okay? You’re getting a fan again.

[00:19:11] Fred: So there’s some technical issues here, and there’s some marketing issues as well. So I don’t think the engineer has ever said, yeah, it’s a good idea to turn this off at x miles per hour.

I think that was a marketing decision to be fair. But the other side of that is that technically it’s very difficult to find a dim object in a dark background. If you think of it, if you’ve been outside ever at night to look at the stars, You’ve probably noticed that after half an hour or so, a lot more stars are visible than when you first get out there.

And Anthony, you’re a sailor, and you know that you need to have only red lights on deck, and you need to have a half hour to get your eyes adjusted to the dark before you’re considered competent to sail at night, right?

[00:19:59] Anthony: Yes, [00:20:00] but you need to I won’t question your competence, but that wasn’t where I was headed.

You put keys in a dark thing like you put keys in a bowl. Sorry.

[00:20:08] Fred: But adjustments are necessary for even the electronic camera systems that are on the cars. And if you think of it if you adjust your cameras, so that you can see objects that are very dim, when there’s a bright object in the background, all of a sudden, it’s going to overwhelm the focal plane and you’ll see a huge image.

A lot of artifacts, a lot of light bouncing around. And so that’s pretty much the technical situation or the technical problem you confront when you have the car driving down the road, there’s various bright objects in front of it, like taillights of other cars and headlights and traffic lights and who knows what, any kind of light that’s powered versus the very dim of it.

Reflection, you’re getting off of the object that is not the subject of [00:21:00] the light, like a car that’s in front of you, UUs stuck in the side of the road. But so it’s a difficult

[00:21:05] Anthony: thing to,

[00:21:06] Fred: sorry.

[00:21:06] Anthony: Like on a boat, you’re not just using your eyes, you have radar, right? Just like you have on a modern car.

Some modern

[00:21:14] Fred: cars and some modern cars don’t have it.

[00:21:16] Anthony: If you’re a Ford Blue Cruise, you definitely have radar.

[00:21:19] Fred: Yeah. So clearly radars and lidars. Which both of which generate their own. Power for the imaging that they’re going to have are much better at this than merely visual systems like a camera.

[00:21:34] Michael: Some cars have it, some don’t. GM uses LIDAR and Super Cruise, but in Ford’s Blue Cruise, they’re just using radar.

[00:21:43] Fred: So they’ve each had limitations and they each enhance what’s going on in certain ways. But the fact is, it’s a difficult technical problem. I don’t think the engineers are responsible for shutting off the the system at a certain speed, though.

That would be a marketing decision. And [00:22:00] somebody just said, yeah, that hardly ever happens. We’ll just take the hit. Yeah, a few people will die, but we can afford it. Thank you, Ford. Yeah, the

[00:22:08] Michael: source of that, the source of that quote in the article is, it may be, you could interpret it probably differently than the, it was summarized by the article, but in the NHTSA investigatory report, it says, due to the potential for false detection of stationary objects at long distances, Ford designed its system to inhibit any response to reported stationary objects.

When the subject vehicle’s approach speed is at or above 62 miles per hour. So

[00:22:37] Fred: how could that happen? So you’ve got a car that’s in front of you. It has taillights. So your camera’s adjusting for the taillights so it can discriminate those. And then there’s some kind of reflected light that’s coming back from the car itself.

Much dimmer, but you’re trying to pick that up as well. But then you look at the road and the road’s got some paint on it. And all of a sudden the paint that’s on the road is returning much more [00:23:00] light than the car itself, so your camera, which is pretty dumb, looks at that and says, oh, I’m getting close to this car at a significant speed, so I’m going to have to put on the brakes now.

So it’s really not so much a problem that it can’t tell the bright lights from the dim lights. It’s the problem is that it can’t tell one dim light from another dim light, and it’s having to interpret a lot of that. If it had a human brain, it would be a lot better at that because humans are really good at finding dim objects in dark backgrounds.

I guess we grew up hunting mice. I’m not sure at some point, but it’s just a difficult technical problem. And shame on Ford for letting marketing overwhelm the safety of this system.

[00:23:45] Anthony: GM has a similar system, but like you just said, they haven’t had these types of crashes. That may just

[00:23:54] Fred: be luck, who knows?

I haven’t been inside of any of these systems, so I don’t know exactly what their parameters are. [00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Anthony: But Michael pointed out that the GM system will use LIDAR as well and whereas Ford is just using radar. So it sounds like there’s a failure at some level of, hey, we’re going to put this out here, but we don’t have the right parts of the system.

