From Helmets to Hydrogen, From Tesla to Waymo PR machinations
Topics this week:
- the decline in all-rider helmet laws
- the historical impact of the 1964 ‘chicken tax’ on the dominance of SUVs,
- the ongoing issues with Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ and Summon features.
- the challenges faced by first responders with electric vehicles
- the intricacies of autonomous vehicle perception technology
- recalls
Links:
- https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/lax-helmet-laws-have-killed-more-than-20-000-motorcyclists-study-shows
- https://www.nsc.org/road/resources/road-to-zero/massive-hazards-new-rtz-report-on-light-trucks
- https://apnews.com/article/tesla-full-self-driving-investigation-pedestrian-killed-f2121166d60d85bd173a734c91049e73
- https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/no-one-in-the-car-self-driving-app-raises-questions-after-maryland-crash/3746690/
- https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/tesla-crash-after-police-pursuit-highlights-challenges-electric-cars-pose-for-1st-responders-1.7335290
- https://jalopnik.com/gateway/these-are-the-worst-experiences-youve-had-selling-a-car-1851678885
- https://cohen.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-cohen-reintroduces-school-bus-safety-act
- https://www.wsj.com/tech/waymo-san-francisco-self-driving-robotaxis-uber-244feecf
- https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/chrysler-surges-ahead-in-the-recall-race/ar-AA1sHsNZ
- https://www.ford.ca/technology/connected-services/bluecruise/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyzRwXowJDI
- https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCLRPT-24V763-9335.PDF
- https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCLRPT-24V757-9102.PDF
- https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCLRPT-24V761-8833.PDF
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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.
[00:00:19] Michael: They were putting out rules for air taxis. But, it doesn’t look like they’re, they basically look like helicopters maybe more rotors, there’s a lot of electric basically an electric helicopter, but the investment in them is coming from it looks like airlines are planning to use them for something.
I’m not sure what maybe moving people, To nearby airports, that kind of thing. Hard to tell. They’re not flying yet.
[00:00:48] Anthony: Listeners, these self driving, whatever these little airplane self driving cars are flying cars, whatever, they’re not ready yet. And either is full self driving.
[00:00:59] Helmet Laws and Motorcycle Safety
[00:00:59] Anthony: But more on that [00:01:00] later, let’s start off with something similar, something simple that surprised the hell out of me.
And it’s apparently only 17 states in the District of Columbia have all rider helmet laws in place. That means in those 17 states in the District of Columbia, you are required to wear a helmet while driving a motorcycle or riding on a motorcycle, even. What’s wrong with these other states? How is this not a law everywhere?
[00:01:27] Michael: It’s, it actually was. I think this is coming from a report from the Insurance Institute, which found that over the past 50 years, 20, 000 motorcyclists have died who would have otherwise survived if they were wearing a helmet. And it’s a lesson in, it’s a thing.
basically a failure by a lot of states. In 1975, 47 states in D. C. Had all writer helmet laws on their books. But today there are, I believe, only 17 [00:02:00] states that still have those laws in the books. A lot of states have removed the that from their laws and that’s because I think in 1976, I think Gerald Ford’s administration on the way out stopped requiring states to have helmet laws to.
Receive certain funding. So ever since then, a lot of states have, people have continually, and we still see this issue come up in state legislatures every year, people that are trying to repeal the helmet laws for motorcyclists in those states. And they’re very successful sometimes. So it’s a terrible idea, right?
You’re riding a motorcycle, which is already the most dangerous conveyance you could probably be on in America’s roads. And then not only are Doing that part of it, which is bad enough, as we talked about on an episode that featured Anthony’s son about two years ago, you’re also removing the thing that’s protecting, the nerve center of your body and one of the most delicate, parts of your [00:03:00] body your head and your brain.
So it’s, you really have to be stupid to ride a motorcycle, even a bicycle without a helmet.
[00:03:08] Anthony: Yeah, and I think in New York City, you have to have a bicycle helmet to ride a bicycle, just a pedal one, not an electric powered one. Legislators are going out of their way to repeal this law. Are they lining up to repeal safety belt seat belt laws too?
I have Who’s, what’s the driving force? Who’s hey, let’s fund this. Who’s the is it the pro brain injury pack out there?
[00:03:30] Fred: I think it’s a transplant industry because this is a major source of organs to be
[00:03:37] Anthony: transplanted. Ah, the Organ Donor Society of America.
[00:03:43] Michael: There’s a lot of state motorcyclist rights organizations, I guess is what you would call them, SMRO.
So they’re, they’re I don’t know what they’re trying to do. I guess these guys really want to feel the wind in their hair or, Maybe they have really [00:04:00] large heads like I do and they can’t find a properly fitting helmet. I don’t know, but it’s fundamentally an anti safety measure that that threatens people’s safety.
Ultimately, this isn’t quite like some of the other issues, that we talk about. For instance, we frequently talk about how, the freedom the freedom lovers out there in America want their giant pickup trucks and their giant SUVs that are contributing to, Killing people in other vehicles.
Here, the people who are making the bad choices are essentially killing themselves. So it’s not a situation where innocent riders or innocent motorcyclists or car occupants are being killed. So it’s, maybe there’s less of a, I don’t know, less of a means to combat what they’re trying to do here, which is essentially make themselves less safe.
[00:04:50] Fred: It does, it also means increased costs for the rest of us, because somebody’s got to bear the cost of all this emergency services that are required to [00:05:00] support these people. So I think that Americans have an inalienable right to do incredibly stupid things, which any observer of the political scene will endorse, but people should also bear the responsibility of the costs.
That they’re imposing on everybody else to pursue their own stupid ambitions. I don’t know. Libertarians.
[00:05:25] Anthony: I think this is an example of the deep state trying to make things more dangerous for you, man. The deep state!
[00:05:31] The Rise of SUVs and Their Impact
[00:05:31] Anthony: Anyway Michael, you had a great segue there to our next article from the National Safety Council, who provide driver’s education courses online.
They have an article about the dangers of massive trucks and SUVs, or actually just any SUVs, pickups. And their article, their report is about what makes these things so deadly. As a fan of this show, you already know what makes them deadly. Their height and weight relative to [00:06:00] pedestrians, crash incompatibility with smaller cars, unique front end geometry and stiffness, talking to you, Cybertruck, large blind zones, also talking to you, Cybertruck compounding impacts of speed and acceleration.
