Life in the fast lane… it’s not great.

Introduction to the Podcast

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.

Welcome to today’s episode where we read a book called it can’t happen here. Oh wait, no, we’re living in that. Ah! Welcome to the Center for Autosafety Podcast, people. Hi, my name’s Anthony and I’ve never done donuts in a salt flat, or on a salt flat. Neither have I. No. No. Fred, morning, gentlemen. How are you?

You seem like somebody who might’ve gone high speed racing on a salt flat.[00:01:00]

I’ll take that as no. Okay.

The Absurdity of Car Commercials

Anthony: The reason I bring up this thing is there’s this you can go to powertripfilm. com. Whoa. And it’s a pretty good documentary showing that. The U. S. car culture, particularly around advertising, really highlights these absurd ways people should never ever use their cars.

Speeding at high speeds, doing tricks and whatnot, and a tiny little type that says, do not do this at home, professional drivers. They don’t want us to talk about, we’ve inserted a roll cage inside the car, the driver’s wearing a helmet and a three part harness that you can’t get inside your vehicle. But what hit me is every car commercial they have them racing around on salt flats.

One, I’ve never seen a salt flat in person. And two do people, is this a common thing? This I should be asking the next time I purchase a car. Hey, how does this do out in the Mojave Desert?

Fred: I’ve seen a salt flat and one of the remarkable characteristics is that they’re really flat.

Michael: It’s really flat and really unregulated [00:02:00] as to what you can do out there and cheap, right? If you’re going to film a commercial, why would you rent a, a racetrack when you can put all these vehicles out on a salt flat for minimal cost and do all your doughnuts?

Fred: But I’ve got a question for you, Michael, if I were.

Going to buy a knife and I looked at a commercial and showed somebody being stabbed with a knife. Would that be okay? Because you know what these commercials do on the cars they show people With illegal behavior and as a sales point for the car and it just struck me that’s really odd that people would use illegal representations of their product as a sales point and that’s okay.

If

Michael: there are endless examples, if you watch that movie of that type of advertising, and it’s been going on for as long as I’ve been alive. Fred, I don’t know how those ads were in the [00:03:00] sixties. But there were black and

Fred: white back then,

Michael: but we’ve all seen ads that have this.

It’s either a huge macho edge or, trucks climbing up massive structures, vehicles racing. And that’s how they sell cars to Americans who are supposed to be not doing any of those types of behaviors on streets. And it’s just something that. The first amendment and allows for in commercial speech, even though the behavior is irresponsible.

It’s, it’s very similar in many ways to what we’ve criticized Musk and others for with the autonomy, pretending that things are autonomous, pretending that you can actually drive like they do in these commercials on America’s streets is dangerous. But it’s something that has never been.

It’s net. The industry has never really been taken on and told, in Europe, I believe, and definitely in England. I think that the advertising is completely different. You’re not allowed to show that type of thing. And they have a crash rate that [00:04:00] is three or four times less than ours over there.

So it’s the culture is very different.

American Car Culture and Safety

Michael: We have a. Less safety concerned culture in America. And I think that the power trip movie does a very good job of highlighting the gaps in America’s safety culture.

Anthony: Yeah. The movie is interesting. And then it shows that auto manufacturers, even the humble Toyota Prius, they have that going high speed down the road and all of these car companies are like, they’re selling speed but they’re like, Hey, our safety features, they don’t work at speed.

It doesn’t. Hey, we can go really fast, but all that safety we’re trying to sell you. Wow. You don’t know how to make automatic emergency braking work at speed, which is,

Michael: We only have, 10, 000 plus people dying due to speed on the roads every year. And it’s, there’s just a cognitive.

Disconnect there. I think between the man, the manufacturers want to sell the vehicles and they leave it up to us to get ourselves in troubles based on the representations they’ve made about the abilities of those [00:05:00] vehicles. And it’s more than a shame. That, that type of advertising, you know, and the movie also looked at video games and other things involved in American culture.