I can’t

[00:24:14] Fred: say that LiDAR is better than radar because in both cases, it depends on the radiated power, it depends on the processing, the revisit time, it depends on the acuity of the receivers yada, it goes on and on. So you can’t say one is better than the other. Each has got unique capabilities, so you’d have to look at the overall capability and data fusion and the logic behind the data fusion imaging, perception, all those kinds of things to really understand what’s going on.

[00:24:42] Anthony: When you were getting your degree in mechanical engineering, did you take a level 300 or level 400 class in yada, yada?

[00:24:48] Fred: I was 323, I think. Okay. I remember right. 323,

[00:24:51] Anthony: yada, yada, yada. Okay let’s see what happens with this, cause this is this is Interesting that they took the approach of hey, we’re going to [00:25:00] do this in a more structured way, in a geofence and whatnot, as opposed to Tesla, which is hey man, go for it!

And Tesla is strictly using cameras, they don’t even have radar on their cars. So I’ll be curious to see what happens with this investigation. Has Ford responded at all with this and said anything? that we’re aware of.

[00:25:18] Michael: If they have, it’s still protected at this point. Almost all the responses that NHTSA receives from manufacturers are heavily redacted so that good people like us never get to see them.

[00:25:31] Anthony: So listeners, what’s the big takeaway here? Even if you have a Ford Blue Cruise, a GM Super Cruise a Mercedes thing, you’re driving the car no matter what, because as Fred just pointed out, that we don’t know what system is going to work yet. We don’t know, and clearly, Ford doesn’t know. Or they’re just reckless.

I don’t imagine they’re reckless. Noah’s not reckless going to autosafety. org and clicking on the donate button and just going, yeah, I’m gonna max out my [00:26:00] credit cards and donate to the Center for Auto Safety. That doesn’t sound remotely reckless, does it? No? Good. Noah does sound reckless, though.

[00:26:08] Subaru Security Vulnerabilities

[00:26:08] Anthony: Subaru.

That’s right, Fred. I’m calling out Subaru. There is some hackers. Hackers is a loose, it sounds a lot more dramatic than it really is. So this security researcher, Sam Curry, bought his mom a Subaru in the, which I love this, he’s Mom, I’m gonna buy you a Subaru, but at some point you’re gonna let me hack the car and go through the software and hardware through the system.

And she’s I don’t know what that means, I got a car, sweet. Maybe she’s a hacker too, I don’t really know, that’s just my assumption. After about a year using this car, him and his partner said, hey, let’s go through it. And they discovered security vulnerability in Subaru’s web portal. So they managed to get in there, it was probably pretty easy, not much advanced hacking or anything.

And it pulled up all of the location data down to the precise level of where she would, what parking spot she would use in [00:27:00] her church. And all of this was available. And they could get it for any car that had this Subaru, what is it, what’s the system called? Starlink. Starlink, Subaru Starlink. And it mapped out all of this data and I don’t think Subaru has responded to why they keep this data.

And how long they keep this data for, what’s the point of it. So Subaru is watching you. They’re watching you, Fred.

[00:27:26] Fred: I’ve got the 2020 Subaru Outback. It came with Starlink. I’ve never paid for it. It’s an optional service. So I don’t it’s not clear to me whether because I’m not paying for it.

They’re not recording data. But what was interesting is when I originally got the car, I could go through the touch screen and find the spot where I eliminated. We’re sending data to Subaru, so it had the option of doing that, but they went through a major software update a couple of years later [00:28:00] and that option was eliminated.

I no longer can find that on my screen. So that was interesting. But the Starlink’s an odd service, because if you have an iPhone, there’s nothing the Starlink does that your iPhone won’t do. And I could never clearly see. Why anybody would want that, but nevertheless, I don’t use it car seems to run perfectly well, and I’ve lived to tell the tale

[00:28:26] Anthony: Michael.

[00:28:27] Michael: Yeah, 1 of the, beyond the location data here, which is obviously, a concern of 1 type, the, they were also able to, hijack the vehicle’s ability to unlock its home, unlock the car, honk the horn, start the ignition, and you could reassign those, the control of those features to any phone or computer that the hackers choose.

That’s. Probably as, as great a concern as the location issue with these is that, anyone can effectively come in and take control over some basic [00:29:00] features of your car, including starting the ignition while it might be parked, in a garage somewhere that creates a pretty significant safety hazard.