This organization, they’ve been listening to our show and they’re like, Hey, let’s write up an academic report on this just to support us, right? That’s what happened?
[00:06:21] Michael: I don’t know that it happened exactly like that, but it is a pretty awesome report. It comes from the Road to Zero Coalition and the National Safety Council.
And they go through, like Anthony says, a lot of the things that we’ve been discussing over the past few years about how vehicles are getting way too big. They go through the history of it. It’s interesting for, a lot of people may not realize that this all started in the early 70s.
70s when the corporate average fuel economy standards came into place. And there was a category of, for passenger cars. And there was also a category created for light trucks, which were [00:07:00] presumably not going to get very good gas mileage. And what happened over time was, I think.
The vast majority of vehicles that people were driving on our roads were in the passenger car category. However as time has moved on now, we’ve seen that shift to where I think 75 percent of the vehicles sold are now like truck, like trucks. And so they qualify under a different fuel economy standard, and that really is a loophole that incentivize.
Vehicle manufacturers to, start the SUV revolution, really focus on trucks and sell them to Americans, which has been extraordinarily successful. Now that we’re seeing only about, 20 percent of the vehicle that are sold are Are the usual passenger sedans and the smaller vehicles that are less of a threat, both to other vehicles and pedestrians.
We’ve gone we’ve gone through this on a number of occasions, that this [00:08:00] fear, the fear created by for people that are in smaller vehicles is that they’re on the road with all these giant. Trucks that way two or three times what their car does and that they need to buy a bigger vehicle themselves to protect themselves from these vehicle, the large trucks, which is essentially creating an arms race, to the bottom.
It’s going to ultimately result in poor fuel economy across the entire fleet in America and much heavier vehicles on the road that are having really bad impacts on pedestrians. We’ve seen the pedestrian Death rates skyrocket. As larger trucks have taken over the roads, and then that’s not going to end unless a lot of the recommendations that are made in this report are taken into account.
And there’s a lot of great recommendations for. Manufacturers for state government, for local government, for NHTSA that, that’s, that are made in the report. And, I think it’s a powerful report that everyone who is interested in this [00:09:00] subject should take a look at. Also have you ever heard of a chicken tax, Anthony?
A chicken tax? No, I’ve not heard
[00:09:07] Anthony: of a chicken tax.
[00:09:07] Michael: I’ve never heard of this. It is, It’s a 1964 law that adds a 25 percent tariff on all imported light trucks in order to diversify the model years available to American consumers is that law wasn’t intended to, but we’re sending that. would diversify the number of models available to consumers in America.
And I don’t know if now’s a good time to be rescinding tariffs since we have this increased competition from China. And I know that we don’t want Chinese light trucks taking over America’s roads either, but it’s interesting just how the laws that kind of arose. 50 to 60 years ago around the oil and the oil crisis and around the fear that vehicles coming from overseas were going to overwhelm the American manufacturers, how these laws are still having negative safety impacts [00:10:00] today.
[00:10:00] Fred: The chicken tax came from the mortal fear of Europeans raising chickens and selling them in the United States at too low a price for the American chicken farmers to get the amount of money that they wanted from the American public. That mortal threat was. Replaced with a mortal threat of the SUVs.
Jeff, we should have talked a lot about how the regulations for vehicles has driven the whole impetus towards light trucks and SUVs, replacing the sedans. What is it? What’s the story on that? Michael? How did those regulations come to. Push this boom ahead.
[00:10:38] Michael: It’s, it seems like it was somewhat inadvertent.
There were passenger vehicle regulations that held, um, at the time truck pickup trucks were getting really poor fuel economy and passenger cars were doing better. And The automakers, I think, wanted a separate category for the trucks that back then were typically used by [00:11:00] farmers tradesmen and that sort of thing, because they were going to be carrying heavy weights.
They had to be designed in such a way that they could do. And they were automatically going to be using a lot more fuel than the average passenger car. I don’t think they were anticipating that. The light truck category back then was going to become, the number one category in America and represent 75 percent of the fleet.
And so they were held to lower fuel economy standards at that time. And that basically enabled, manufacturers to build those vehicles and keep the cost down.
[00:11:33] Fred: I guess Ford put the Ford put a passenger compartment. On top of an escort pickup truck frame, and I guess that’s how they justify saying it was a light truck.
But what is it about the regulations that say you can let the chassis drive the passenger type? That seems like a really strange way of.
[00:11:51] Michael: Yeah, there’s essentially a different, you’re talking about a different chassis. And there’s a certain chassis that’s a light truck chassis and there’s a certain chassis that would be [00:12:00] considered a passenger vehicle chassis.
And we’ve moved from, 20 percent of the vehicles being based in the light truck chassis to 75 percent or even more. I’ve heard 80 percent even as a recent figure that was floated for how many of those are dominating our roads now.
[00:12:18] Anthony: So as a consumer, what should I be doing? Should I be going for the heaviest possible vehicle?
[00:12:23] Fred: You should be taking the bus.
[00:12:27] Anthony: Yeah, I take the bus sometimes. There’s a good app for it.
[00:12:33] Michael: I don’t feel less safe in my tiny Volkswagen Jetta. I haven’t been hit by a giant truck. Anytime recently or ever I guess you are taking a risk but when you’re driving a smaller vehicle there’s no denying physics.
What we need are policies that don’t, slow this arms race to the bottom that prevent or disincentivize people from buying these large [00:13:00] vehicles. There have been, A number of certain countries and localities. I think we talked about London where they’re charging larger vehicles more to park in certain areas.
Washington D. C. has a. Program that charges larger vehicles more. I think during the registration process, a lot of this could be, assisted by actions at the local level at the state level around, vehicle registrations and vehicle taxing and also possibly through gas taxes.
So there’s a lot of ways to approach it. NHTSA has, NHTSA could be doing a lot more through its NCAP program. It could, do a lot more through the motor vehicle safety standards, even specifying, maximum heights for hoods to protect pedestrians and things like that might, allow larger vehicles to become safer despite their outs their larger size.