And, some of the macho masculine toxic masculinity that that, that. occurs and causes some of these issues. And it’s You know, it comes down to, every individual needs to keep their head on straight when they’re on the road and there really aren’t, we really don’t have the laws and the structures in America to be able to accomplish that we’ve seen, we could do a lot better on speeding and aggressive driving.

We have the technology right now to program cars, not to violate the speed limits, but that’s not getting put into cars because. Americans refuse to allow that to happen. We have this kind of extended view of freedom where we want the freedom to be able to break the law and, harm our fellow human beings, which is somewhat telling, but also, looking around at what’s going on in the world, not all that surprising.[00:06:00]

Anthony: And that was your positive affirmation moment. Breathe in, breathe out. Ah, continuing on this thread of what’s happening in the world I live in.

Tesla and Government Ethics

Anthony: So the president invited this strange guy who wears too much makeup to sit in his cars in front of the White House the other day. That’s right, President Elon Musk invited this guy who used to run a reality show, Donnie Trump to a Tesla commercial that they filmed in front of the White House.

That’s right, they put a whole bunch of Teslas in front of the White House so this big goofy guy could go, Wow, look at this. Isn’t this amazing? These are the great thing. Oh, look how much they’re selling it for. This is the financing you can get. I kid you not, this giant piece of shit walked around saying, Hey, this is how much this cost.

This is a good, I’m going to buy one of these. Now, I’ve never personally seen Donald Trump drive a car. I’ve seen him pretend to drive a truck, which was adorable. But I. I don’t even know if he has a driver’s license.

Fred: He doesn’t need [00:07:00] one. Apparently the laws don’t apply to him, as we’ve seen in a lot of recent court cases.

Anthony: Excellent. I bet he’s gonna drive an assault flat really fast. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, we’ve never seen a president turn the White House lawn into a car dealership before, which is essentially what happened yesterday. I think It’s an obvious warning sign that, our government is far too close to corporate power in this country.

But beyond that, it’s a clear violation of ethics and even ethics, federal ethics laws, whether that’s ever going to be Enforced. I doubt we didn’t see a lot of enforcement of federal ethics laws in the first Trump administration. And frankly, we’re not seeing a lot of enforcement of federal ethics laws period anymore.

So there’s a pretty clear problem with what they’re doing. And it should scare everyone that we have this. It’s collusion at the top particularly, involving Tesla, which is, you don’t see the [00:08:00] president doing this for GM and Ford and for all the other American automakers. I can’t imagine that they’re all thrilled.

They’re all too thrilled with that either.

Fred: I think I figured out what Doge really stands for. Stands for Destruction of Government Ethics.

Anthony: Hi, all. That’ll be upcoming on Fred’s new podcast called Acronyms.

Fred: No. I’ve reading, I’ve been reading a book on cryptology, so I’ve looked behind the covers to see what it really means.

Got the hidden meaning there.

Michael: We, I did find something to agree with our president with during that whole thing though. He said he’s going to pass on this, the Tesla self driving technology. Absolutely. Donald J. I agree with that.

Anthony: You heard it here first. Michael Brooks, Donald J. Trump, best friends for life.

I wonder what he’ll think of the Mercedes because we’ve talked about this before.

Mercedes Level 3 Driving System

Anthony: So Mercedes is the only manufacturer in the U. S., I believe, that has a level three driving system. For those not paying attention, [00:09:00] level three driving allows you under limited, restricted areas to drive hands free.

That means you can read a book and watch a movie, and then at the last second, the car’s going to go, ah, I failed. You’re dead. That’s what level three driving is. But Mercedes, at least I, I applaud them for this. They’re saying when their car is in level three driving mode, it’s going to turn on these turquoise lights outside the car to let everybody else around, that there is no one at the wheel.

Michael: Yeah. Remember Chrysler has a level three system. It’s just not putting it into cars yet, but they wanted to let us know that they have.

Anthony: I know what level three is. I just, I want you to tell me what it is.