[00:29:08] Fred: We should point out that Subaru has said they fixed the problem. We don’t know, we haven’t seen that verified anywhere, but to give them their due, they did adjust the software and put a patch in place.

[00:29:22] Anthony: And we have no idea what other auto manufacturers have the same sort of vulnerabilities. But more importantly, there’s no laws around what can limit these companies from tracking any data they want.

So short of wrapping your entire car in a large colander, I think the law needs to come in place here.

[00:29:40] Michael: And we don’t recommend the colander approach, that’s clearly not going to be safe for anyone.

[00:29:45] Anthony: It’s not extra crash protection?

[00:29:48] Michael: I’m thinking of the people outside the car, too. It’s, giant colanders going down the road, does it sound?

[00:29:54] Anthony: It sounds

[00:29:54] Fred: amazing. We know, we have to remember that we now live in a world in which women can be prosecuted [00:30:00] and put in jail for seeking medical care. So I think it’s very important that these issues stay in front of people.

[00:30:08] Anthony: Absolutely, and I think California is the only state right now that’s really introduced some sort of legislation against this.

But maybe it would happen at the federal level. Ha! Or maybe I’m naive. I like that they can remotely honk someone’s horn, because I don’t know if anyone’s ever been in a car where, I don’t think this happens in modern vehicles, but in older vehicles where there’d be a short in the wiring, and you’re driving down the street and the honk the car horn is just, Mwaa mwaa, that’s.

That’s a fun time. That’s when you’re a kid, you’re going, Oh, I wish I was adopted. Why am I being raised by such poor people?

[00:30:42] Fred: Okay. Time for a fun Fred story. So when I moved to Denver back in 1978, I had a Ford Pinto that was barely moving. And the only way the horn button stayed attached to the steering wheel was by virtue of duct tape.[00:31:00]

Which is a perfectly fine solution being an engineer, you rely on duct tape. And then, in the middle of January, all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, somebody’s damn horn started honking. And it would honk for about five minutes, and then it would go off for about an hour, and then it would come on again for five minutes.

What the hell is going on? Who is this damn person?

[00:31:21] The Mysterious Horn Incident

[00:31:21] Fred: And then I went out one day and the tried to honk the horn for some reason. It didn’t work. So I chased it down and somebody had disconnected the horn wire. And so what was happening is that at night, the duct tape was contracting because it was getting colder.

And it was making the contact as the electricity went through, it would heat up the horn button and the duct tape so that it would loosen again and the horn would go off. I made myself very popular with my neighbors and it was a little bit humbling, fun.

[00:31:52] Anthony: Oh, great. Fred hasn’t been allowed back in the state of Colorado since the 70s.

Boy, oh boy. [00:32:00]

[00:32:00] Traffic Enforcement and Speed Cameras

[00:32:00] Anthony: Hey, let’s talk enforcement, traffic enforcement, things of that nature. I think we’ve got some fun articles there. So one Michael sent us is about New York city and their speed camera reports and New York city claiming the speed cameras are great and they’re wonderful. And as somebody who has received a number of tickets in the mail for somebody else in my family who drives I do not like these cause You know, it’s, it, it causes more marital issues than anything else.

Why are you going thirty five on a twenty five? Because it feels really slow. I get it. But this is actually an interesting report where New York City put out a lot more speed cameras. And it’s saying, since it’s done this, the daily violations at speed camera locations have decreased ninety four percent since the start of the program in twenty fourteen.

Seventy four percent of drivers receive no more than one or two violations per year. Oh, I wish I was them. But yeah, it looks like just doing this is a good [00:33:00] thing, and I like this because really you shouldn’t have police pulling people over this stuff. That just seems very inefficient and wasteful.

Yeah. Send people a nice little Polaroid. Hey, this was you. I like this

[00:33:11] Fred: idea. These actually work. They work very well. They’re on the E Street Bridge in Washington. They put one on the backside of the bridge, so you don’t see it when you’re coming up. You only see it once it’s already tagged on on the other side.

And I got hit with that. I was speeding, but only once. And after that, I, it adheres to the speed limit as I was going through there. I think my experience was characteristic of what. Normal people do I don’t claim a lot of normality, but I do think that was a good good bit of information.

[00:33:41] Michael: Yeah. And, there’s, it’s a great report from New York state. They go through a lot of the data from the past few years and it shows, at the time when they started the program, I think it was in 2014 each. Camera was putting out somewhere over 2000 liability [00:34:00] notices or tickets per day.