[00:13:56] Anthony: I like that of charging larger vehicles more. They take up more [00:14:00] space of the road. They weigh more. They wear out the roads more. They take up more parking spaces. They, yeah, it’s, like boats when they go to anchorages or to docks, they get charged, you
[00:14:10] Fred: get charged based on the foot. Paris, France has done has been very successful doing that impose excess fees on large vehicles like SUVs for parking for registration for basically being used around the city and clogging up the streets and it’s apparently been effective with the vehicle size in Paris is much smaller than the average vehicle size in American cities.
[00:14:34] Anthony: But it comes with a free pack of cigarettes, too, in Paris. And a
[00:14:38] Fred: baguette.
[00:14:38] Anthony: Oh, yeah. Ah, no, it’s really weighty and helpful. Is to make a donation to the Center for Auto Safety. Go to autosafety. org, click on donate. That’s right. And now, what does any of this have to do with our friends at Tesla? I teased them earlier.
What’s gonna happen with Tesla this week?
[00:14:56] Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Controversies
[00:14:56] Anthony: Dum bum, welcome to Tesla Watch. Yep, I just embedded a [00:15:00] new segment of the show. The NHTSA is investigating full self driving. I think this is part of a continuous thing we’ve talked about. From an article in the AP, investigators will look into the ability of quote unquote full self driving to detect.
and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions. And if so, the contributing circumstances for these crashes, the investigation covers roughly 2. 4 million Teslas from 2016 through 2024 model years, which is basically every single car they’ve ever created. This comes down to basically the, someone was looks like a pedestrian was killed in a low visibility conditions and by low visibility conditions, they mean at night.
Or
[00:15:44] Michael: there were no it’s a multiple situations. They don’t even mention, they don’t even actually mention in the opening resume, the darkness, they mentioned sun glare, fog, and airborne dust I’m assuming there were three crashes that were reported under [00:16:00] the standing general order by Tesla, one of which involved a fatality to a pedestrian, one of which involved an injury.
Actually, there were four reports and all of those crashes occurred in reduced roadway visibility conditions. And this is something it’s important, to note that this isn’t all Tesla models going all the way back to their beginning. I think this is only the ones where full self driving is available.
And what Tesla. Did with full self driving is it’s based on a Tesla vision. I put that in quotes Tesla vision system where they’re using cameras only, video cameras to capture any safety issues on the road ahead. We’ve been pretty strong in our objection to the belief that you can only use video cameras and produce a system or any vehicle that’s capable of driving itself.
And that’s [00:17:00] primarily because conditions like this, sun glare, fog, dust, nighttime heavy rain, there are any number of things that can happen that create problems. Create that type of situation, and we simply don’t think Tesla’s vision is going to be enough to overcome those problems, and we think it’s going to be dangerous to operate these vehicles, and they’re in no way reliable in those situations, even though the company’s not warning its customers that they that.
Full self driving can’t be reliable when there’s low visibility for cameras to use to figure out if there’s anything dangerous happening on the road or to make decisions about planning and that sort of thing. So it’s a huge problem. We thought that NITSA was going to dig into this issue more in its previous investigation into autopilots where vehicles were running into emergency responders and emergency vehicles.
NITSA chose to, Negotiate with Tesla recall [00:18:00] that really just focused on the areas where the autopilot systems could be engaged that recall. We still have large questions about its efficacy. We don’t think that the recall fix that Tesla put into place is going to prevent more autopilot deaths.
And ultimately, we don’t, we don’t think that, Tesla has any business in the full self driving game until they’ve incorporated better technologies into their systems that can, accurately detect and respond to dangers or bad road conditions.
[00:18:33] Fred: Not to mention their responsibility to warn their customers and the public about the hazards associated with these faulty control systems.
[00:18:46] Anthony: Look, guys, Tesla’s the best thing in the world. I don’t know why you don’t believe our new leader, Elon. All hail Elon! Tesla’s have a cool, quote unquote, cool function called Summon. And what this allows you to do, [00:19:00] you’re outside your car, and you’re like, I’m too lazy to walk 20 yards to my parked vehicle.
Get in there. Back it out of a parking spot. I just want to sit here, press a button, and have the car magically come to me. A loss for this feature. It’s literally like DemoWare. Whoa, it’s cool. Stupid in practicality, but anyway NBC4 Washington. Has an article about how this poor woman was hit by a Tesla in sum in summon mode.
Quoting from the article the woman saying, It’s not supposed to do this. Whereas the summoned Tesla ran into her car and kept going. And the Tesla person, however far away, is why did my car do that? It’s a stupid feature, paid for, but it just highlights that this is not at all ready for use.
[00:19:55] Michael: Yeah, that’s, there’s Frankly, shouldn’t be allowed to be on [00:20:00] vehicles. If we were smart as a country, we’d be getting crap like this off of cars immediately. And this isn’t an isolated event. There have been dozens, if not hundreds of incidents in parking lots and who knows where else involving Tesla’s using the smart summit mode, where essentially your vehicle You hit a button on your key fob or on your phone, whatever.
I’m not sure which it is with the Tesla. I think there may be multiple ways to do it, but I think it’s basically you hold down a button watch your car as it approaches you slowly, probably much slower than you could walk to it. And the car will navigate itself around obstacles in the parking lot to get to you.
It’s not just a useless function. I, I, maybe it would be useful for someone with extremely limited mobility. I don’t know that it would though. But it’s really just. It’s a bad way to go about [00:21:00] building a system. And we know Tesla’s are going to struggle. Already we’ve seen the struggles and bad weather and that sort of thing.
Bad weather happens in parking lots, too. But also parking lots have a lot of pedestrians around. They have to be detected. There’s a lot of. tight spaces and blind spots that are hard to see. And I don’t think anyone here likes to back up into a when you’re in a parking lot, it requires a lot of neck turning and focus to get the job done.
And a lot of glances at your rear camera. So there’s a lot going on in parking lots, we’re seeing Tesla’s struggle to drive themselves on, regular roads. Even if there isn’t much traffic around I, even with the person sitting there watching the car and holding the button, I still don’t think this feature is safe and, I think it should be recalled and ultimately deactivated on Tesla’s until they’ve, done a lot more testing and validation of of this feature.