Michael: This is something I think is actually great. I like to be notified when a vehicle around me is operating under computer control.

Every time I have a Tesla approaching me or coming up from behind. I wonder, is it operating with full control of the human and it would. It would [00:10:00] prevent me from having quite as much anxiety, I’m sure, if there were turquoise lights that turned on every time one of those vehicles was in full self driving or autopilot mode.

I think it’s great to let people around you know that, yeah, there’s really not a human controlling this right now. So while this thing may not be operating drunk, it’s operating under the influence of a computer. And we know computers aren’t any more perfect than humans at this point. And. It’s a good thing, I think.

And it’s something we won’t not just for, level three, I think you could make an argument that even level two vehicles could include these types of warnings. I certainly think that they should be included on Tesla’s operating at level two. All the way up through, level four, level five, if that exists or ever does, it’s great for people around an autonomous vehicle to know that it’s operating autonomously.

I think we’re fully behind Mercedes on this. This is rolling out in Germany though. Not yet in Nevada and I believe California may be [00:11:00] approving Mercedes to operate level three. So we’ll have to wait and see if this makes its way across the pond.

Fred: I think any time a vehicle is being driven by a computer, this, there should be distinct signage on the vehicle that warns people.

So I think this is a good step in that direction. But I agree with you that any Level 2 vehicle that’s being operated by a computer, or being driven by a computer, no matter how briefly, should also have distinct signage. Or something that lets people know that they’re, that is under computer control.

It’s also interesting that Mercedes, excuse me, tacitly acknowledges that they should let people know that the vehicle is under under computer control, rather than under human control. This is both interesting, useful, and somewhat revealing about the intent behind the [00:12:00] designer’s car technology.

Anthony: I like this idea too. I’m not sure if turquoise is the right color to use. I’m thinking in bright sunlight, you’re not going to see it. I think they, the driver should have to put a giant clown shoe on the roof of the car so you can see that in all lighting conditions. Or something of that, or, just, I don’t know, something much more dramatic than a turquoise light.

Fred: Yeah, that would be distinct. Yeah, I agree with that.

Michael: Okay. It’s distinct blue. Blue is a good color though. It’s one of those that’s not present in nature a lot, stands out pretty well. So I’m fine with turquoise, I’m assuming they made it turquoise because they don’t want to make it police blue.

I think they made it turquoise

Anthony: because it’s part of their brand colors.

Michael: And that makes sense too, right? Yeah. But I think it will get

Anthony: washed out in bright sunlight. I don’t think you’ll see it, but hey, if you see a Mercedes on the road. Avoid it. Actually, that’s a good advice. If you see another car on the road, avoid it.

Avoid it. Yeah. Don’t hit it. Yeah. [00:13:00] Don’t hit another car. You’re not in a race. Look to our friends in the insect kingdom. Is that what they are? Are they, are Anthropods? Is that right? Look to the ants. The ants.

Michael: Oh, the ants.

Anthony: Yeah, so I’m jumping right to the ants.

Ants and Traffic Behavior

Anthony: Yep, cause scientists have been studying ants and They say, hey, ants don’t get into traffic jams.

Granted, I’ve never seen an ant drive a car, but hey, scientists, what do I know? From an article in Scientific American, I’m quoting, They found that ants don’t jam because they travel in groups of 3 to 20 that move at nearly constant rates while keeping good distances between one another, and they don’t speed up to pass others.

Nor do they travel drunk or text. And they’ve solved automatic emergency braking. So this is pretty neat cause human drivers don’t do any of this. It seems like it’s always a constant competition. And I think I told you guys this story, I was on the New York State 301s, I’m in the right lane, it’s two lanes, [00:14:00] the right lane going, speed limit ish, and there’s a guy behind me honking, crawling up my rear end, but there’s cars in the left lane, the passing lane, going past me no problem.

The guy eventually gets over there and is looking at me like, Giving me the hand gestures. And I’m like why didn’t you just pass me? See, he would never make it as an insect.