And as they have increased the number of cameras across the city and drivers have become more aware that there’s a possibility they’re going to get popped for speeding and face a fine, that number has dropped significantly to, somewhere around 200 or less. Tickets per camera per day, so I don’t think there’s any question that this that, widespread implementation of speed cameras across the city is going to reduce speeds.

I see it in D. C. every time I’m in the city, there’s a lot of speed cameras in D. C. and, on roads where the speed limit is 25 miles per hour, people are actually going. 25 to 30 MPH to stay under the threshold for the speed cameras, and it’s a noticeably slower traffic pattern, and I think noticeably safer.

As we’ve discussed in the past, one of the problems with this system is, and DC in the past, has been the actual enforcement. You’ll have people who are racking up fines on speed cameras and [00:35:00] who aren’t being hauled into court or having their license. taken away from because of that. I believe that New York has some better enforcement mechanisms in place to prevent, people from basically they call them extreme recidivists.

There’s a number of people who get 10 or more of these types of notices per year. And. They have to be, they have to, this can’t just be a revenue generator. It has to be able to have the authority, the cameras system and the court system to take away licenses or to punish drivers who are continually violating the speed limit.

I we’re, I think at the center, we are very much in favor of having speed cameras expand across the country.

[00:35:44] Anthony: The problem I have with it is it issues the ticket to me because the car’s in my name. And I wasn’t anywhere near that car. So now we have a solution to it. Before my, it’s the same location where my wife gets hit with the same ticket is I tell her, look, you’re going to go there, remove the license plates from the car [00:36:00] first.

Go ahead and do that. Then they can’t give us a ticket. Go to autosafety. org and click on donate.

[00:36:05] Michael: No.

[00:36:06] Anthony: I know I tried to get you to see, he, no, he’s not saying no to donate.

[00:36:11] Michael: No, I’m saying no to, to evading speeding violations. I think you should geofence your wife.

[00:36:18] Anthony: Hey, no, she’s actually stopped doing it and I, every time she goes to visit this one friend, I’m like, no, no speeding.

Don’t you do it. And it, I haven’t gotten one of these tickets in the mail in probably about eight months. It’s pretty good. Good luck.

[00:36:32] Michael: Good luck.

[00:36:33] Anthony: Why? Why you gotta do that to me? Hey, I think it’s.

[00:36:36] Vietnam’s New Traffic Fines

[00:36:36] Anthony: Thankfully for me, I don’t live in Vietnam. Whereas Vietnam has put out a bunch of new traffic fines, and I like this approach.

I think we should do this for all laws. So I guess in the past traffic in Vietnam, like the traffic lights, stop signs, everything, everyone just looked at it as residents of the state of Connecticut do. That’s just a suggestion. Just, yeah, we’ll do this. But now Vietnam is putting in a new traffic law and [00:37:00] fines have risen tenfold with the biggest tickets exceeding 1, 500.

That average citation tops a month’s salary for many, and that’s more than enough to change behavior. According to the New York Times, intersections have become both calmer and more congested by an outbreak of caution. Faulty green lights have even led scared drivers to walk motorbikes across streets because they’re afraid the police might be watching.

And, if you’re gonna get hit with a massive ticket, you’re Probably gonna follow the law. Any objections?

[00:37:32] Michael: Yeah, obviously, we like the idea of traffic cameras keeping people in line. However, you can’t have a draconian system that imposes fines that are that significant. It’s, it’s pretty well captured by one of the commenters in the article.

It says, it’s safer, it’s better, but it’s cruel for poor people.

[00:37:53] Income-Based Traffic Fines

[00:37:53] Michael: I really think in situations like this, and, We should be looking at actually punishing people, [00:38:00] and that means tailoring the fines to people’s income. If you’re a rich guy and you can afford to pay 300 speeding tickets a year, you’re gonna do it.

But if you raise the price of that speeding ticket to a percentage of your income that’s sufficient to deter you from speeding, you’re not. And by the same token, you can’t create, a one fine fits all regime that is overly burdensome on people that don’t have a lot of income, but they, a smaller amount is going to be sufficient to deter.

So it’s something that has been put in place and a number of other countries, I believe, Finland and some European countries have these types of fines where it’s they’re looking at your income in a certain way. Assessing your speeding ticket or whatever traffic fine you’re getting based on your income because they’re determining, what percentage of your yearly income is going to produce a deterrent effect here.

I think that’s a lot more equitable way of doing it and it’s [00:39:00] going to be ultimately more effective because it’s going to deter everyone from every income bracket from speeding. Not just people who are poor.