[00:21:59] Anthony: We’ve [00:22:00] talked a lot on the show about vehicle to infrastructure where, you know, roadways, signage. They have some sort of ability to transmit data to vehicles on the road and they help the vehicles navigate. So I think what we’re missing here is that Tesla, Nelon, is gonna say, Hey, everyone get some Neuralink inside their body and your Neuralink will talk to the car so the car will avoid you.
And then yeah, awesome, bro. No? All right. Next Tesla story. Can’t
[00:22:28] Fred: we already use those microchips that Microsoft already injected into us with the COVID vaccines?
[00:22:34] Anthony: Hey, we don’t talk about that. We discussed we’re not talking about that. Okay, sorry.
[00:22:38] Fred: My bad.
[00:22:40] Anthony: It’s okay. He’s just, Fred’s just a jokester.
[00:22:43] Challenges with EVs for First Responders
[00:22:43] Anthony: Next Tesla story from CBC. That’s right. We went to the Canadian Broadcasting Company. This is an article about police having chased down a Tesla. Because of the driver, not because of any full self driving. The driver comes to a stop, they get out and run. And what [00:23:00] happens now is the Tesla is totaled and first responders have to get there and figure out how to disable the electrical systems here.
This is not specific issue around Tesla’s. This is a specific issue around EVs that we’ve talked about before is where the first responders on the scene, the fire departments and whatnot have to, you know where the electrical cabling is in these systems and how to disable them. It’s not like with an ICE vehicle where they know how to, they’re all more or less the same.
They can disable the vehicle done easy peasy. Each EV has a massive amount of electrical energy running through it. And unique cabling and wiring. This talks about how first responders have to basically identify the vehicle, identify the drivetrain, the specific mechanical and electrical sequence linking the engine to the wheels, and then they have to have the ability to essentially pick the vehicle apart section by section to look at the different drivetrains, the airbag system, the seatbelt pretenders, and things like that.
So essentially, we have to take [00:24:00] the vehicle apart piece by piece with computer software before anyone can get their hands on it and physically disable it. This is this is, seems excessive.
[00:24:11] Fred: We’ve talked about this in the past, and we have advocated for the application of labels to vehicles that have dangerous features so that emergency responders can very quickly and unambiguously identify Where those dangerous features are located in the vehicle.
This is what’s done in aircraft. So you know immediately upon approaching the aircraft what you have to do to rescue people who are inside the aircraft, what you have to do to stay away from jet intakes, things like that. I was happy to notice in this one article that there is at least some labeling in the Tesla.
But there should be a standard for labeling of dangerous features in all vehicles that have electronic labeling. Devices that can explode, or injure, [00:25:00] or electrocute emergency responders. I don’t understand why there’s a discussion about that. It’s blatantly obvious.
[00:25:10] Anthony: So a more clear cut example of this. So imagine you’re in your electric vehicle of choice, Tesla or not, it gets into a crash.
And the first responders have to use jaws of life to pry open the vehicle somehow. So an ICE vehicle, they can go to the A, B, or C pillar and just rip apart. And they’re not going to electrocute themselves. They’ll be fine. Electric vehicles, a lot of them, they have high voltage lines running up through the B pillar, running through the C pillar.
And so the responders don’t know this at this point. Their immediate response is how can we save somebody’s life? And now the response has to be, what kind of car is this? Which model year is it? Which drive train system, how do we disable all this stuff first? And that’s precious minutes stopping by. And they can’t train for every possible variation of how these things are set up.
So there’s gotta be a better system. Like [00:26:00] Fred was mentioning of labeling where these things are, but I think even just something even more basic than that of saying, Hey, we can’t run electrical wiring through the C pillar or through the B pillar or something like that to, you Make it so that first responders can say, Oh, okay.
I know this is always a safe part of the vehicle. We can rip apart.
[00:26:19] Michael: Mike. Yeah. I think that making it easier is important here. Luckily in this case that happened in Saskatoon there was. The driver got out and ran. It was a police chase. He was stopped by spike trips. I’m not sure it was a stolen vehicle or not, but in the case where you’ve got an occupant trapped in the vehicle, minutes are going to be far too long, particularly if there’s a fire threat.
To save that person even, a delay in reaching care because you can’t be extracted from a vehicle and emergency responders are having to, basically create a mental map of where they can and cannot. cut into the vehicle [00:27:00] or where they need, what they need to do to disable the battery and the electronics in the vehicle so that they’re not in danger.
That’s far too long and it’s, this is. A threat and it’s something that I think could be fixed by, some standardization, when a first responder is approaching an electric vehicle, there should be some standardization around how you basically disconnect the battery and all of that electricity from the vehicle.
There should be. Standards as to where the high voltage wiring is running through the vehicle. So that first responders know where they can cut a vehicle, right? When they walk up to it, they shouldn’t have to check a computer, go through a manual, go through schematics, and then be able to save someone’s life.
It should be something that’s trained and that they are aware of. And something that’s standardized across all vehicles. So there, the. This is something that could be done. I think at the federal level and immediately through rulemaking around, vehicle [00:28:00] elect, high voltage vehicle electric parts.
[00:28:04] Anthony: If you’re a first responder, let us know what you think. Go to, you can send us a note at contact at autosafety. org. And if you work on designing EVs, tell us. What you think. You can also send us at contact at autosafety. org, but you have to send us that message in the back of a hundred dollar bill.
Last Tesla story in this one sorry guys, I didn’t share with you. This is funny. This is an article in Jalopnik and it’s titled Tesla will sell you a Cybertruck light bar. That it can’t legally install. So apparently you can buy a light bar, which is, it sits on top of the windshield and basically blinds oncoming traffic.
And it’s illegal for street use. It’s illegal for Tesla to even install on your latest Cybertruck. The article sums it up perfectly. Really this light, blazes the, ah. Really this light bar is an apt summary of Tesla as any accessory can be. Poorly engineered and questionably legal. Ha.
That’s just a fun little Tesla [00:29:00] moment.
[00:29:00] Gaslighting and Self-Driving Cars
[00:29:00] Anthony: Alright, how about some gaslighting? Yeah, that sounds great. Sure. I’m gonna, I’m gonna start off gaslighting. It’s a continuation of an ongoing theme I have, which is not around GMCrews. I know you’re disappointed. It’s around Waymo’s PR system. Waymo’s PR machine. This week, Oh, they got the Wall Street Journal.