[00:39:09] Fred: Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s make Elon Musk personally responsible, and again, scaling it to his income, for every traffic violation associated with full self driving on Tesla products.

What do you think? I think that would solve the budget problems in California straight away. Okay.

[00:39:32] Michael: Yeah, he, you broke my thought that just I don’t know, I’m trying to figure out how exactly that would work. I’m not sure if it’s, I don’t know if that would pass muster under the constitution assigning all of that behavior to Elon,

[00:39:47] Fred: There’s a clear trail.

You just. Decide that the computer driver is responsible and the source of the software is fundamentally responsible for the behavior of the vehicle. The owner of the software therefore [00:40:00] becomes personally responsible for whatever violations are associated with the software not performing adequately.

I know you guys find these suggestions very helpful and I’ll keep sending them out.

[00:40:12] Michael: It’s just, it’s hard to consider that when we already know how. Difficult it is to hold Tesla responsible when people actually die using its technology. So traffic tickets seem like a next step that we’re not quite there yet.

[00:40:26] Anthony: Let’s get back on course, people. So what Michael is talking about here is adjusting fines based on income. We’re linking to an opinion piece in the Washington Post talking about how Norway does this. And there was a guy in Norway who exceeded the speed limit by 20 miles per hour and was assessed a fine of 130, 000.

I really regret the matter, said Andres Wickloff, 76 years old. I’ll bet he does. That’s what he said. It’s a good bet he does, but he can afford it because he’s the chairman of a 375 million a year holding company. But I like that. Even a [00:41:00] guy with a ton of money is not going to be like, whoa, shit, I got to pay this.

I like that. Adjust fines for everything based off of your income. Oh my, we’d balance the national budget. All of those bankers, all of those criminal bankers should be donating to the Center for Auto Safety. Hey, let’s I’ve already done my gaslight. Let’s we got time for quick gaslights.

Michael! Do you want to do a gaslight?

[00:41:27] Gaslight of the Week: Autonomous Trucking

[00:41:27] Michael: My gaslight is just going to be the same thing it’s been for a number of weeks now, which is the automatic emergency braking issue. And, it’s virtually, and my gas isn’t even a specific thing. Virtually everything that’s coming out of the mouth of the industry on this rule is a gaslight.

So folks out there who are reading stories about automatic emergency braking and the recent rules and the recent Activity there from the auto industry could just pick up their paper or their computer and tablet and read anything [00:42:00] coming out of the mouth on the industry of the on this issue and I’m deeming it all gaslighting.

That’s mine for the week.

[00:42:06] Anthony: I agree. I like it. Nice. Succinct to the point. Fred, can you follow Michael’s nice? Succinct to the point example,

[00:42:13] Fred: it’s not so easy for me. So there was an article in the Dallas Morning News. called Autonomous Trucking Will Make Texas Roads Safer by John Esperanza, who is, or I may have mispronounced the name, Esparza, who’s the president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association.

And like Donald Trump, he gets in front of damning news by preemptively declaring that however damning, it is instead of virtue. And he goes in big for alternative facts. So I’m not sure if that’s more. Of being Texas and more alignment with Trump, but however that goes he states, for example, they’re built to have driving capabilities, exceeding human limitations, but there’s no requirements.

There’s no proven correct [00:43:00] response to emergencies for worth a couple of years ago, had an accident on I, 33. Or excuse me, I 35, which involved 133 car pile up. So I would imagine that by now, Texas has probably parsed that to find out what was going on. And the AV trucking industry has assured them that they’ve replicated that on a test track.

And these trucks can be just fine. These 40 ton behemoths. Barreling down the road is 70 miles per hour with no human driver will be perfectly safe in a situation where there’s an icy road and 135 car mile pile up ahead of him. Somehow. He doesn’t cite that though. So there’s no requirements. They say proven.

They say that there’s no reference capabilities exceed human limitations. Excuse me. There’s no statements of Which human capabilities, and there’s no credit for any of [00:44:00] the unique safety aspects of AVs that are different from what the human response would be. So they start with the assumption that it’s going to be just like humans, but better.

No evidence for that. But when I think about recent multi car accidents and winter weather and poor visibility, he writes, I see how this technology could have saved lives. Sure, but that’s just a fantasy yeah there’s probably not as much as careful human driving in their capabilities, whatever they are, no one’s been killed by a truck that isn’t moving too fast for the weather.

And who’s going to put the chains on an autonomous truck when it snows or they’re trying to go through a mountain pass? There’s no

[00:44:37] Anthony: snow in Texas. Come on.