Wall Street Journal has this big fluff piece on how San Francisco learned to love self driving cars. And the article talks about how tourists love to try out self driving cars while they’re in San Francisco. Not that residents of San Francisco itself all of a sudden started loving these things. But quoting from the article, it’s basically, hey, everybody loves Waymo’s amazing.
But they interview a local there, and part of the draw for self driving cars is not having to talk to anyone. That’s what a lot of Silicon Valley is about, is how do I become more and more anti social? I don’t want to deal with people and their smells and their questions. That’s, I think, the real driving [00:30:00] force behind, behind self driving vehicles is I don’t want to talk to people, they’re gross.
What with their foods and their ethnicities, oh god. That’s my Gaslight of the Week. I was on my bike this
[00:30:14] Fred: week and I saw a yard sign. It said, Dogs in 2024. People suck. I guess that’s becoming a universal opinion.
[00:30:25] Anthony: Yeah. It’s the the Aspergering of America. Alright. Fred, what’s your gas light of the week?
[00:30:31] Fred: Mine is a small company called Ford Motor Company. And I’ve gone, never heard of them, gone to their Ford blue cruise website which will be available for you. And looked at the words they’re using there. So they’re talking about as part of our safety feature, driver facing camera. Quoting, a driver facing camera tracks eye gaze and head position to ensure your eyes stay on the road while your hands are off the wheel.[00:31:00]
A driver monitoring system like this one adds an additional level of confirmation that the driver is still engaged and can resume control at any moment. Close quote.
[00:31:11] The Problem with Resuming Control
[00:31:11] Fred: All so what’s the problem with this? The problem is nobody can resume control instantly. It takes a long time, somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds for somebody to resume control instantly.
It also doesn’t say how long you can have your eyes drift away from the road before it alerts a warning or performs any action that requires you to re engage with the wheel. So this is really just marketing bullshit that is put in there to make you feel good about it.
[00:31:41] Misleading Marketing Claims
[00:31:41] Fred: They go on to talk about 360 degree perception.
Again, quoting external sensors detect the environment around your vehicle, allowing blue crews to keep you centered in the lane at a safe distance from other vehicles and give you more space from vehicles and adjacent lanes. This situational awareness can [00:32:00] provide an extra sense of security while you drive hands free.
I was croaked. That sounds pretty good, except sensing is not the same as perception. There’s no relationship between where you put the sensors, the cameras, the radars, the light hours, the whatever you’ve got on the vehicle and its ability to perceive the danger and protect you from it. We’ll talk more about sensing versus perception, but this is a very misleading statement to suggest that you are safe because of the.
eye tracking. It simply isn’t and so for avoiding references to technical information that would allow people to evaluate The efficacy of the critical AV technology and for misleading consumers about the capabilities and shortcomings of Blue Cruise, Ford Motor Company has earned my nomination for Gaslight of the Week.
[00:32:55] Michael: Mr.
[00:32:56] Fred: Brooks.
[00:32:56] Tesla’s Safety Report Controversy
[00:32:56] Michael: All right, mine is, something we’ve probably discussed [00:33:00] before, but there was a new release of. Tesla’s safety report was updated yesterday through the third quarter of this year where they Continue to say that autopilot is you know So much safer than the average driver on the road And that you know their vehicles are in less fires than the average car on the road, but they don’t provide Any backing data for that whatsoever?
They simply provide the public with a chart that is based on you know Presumably based on some data they can point to, but they’ve continually refused now for, I want to say we’re in the seventh year of this, where Tesla is just. Putting a, putting charts up on its website, claiming that people riding in their vehicles on autopilot are safer than people riding in other vehicles without autopilot.
Meanwhile, we’re continuing to see deaths occur when autopilot is engaged in [00:34:00] these cars. We just want Tesla to present the data, the actual data. They present a report that, is a nice collection of graphs, but they are not showing anyone the actual data so that, independent researchers could confirm Tesla’s claims.
And I think that’s because their claims are false. We’ve continually seen them hype these systems and over promote them and claim the safety benefits of them, but we’ve not seen to this point any actual data that proves that Tesla needs to either put out that data, or, maybe.
Maybe stop claiming that these vehicles are safer if they can’t prove it.
[00:34:44] Anthony: So Michael, I’ve looked into where Tesla actually has their data from, and they cite Cathie Wood over at ARK Investment. Who cites Tesla, where they got their data from, and it’s the snake eating its own bullshit. Ah! And that wraps up Gaslight and [00:35:00] Illumination.
Michael gets three points, Fred gets two and a half, and I get seven. Moving on befo Before we get into the towel, this week Hey guys, you know what it is.
[00:35:09] School Bus Safety Week
[00:35:09] Anthony: This week it’s School Bus Safety Week. Oh my. That’s right, it is School Bus Safety Week. And it’s, see, it’s October 21st to the 25th.
You’ll see increased communication related to school bus safety. Blah blah. Blah, blah, blah. But Michael, I know you have more important reasons than about how great this is compared to my just flipping blah, blah, blahs.
[00:35:29] Michael: It’s cool. My safety week happens every year. And, it’s also teen driver safety week.
So the government’s wrapping up all our children, no matter what their age zero to 18 and a bundle this week on both for teen drivers, where the message is, don’t get distracted, stop using passengers, all that stuff. Stop giving passengers all the teen stuff, but also school bus safety week, which should, which focuses my attention, at least on, one fact that the center’s been working on for years, which is [00:36:00] that school buses aren’t required to have seatbelts, seatbelts are the undisputed world champion of safety.
They’ve saved more lives than any safe safety technology ever by quite a large margin. and the fact that they’re not on school buses yet is, it’s absurd. But also, it’s school bus safety week. This week is important because Representative Steve Cohen from Tennessee has introduced the school bus Safety Act, which not only provides children with for three point safety belts in all of our school buses in America, but also modernizes the fleet, and it would add automatic emergency braking to school buses, which is something all vehicles are going to have in the near future.
And, you may not have known that school buses don’t have a black box. We don’t have the informational school bus crashes that we would have in the, in passenger vehicle crashes because. There’s no data being collected. School buses don’t have electronic stability control. That’s another [00:37:00] thing the system would add, which would be really, which is significantly important in school bus rollover crashes, which happen fairly frequently due to the design and weights of school buses.