[00:44:39] Fred: Also there’s a zero experience to aid the operation in adverse or challenging weather. And when they talk about how many miles the autonomous truck industry has accumulated in Texas, the correct answer is zero.

There is zero miles with no human supervision of the trucks. So it’s just a [00:45:00] delusion. So then there’s a Department of Transportation study, he cites, that indicates that autonomous trucks will create more new jobs. And the rationale is that getting rid of drivers will create more driver jobs. It’s Not clear how that’s going to work, but that’s Texas.

So there you go. Says the Texas legislature passed a bill in 2017 that unequivocally mandates that autonomous trucks must drive safely and comply with all applicable motor vehicle laws. Michael and I did a little bit of looking into this and we can’t find the word safely in any of those regulations and the only requirement that’s in there is that.

Autonomous trucks have to subscribe to the same motor vehicle laws as human driven trucks without any consideration of their unique characteristics. And we’ve talked about there’s issues with software and data protocols and hardware before, singular and absence, all kinds, all the kinds of things that [00:46:00] don’t really apply to human behavior.

But here’s where it really. The nexus of this revolves around this statement. I think trial attorneys have spent decades suing Texas’s freight industry and lawsuits that have become known for their nuclear verdicts, bankrupting mom and pop trucking companies, eliminating jobs and hurting the Texas economy.

But Michael, each of these suits that were won were hard fought and agreed to by juries or judges. So what he’s really doing here is advocating the. The trucking industry should have two classes of people, one that includes him and can injure or kill the others without consequences. I just, I don’t see that as part of a rationale for why these AV trucks are any better than anything else, unless you assume that the AV trucks will continue to be immune from public safety laws and consequences of their actions.

And that’s about it, it goes on and on with time limitations [00:47:00] keep me from saying anymore, but Mr. John Esparza congratulations, you’ve got my gas state of the week award.

[00:47:07] Anthony: Excellent. Excellent. I’m going to throw in another one because I know Michael wants to cover this and he didn’t choose this as his gas light.

[00:47:14] Forbes’ Odd Advocacy for AVs

[00:47:14] Anthony: This is a nonsense article we’re going to link to from Forbes. titled, The Waymo Vandalism Incident, A Wake Up Call for the AV Industry. This is this is a weird article written by a, an odd person that basically is like, Hey man, stop like vandalizing these auto, these self driving cars. It’s like not, like who’s going to stand up for the robo taxis?

It’s if you’re having trouble with your digestion this is a good way to waste some time. But Michael, who, the person who wrote this, you gave me some background on this. What do they do in their normal life?

[00:47:50] Michael: In their normal life, they are basically an industry, they support the AV industry to the extent that they even write children’s books trying to [00:48:00] introduce children to the idea of safe, autonomous vehicles.

The article is presented as a it’s this breathless, we need to protect the robots style of writing because they’re getting paint thrown on them, which in my opinion, is sad. I think we need to be a lot more concerned about the reason why people are throwing paint on them because they’re blocking streets and preventing ambulances from getting where they’re supposed to go and doing all other sorts of nonsense where they’ve been deployed so far.

So it’s very. odd selection by Forbes for an advocacy piece. I don’t think too many of us feel sorry for the autonomous vehicles that have been vandalized. That’s something that’s probably expected. And is, I don’t think there need to be more federal or state laws. Around that, as the author called for, there certainly need to be more federal and state laws around safe deployment of these [00:49:00] vehicles.

[00:49:00] Anthony: Vandalizing cars is an American sport. I vandalized my neighbor’s car the other day because it was covered in all sorts of salt from the road. So I wrote on it, wash me, and I drew a little butt.

[00:49:10] Fred: Oh, Anthony, you are such a radical.

[00:49:12] Anthony: Unbelievable. I know. Yeah, so our gaslight there is Forbes.

Forbes will let anybody publish. It’s true.

[00:49:19] Recall Roundup

[00:49:19] Anthony: Let’s jump into recalls. How’s that sound?

[00:49:22] Michael: That sounds like this.

[00:49:24] Anthony: Starting off, Chrysler. 6, 066 vehicles. The 2016 to 2019 Ram 3, 500. The Ram 2, 500. The Ram 1, 500. So many. The 3, 500. The Ram 2, 000. The Ram 500. Oh, the Ram 1, 500. So many. The Ram.

Rams, a cab inflator rupture may result in compressed gas rapidly escaping from the inflator and material potentially being propelled in this vehicle. Oh my God, that sounds horrible. What is A cab is capitalized. What is a CAB? Inflator? Anybody?