And also school buses are lacking some of the basic Fire protection systems that we see in vehicles like firewall between the engine and the passenger compartment. And the bill actually goes further to include a fire suppression system to prevent school bus engines from catching on fire. So a lot of good things in Congressman Cohen’s bill, and it’s, we endorsed that.
Dorse that bill and hope it can pass. There’s also a companion measure in the Senate that was introduced by Senator Duckworth and Senator Brown from Ohio. So hopefully, this is one of those laws that’s going to squeak through Congress at some point. And if not, maybe be included in the next infrastructure bill.
[00:37:54] Fred: I have an issue with this. Even though the recommendations in the bill are all good, [00:38:00] my birthday is October 25th. And so the association of these safety weeks with my birthday is a scurrilous attack on the Center for Auto Safety, in my opinion. I just wanted to register that.
[00:38:14] Anthony: Fred, you make an excellent point here, and I would like to point out that today is my birthday, and I agree with whatever Fred just said.
Go, people born in October. You go,
[00:38:24] Fred: boyfriend. Go, friend. Happy
[00:38:26] Anthony: 80th. Hey, alright, Fred I’m thinking of a number 1 through 10. What is it? It is 7. Ah, that would be the standard answer, but no, I have a sweet tooth. It’s 3. 14. But that’s just part of our sensing and our perception. And now it’s time for the
[00:38:46] Fred: DAO.
Thank you.
[00:38:47] Sensing vs. Perception in Vehicles
[00:38:47] Fred: I think this needs a little bit of description because people talk about sensing and perception in the same breath. Like we put a camera on our Tesla and so we perceive everything around it. Sensing is basically a [00:39:00] low level function. Anthony, you’ve probably got a picture on your camera.
that provides emotional responses for you, right? You look at it and you think of grandma delivering the turkey on Thanksgiving or something like that. It fills you with
[00:39:15] Anthony: a picture of a cat. Same thing.
[00:39:16] Fred: It fills you with all kinds of warm emotions, but it’s not your, camera that’s crying. It’s you that’s crying.
So the camera is merely sensing what’s out there, and the perception that it’s a cat, and it’s your favorite cat, and makes you cry, that’s all a higher level function. Now, cars have this same problem. Missy Cummings actually discussed this in detail. In her presentation to SAE in Ireland, and we’ll provide a link for interested listeners on our website, she talked about how difficult it was for a car and a computer to interpret a photograph in the same way that a [00:40:00] human being would, and in particular, how the cascading images that have to be interpreted.
Buy a vehicle to figure out dynamic effects are extremely difficult to do and have a lot of uncertainty associated with ’em, just to put it in perspective. Okay. If you’ve got a car that’s approaching a stationary guard object on the road it will have an image in a camera, it at some time x, and it will then process it and try to figure out what’s in the image.
It’ll take another image at some later time. Why now that those images are quite different because the car has been moving. Okay. And the object may have been moving as well. And the perspective is changing. But yet somehow the computer has got to interpret those images and those 2 disparate functions, or those 2 disparate images as being part of the same object.
And then associating those completely changed point clouds with the same object. [00:41:00] All the time when it’s approaching the vehicle at a really high rate of speed. So the perception part of that is all of the downstream processing that says, okay, these two different images I’m looking at are really the same thing.
And I need to be aware of the same thing because I’m approaching it at a very high speed. And oh, my God, here’s another image. I got to attach that as well. So perception is a very high intellectual function. The sensing is not. The sensing is really straightforward. Only bringing this up to say that folks shouldn’t be misled by a manufacturer who says I’ve got cameras on the car, or I’ve got LIDARs on the car, or I’ve got Popeye the Sailor Man on the car, saying that is the same thing as perception and understanding what it is.
That the vehicle is approaching and how I should respond to that approaching vehicle or not approaching or whatever, but whatever’s in the scene, it needs to interpret that. In ways that [00:42:00] can be interpreted by the poor programmer whose job it is to figure out the relationship between this point cloud and the safety of the people who are in the car.
All right, that’s very difficult job. So challenge people, challenge the manufacturers, ask them how this perception works, ask them how they validated the perception algorithms and, make sure. That there’s some relationship between the numbers of instruments they’re putting on the vehicle and your safety.
Because it’s currently lacking. NISA take note, by the way, that perception always lags sensing and the overall response between the sensing and the response of the vehicle. It comes in a parameter called OEDR, object event detection and response. This can be standardized and should be part of the tests for the highway suitability of vehicles that have automatic driving functions.[00:43:00]
So that NHTSA could, and NCAP in particular, set up tests and check the comparison between different vehicles to certain standardized road hazard situations. It would be a very straightforward test, and it will provide interesting metrics and useful metrics for people to figure out the relative safety of these vehicles.
Now, end of rant.
[00:43:23] Challenging Manufacturers on Safety
[00:43:23] Anthony: Does any of these manufacturers, because we’ve talked about a bunch of companies that do this stuff, from Tesla to Ford to Mercedes to Kodiak and the larger autonomous semi trucks, do any of them release any data about this?
[00:43:39] Fred: I haven’t seen any. I checked several manufacturers, Mercedes, Ford a couple others this week.
None of them even talk about the frame rate associated with the cameras. None of them talk about the frame rate associated with lidars. And that’s the fundamental information. There’s a perception in the public, one of our attentive listeners sent it to us, that the [00:44:00] computers can make, interpret this data and make decisions in nanoseconds and perform much better than a human being.
That isn’t and in fact, it’s important to note that they have to interpret several images in sequence all registered against the dynamic frame of reference in order to provide any meaningful perception of the hazards that the car is encountering. That’s a long winded answer, but I did check, haven’t found any useful information at any of the websites on the manufacturers I was looking at.
[00:44:36] Anthony: Hey, manufacturers that are listening. Tell us, share this data. There’s no. I don’t imagine there’s too much of a proprietary state secrets around these things because most of them, they’re not manufacturing their own LIDAR, they’re buying it all from the same company,
[00:44:49] Fred: right? I don’t know that. I don’t know that.
So there are different types of LIDARs out there, solid state versus mechanical. That is a very good point that who the hell knows. [00:45:00] And if Mercedes is sampling at 10 times the rate. Of Nissan, then gosh, that should be something that they talk about. And, that seems like a benefit, but how that folds into the overall perception and the ability of using that information to control the vehicle is what’s really critical.
And that’s what we’d like to see, and that’s what should be available to the public so they can make meaningful comparisons between the different level 2 and level 3 vehicles. Level four that are being offered to the public.
[00:45:35] Anthony: Listener, do you agree with us? Want to help us bother NHTSA and other people more?
Go to autosafety. org, click on donate. Fill in your credit card information or the credit card information of your parents. That’s right, while your parents are sleeping, kids, just go right into their wallets, just take it out and just, start making donations to us. Buy yourself some new Xboxes and hot pants and culottes and whatever else the kids are into.
autosafety. org[00:46:00]
I don’t even know what culottes are.
[00:46:02] Recalls Roundup: Chrysler, Honda, Hyundai, and Kia
[00:46:02] Anthony: Hey, it’s time for recalls.
Chrysler is the is looking Hey, we may be third in market share, but we’re going to become number one in recalls. We have an article linking to, that we’re linking to from MSN. And it is, they are the most, they’ve, Chrysler, Stellantis has issued, has just issued one of the most alarming recalls of the year.
The brake pedal on some 2024 Dodge Hornet and 2024 2025 Alfa Romeo Tunnels models could collapse. And I think we covered this recall last week, right? We’ve covered this. This is scary. Stellantis is really really going out of their way to show Ford who’s number one in the recall.
[00:46:43] Michael: And Ford has been leading, by leaps and bounds over the rest of the industry for the past few years.
But looks like this year Chrysler’s making a run for it. I don’t know. I thought the updated tally at the moment looks like it’s 54 to 53. Three. So at the [00:47:00] time this article was written, Chrysler was three recalls up on Ford, but Ford is closing the gap. So this race isn’t over folks. We’ve got two more months to see who wins this year, but both of those companies have struggled with quality issues for the past few years.
And by the
[00:47:16] Anthony: past few years, you mean since,
[00:47:18] Michael: Forever, since the 1960s. But, General Motors this year, look at them, for instance they’re 26. So they’re under half of what we’re seeing out of Chrysler and Ford which is interesting. And even a small, a smaller manufacturer, BMW has 30.
Ford, I guess the point here is that Ford and Chrysler are not looking great for now but you know, these typically, 20 years ago, I think we’d see a lot more fluctuation year to year. And, there wasn’t 1 manufacturer that was dominating the recall charts every year.
It. Suggests that Ford has Ford and Chrysler have had some significant problems over the [00:48:00] past few years that are even possibly worse than what we’ve seen in the past from them.
[00:48:04] Fred: Yeah, but it’s also important to know, Michael, as you have pointed out in the past, there’s 2 parameters here, right? 1 is the quality of the vehicle.
The other is the willingness of the manufacturer to share that information with the public. So we don’t know, which is driving. The overall tally here, it is important to note that it may not be all bad one way or the other.
[00:48:28] Michael: And then that’s definitely important. This could be, this could reflect the manufacturer that is just doing the utmost it possibly can to ensure that it’s vehicles are safe and that they’re recalling every problem they see But I will, particularly in Chrysler’s case, I will say, I don’t think that’s the case.
And Ford as well. They’re all trying, I don’t see them going out of their way to find recalls, but that could be the case. We just don’t have. The internal corporate information that would allow us to even [00:49:00] evaluate that.
[00:49:02] Anthony: If you have that internal corporate communication, please send it our way.
We’ll totally keep it private, man.
[00:49:07] Fred: When I was a baby, people said Ford stood for fix or repair daily. Can that possibly be
[00:49:13] Anthony: oh, I always thought that’s what Fiat was. Fix it again, Tony. Who knew? Can we start a betting pool around it? We’ll have the most recalls every year. That sounds legal, right?
We’re registered in the Isle of Man? Okay. Next recall, Honda! 720, 810 vehicles, the 2023 2024 Honda Accord and the Honda Accord Hybrid of the same year, and the Honda Civics, and they’ve got, oh, it’s a bunch of them. Due to improper production of the high pressure fuel pump, cracks can form at the solenoid core component of the fuel pump.
As a result, fuel can leak in lower mileage vehicles. When high pressure fuel pump is in operation, this can cause fire.
[00:49:54] Michael: That’s pretty much it, that we’ve got to crack high pressure fuel pump and it’s leaking and fire can [00:50:00] occur. This is a large recall. It looks like it affects most of the Accords.
And civics and CRV, I think HRVs as well that were produced in the past couple of years. And I
[00:50:12] Anthony: think they’re pretty much the same car just with a different shape on top. I think the same
[00:50:17] Michael: engine. That would make a lot of sense from a manufacturing perspective to keep your costs down. But it’s, it looks like they’re going to be getting this repair out sometime in December.
And they’re going to replace, I believe, the entire high pressure fuel pump with an improved part that won’t have this problem.
[00:50:41] Anthony: So in the meantime, can people just can owners of these vehicles just get a bunch of chewing gum, chew it up and just wrap it around that fuel pump without work?
[00:50:48] Michael: I wouldn’t recommend chewing gum or trying to repair a potential fire, just messing around with a high pressure fuel pump that’s potentially cracked could create some problems.
You could [00:51:00] also call your dealer and say, hey, can you take a look at this? I know it’s not under, the recall is not official yet. Can you take a look at this and see if you see any advanced evidence that I’ve got a cracked fuel pump? High pressure fuel pump, because if so, I don’t want to drive this car until you have the better part available.
[00:51:17] Fred: Also use your nose. If you smell gas don’t drive the car.
[00:51:22] Anthony: But that’s a great suggestion, Michael. Anytime we talk about these recalls in the show, there’s always, a few weeks out to a few months before our repair is ready. But I like this. Just call up your dealer and be like, you guys are gonna have to pay for this anyway.
Can you take a look at it now? You might already have the part in stock. Fix it.
[00:51:38] Michael: That probably, every recall is so different that it’s, some recalls calling your dealer is not going to get you anything, right? If there’s a software defect that, the dealer’s not going to be able to fix on the spot, they’re going to have to wait for the manufacturer to give them that.