[00:49:54] Fred: CAB. Inflator. I. Oh, curtain

[00:49:56] Anthony: airbag. There we go. Okay. Oh God.[00:50:00]

Wait. So the curtain airbag, inflator may rup, this just sounds like tota type stuff. Yeah

[00:50:06] Michael: it’s definitely sounds similar because what you’re seeing is moisture intrusion into the inflator, which is something that was, that happened in Takata. But it looks like there was, this is something that was due to particular inflator lots that were somehow exposed to a very high level of moisture during their.

Or before installation. So it’s probably, a different. A slightly different cause, although we’re not totally sure, it’s hard to tell from the limited information that’s been sent, but sent in by Chrysler, whether or not, or exactly how big this problem could be but it looks like owners are getting new inflators they’re going to get a new, an entirely new airbag module and fairly soon you should be hearing about this.

If you own one of these vehicles in mid February. [00:51:00]

[00:51:00] Anthony: Next up, Chrysler. 63, 082 vehicles. The 2017 to 2019 Jeep Cherokee. Loss of park function can cause a vehicle crash without prior warning. That’s not good. Loss of motive power can cause a vehicle crash without warning. Oh, this is the PTU assembly, the power transfer unit.

[00:51:23] Michael: Yeah. This one was interesting because they, this is the 2017 to 2019 Jeep Cherokees. And so they have a power transfer unit that basically was built with what they’re saying, an improperly seated input shafts. Snap ring. All right. And so they started building the vehicles with this part in October of 2016.

And then in, they built them through February of 2019. And at that point they said, Oh we figured out there’s a problem here. We’re going to replace this part in production. [00:52:00] And now. Six years later, after they replaced it in production, they’re saying, Oh we need to get back and do a recall on this.

I wonder how many of these. 2017 to 2019 Jeep Cherokees have left the roads permanently since then. And I wonder how much more this recall would have cost them had they done it at the time they knew that the part was needed to be replaced in production. I’m a cynic, I get it. And I look at these things with kind of a fine tooth comb and say, why didn’t they do this?

Maybe they had a good reason, but it sure looks suspicious to me. A company that has never exactly been a great performer on the recall. Stage pulling things like this, where you see a long gap before owners are going to receive a remedy. If you own one of these vehicles, you’ve essentially been driving around with a safety defect for eight to six to eight years without them letting you know about it while they changed apart under the covers in their factory.

So that’s disappointing. [00:53:00] Owners are going to hear about this. If they haven’t already, it looks like they’re going to hear about it in the next couple of weeks, but the remedy is still under development, so it may be a delayed rollout for this recall.

[00:53:12] Anthony: It’s tough for the American auto industry to compete.

Next up, General Motors, 2890 vehicles, the 2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV. A defect related to motor vehicle safety exists for all wheel drive vehicles. Incorrect software calibration in the brake control module prevents the vehicle’s adaptive cruise control feature from braking the vehicle as designed.

That’s not great, but thankfully it’s a small number, but again, how many of these are they sold though?

[00:53:42] Michael: Yeah, it’s a small number, I believe, I think, because it’s the Equinox EVs, and it’s also the ones that aren’t equipped with GM’s Super Cruise, so it’s a, Kind of a sub subpopulation of the equinox CVS but basically, there are certain [00:54:00] situations where the breaks are not going to be applied while you are in the adaptive cruise control, which it’s very important that breaks are applied in those situations.

Because as we know, while people are adaptive, it’s. Cruise control, they’re more likely to be distracted and not engaged in the driving task. And so when the adaptive cruise control fails to break that significantly increases the chance of a collision or the driver basically aren’t going to be able to have time to sufficiently break before a crash.

So it looks like, yep.

[00:54:36] Fred: I was just going to say this is a great example of safety critical functions that are embedded in software that are not inspectable by human beings. As we’ve said in the past, there’s got to be a way for safety inspections to include safety critical functions that are in the software and in the computer, and that are simply not available to humans looking at it.

Think of this failure. For somebody who’s used to [00:55:00] using this device, they go down the road, they set the cruise control, somebody slows down in front of them, instant accident, unless the automatic emergency braking, which the same company is now trying to get out of the regulations, has kicked in.

These, these different situations all compound to the detriment of passenger safety. I guess that’s why we’re here, right?

Yes.

[00:55:26] Anthony: And if you’re in the driver’s seat, no matter what your car tells you, you’re the one driving the car. Next up, Ford. 1, 490, 149, 000. A lot of vehicles. Almost 150, 000.