But then there’s other, Situations where a recall might involve some very simple [00:52:00] problem that, a dealer could, or even if they’re even recalls that a consumer could correct that are so simple in scope, but it completely depends on the type of recall. In this case, it might be.
The high pressure fuel pump might be, a matter of just popping your hood and taking a look at it. That might be something, if you’re friendly with your dealer and the service department, that may be something they’d be happy to do for you to just to ease your mind or possibly to detect that, you do have this problem and you should, maybe ask for a loaner from the dealer while you wait for it.
for the recall to occur. So it’s very recall dependent. Just in this case, this is something that’s going to happen while the vehicle is in operation and the fuel pump is activated. So this isn’t going to be a fire problem that you have to worry about parking indoors. This isn’t a park outside recall.
Unlike the next recall on our list, which is the hydrogen gas leak in the Hyundai, right?
[00:52:58] Anthony: Oh, okay. I wasn’t going to go to that one [00:53:00] neck, but I will go to that one next. This is Hyundai 1, 545 vehicles, the 2019 to 2024. Hyundai Nexo, never even heard of this one. It’s got some problems with thermally activated pressure release pressure relief device.
Oh, it’s just sounds like it has, nevermind. It has bloating.
[00:53:19] Michael: Yeah. This one’s just interesting really, because it’s not something we see very often, if at all, I can’t recall too many recalls that were around, hydrogen vehicles, first of all, which are somewhat rare. But also, in this case, there’s a, some type of vent that’s supposed to prevent over pressurization of the fuel tank.
But actually it’s. Become the problem because a bulb in the vent fractures and allows hydrogen gas to be discharged during operation also can happen. The warning they’re putting a park outside warning on this because it looks like their major concern is that People are [00:54:00] going to park in a confined space, such as a garage where hydrogen gas could collect and then be ignited, which would result in what, Fred, a pretty significant explosion and certainly a fire risk.
So this was an interesting recall.
[00:54:18] Fred: So if you’re in the open for example, a piggly wiggly parking lot, then it’s not a hazard. Is that right?
[00:54:27] Michael: And they don’t, I’m sure it could be if if you’ve got an ignition source right where the hydrogen is leaking, it doesn’t really dig deep into that in the announcement, but it looks like what they’re most worried about here is that these vehicles are going to be parked in an enclosed space.
And the hydrogen is going to continue to leak out and pose a problem.
[00:54:50] Fred: By the way for attentive listeners, that hydrogen burning in a car is not the same thing as hydrogen bombs exploding the Bikini Atoll just to be clear about [00:55:00] that. I don’t think that all the presidential candidates have got that clarified in their own minds.
[00:55:06] Anthony: From this recall report, it says under the section identification of any warning that can occur. And this is amazing. During the event, a loud wind rushing noise can be heard, accompanied by a white fog like cloud near the rear of the vehicle. Oh my god. If I’m driving my car and I’m hearing that, I’m like I’ve had a good run.
Time’s up. Ah. All right. Last recall. That’s right, people. Coming out of your hypnosis. Kia 14,163 vehicle, the 2024 Kia EV nine, the 2025 Kia EV nine. I dunno why that separately. But due to a software logic error, the instrument cluster screen may become intermittently blank at vehicle startup. Resulting in the driver’s inability to see certain telltales and indicators required by FMVSS 101, such as wait, the odometer and the speedometer.
Oh my God. So you go to start the [00:56:00] car and like your gauges are just gone. Yeah. That’s a fun time. I want the fog coming out of my car instead.
[00:56:08] Michael: I don’t think you do it. This one sounds it’s certainly not safe to drive around without a speedometer and odometer or the turn signal indicator or anything else that’s on your your oil pressure, your overheating, your seat belt lights, your airbag warning lights.
There’s just dozens of things that pop up on your screen. I don’t know if any of you have ever had this experience. But anytime something like that pops up in my car, I typically have to go to the owner’s manual and look it up because there’s some new ones there that defy, uh, logic sometimes and the way they’re labeled.
It’s interesting to figure those out. But in this case, the. It’s a software problem. It looks like they’re just going to have to do some. Actually, it looks like they’re going to replace the component. It’s not really clear [00:57:00] here whether or not they’re just going to update your software or replace the component.
But in any case, if you’re an owner of one of these Vehicles. It looks like they’re just going to, Ooh, wow. It interestingly, I find it looks like they’re just going to update it by an over the air update for these vehicles, because these are the Kia EV nine. So they’re advanced, they’re connected vehicles and they’re going to just, it looks like they’re just going to get this update to their car and that the owners are going to be notified on Halloween.
So expect a treat from Hyundai and Kia on Halloween.
[00:57:31] Anthony: So Michael this is going to be fixed by an over the air update. Can you read a little further? What caused this problem to begin with? What caused which problem to begin with? This software bug. I’ll give you a hint. It was caused by an previous over the air update.
Over the air updates people, done by humans. So they can just break things too. You’re not getting new features. You’re just getting new [00:58:00] potential bugs. Cause that’s what software is just, potential different bugs. And unfortunately this one was caused by an over the air update. And they’re like, Oh, we didn’t fix that.
So let’s discontinue that recall and then have a new recall. And we’re going to fix it with the same magic of over the air updates. And, cross our fingers, dot our toes that this one doesn’t introduce a new bug.
[00:58:22] Michael: Hopefully they get it right this time.
[00:58:24] Anthony: I hope so too. If only they had a way to test these things.
Hey,
[00:58:29] Fred: could you elaborate on dotting your toes? I don’t know.
[00:58:33] Anthony: Hey, listen, look, I don’t know. I think he was trying to say
[00:58:38] Michael: dot your eyes and cross your T’s and he got that all mixed up.
[00:58:42] Anthony: I can’t
[00:58:43] Michael: unless you’re dotting your toes these days. I don’t know.
[00:58:45] Anthony: Yeah. It’s a new policy. All right. We’ll
[00:58:47] Michael: go with that.
That sounds good.
[00:58:49] Anthony: Okay.
[00:58:50] Concluding Remarks and Farewell
[00:58:50] Anthony: And with that, listeners, thank you for spending another hour or so of your life with us and until next time. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye, everybody.
[00:58:59] Fred: For more [00:59:00] information, visit www. autosafety. org.