2021 to 2024, Ford Broncos. The long range, the long flange range. Wait, this is so difficult. The long flange. The long, it’s a

[00:55:51] Michael: long flange, rear shock absorbers. It’s got

[00:55:54] Anthony: some shock absorber things. There you go. Look, we’re keeping it American. Go on. So what’s the problem, [00:56:00] Michael?

Here’s the thing. It’s got problems.

[00:56:02] Michael: The shock absorbers get corroded in a spot between, they have an external reservoir on there, and then they’ve got a mounting flange and a damper body, and what happens is there’s corrosion, the external reservoir can drop off the vehicle, so they’re concerned about a couple things.

I think they’re concerned about hazard to other road users who might be struck by the Thank you. That by the external reservoir and also, there’s an increased risk of crash due to the effects of losing your effectively losing your shock absorber. But that’s mostly bumpy stuff. I think what they’re most concerned here, people getting struck or other vehicles having to dodge a part of the vehicle that’s fallen off.

This one looks like it’s going to be completed in a slow. Manner as well. That’s noting that the remedy is still under development. So Ford’s investigation, even if you get your letter in an early February is going to be continuing as to how [00:57:00] they’re going to fix this problem. So it may be quite some time before you actually have a remedy.

They haven’t even explained what the remedy is going to be yet for owners of these vehicles.

[00:57:09] Anthony: And if you happen to be Jim Farley, we’d love to have you on the show as a guest. Next up, Ford! 272, 817 vehicles. 2021 to 2023 Ford Bronco Sport. Oh. And the Ford Maverick. And that’s it. This is the 12 volt battery assembly, the loss of motive power, the supplier’s cast on strap, plate, butt there’s a guy that cracks.

You just need to quit today. Yeah, you’re gonna have to start

[00:57:38] Michael: practicing the recalls. These ones are so

difficult.

[00:57:43] Michael: It’s got a 12 volt battery and it experiences due to, they’re not totally clear about what it says. It experiences internal weld and are cast on strap failures, which can lead to sudden battery degradation while driving.

That’s the first time I’ve ever heard [00:58:00] of sudden battery degradation. Now, my Fred, maybe Fred can illuminate us on what exactly that means. But it says, if it suddenly degrades during a drive, it. basically can lead to a vehicle that can’t restart or stalls in the middle of the road and also something very important.

You’re gonna lose 12 vote accessories that could be hazard lights. I’m not sure if that’s gonna be your stop lamps or tail lights or not. They don’t note that here, but you’re definitely gonna lose anything in your vehicle that’s powered by the 12 volt battery.

[00:58:30] Fred: But what it means is that BORN put a shitty battery in originally, and they never tested it adequately to find out if the damn thing was going to fail prematurely.

So that’s fundamental. Any more details you need?

[00:58:44] Anthony: Nah, I think that sums it up perfectly.

[00:58:47] Michael: All

[00:58:47] Fred: right.

[00:58:47] Michael: Yeah, I got it now.

[00:58:49] Anthony: All right. Last recall from Kia. Oh my god. Oh, it’s Kia America though. 80, 255 vehicles. The 2023 to 2025 Kia [00:59:00] Niro EV, the Niro hybrid, same years, plug in hybrids. The floor wiring assembly located underneath the front passenger seat contains wires which control certain vehicle restraint systems.

Oh, so you slide your seat back. I know it’s going to damage the wires. Oh, and that could cause the airbag. This is a head

[00:59:18] Michael: shaker. Yeah, this is a head shaker. We’ve seen recalls like this before. And every time I’m just going, how do you not, how do you design a vehicle where moving and adjusting the seat forward and backwards?

Is going to, in any way, contact electric components that are responsible for deploying airbags and pre tensioners. It makes no sense to me how you can’t design a vehicle that avoids that problem.

[00:59:43] Anthony: Fred, how would you design a vehicle that would do that?

[00:59:47] Fred: Being generous. Hey, and

[00:59:51] Special Episodes Announcement

[00:59:51] Anthony: with that that sums up this week’s episode.

Thanks so much listeners. The next two weeks we have special [01:00:00] episodes we’ve prerecorded with our guest, Bill Copeman. They’re really good. Bill goes really deep into some good stuff. Pay attention, listen, enjoy those, share with your friends subscribe, donate. Thanks everybody.

[01:00:13] Fred: Thanks for listening.

Bye bye. For more information, visit www. autosafety. org.