Michael: Yeah. And I find this really interesting for one main reason. The ants are working cooperatively, right?

And so they’re not passing each other because their whole focus is on the community and getting the job done, which is. Getting everyone back and forth, whatever they’re doing safely. Yeah. And whereas, humans are, we’re not operating collectively, we’re operating individually.

And I think we need to adopt more of a collective mindset. I think the safer drivers mindset of, I want to get from point a to point B safely. Is a community based or communal based [00:15:00] mindset, whereas I want to get from point A to point B as fast as I can without getting pulled over by the police is an individual mindset that kind of is at the root of a lot of our traffic problems.

So I would like to say that we can adopt road systems that support a more ant type driving System where we would have, no passing, basically what kind of what we hear about with the future and autonomous vehicles that you’re going to have these platoon type setups where all the vehicles are operating together in a line and everyone is safe.

That sounds great. I just it probably goes over like a lead balloon in America where self concern seems to be much more of a focus than the good of the community and the good of everyone around us. So while I think I’d love to see us behave like ants in this respect I’m not sure if that fit is going to happen in America, but it’s certainly interesting.[00:16:00]

Fred: There are thousands thousands of species of ants in the world, and they don’t all behave this way. Certainly the carpenter ants in my porch don’t behave this way. So I agree with Michael that this is the long been part of the rationale that the industry is using to say if we just let these.

Computers, drive, everything will be great because none of them will speed, they’ll always conform to the traffic laws. Yeah, I agree, that’s not reality. Somebody’s going to want to get to the airport ahead of somebody else, and so they’ll just hit the cruise control five miles an hour faster, and hopefully they, won’t run into anything.

It sure would be good if everybody could just get along, but that’s been a lament of lots of people for a long time. And then there’s

Michael: The other issue here really is that, what happens when you have an ant that’s just so slow that it’s painful for everyone behind it, right? Don’t you have to pass [00:17:00] then in the interest of, not necessarily safety, but at least keeping everybody on schedule. If you can’t platoon, if the car in front of you on a 55 mile per hour highway is going 20 miles per hour, I wonder what the ants do in that situation. Did they push the slow ant off the road and keep moving or, things happen quick in nature.

There are probably some things that ants can do that that we can’t do as humans like pushing grandma off the side of the road so that everyone can move a little faster. But it’s certainly interesting to, to see how other organisms deal with traffic.

Fred: I think it’s a great business opportunity though, to make really little speed limit signs and put them around everywhere.

There’s got to be a way to monetize that.

Anthony: I had no idea this discussion would go this far, or this strange.

Fred: Shame on you for bringing it up.

Anthony: I look, every week Michael’s trying to put an article about ants into our notes. It’s been going on for a while and I’ve been ignoring them. But I was like, okay, I’ll throw him a bone this week, we’ll cover [00:18:00] his ant story.

Who knew he had such an obsession? But I will,

Michael: We value the individual over the community in so many ways and transportation, right? We’ve seen not just in the, in speed which I’ve mentioned, but also, vehicle weights, we want people to choose their gigantic truck of choice.

We’ve got these convenience features like automated cruise control, autopilot, those types of things that have no safety benefit, only benefit the individual that we’re allowed to be loaded into cars, resulting in deaths of people. We’ve got, very little. Enforcement or prevention of distracted driving in the law that is, so that people can use their damn phones while they’re driving.

We even saw people objecting to alcohol monitoring devices and vehicles under the guise of freedom. So this very expansive definition of freedom that has been adopted by a lot of Americans in cars contributes to the fatalities on our road. That’s where I think the answer onto something.

Fred: Okay. But [00:19:00] to conclude this discussion, I think that it’s up to the two of you to talk about ants in your pants, and it shouldn’t always be my responsibility to make bad jokes.

Anthony: No. No.

Fred: No.

Anthony: Okay.

Frustrations with Modern Car Technology

Anthony: So we go from ants to, and they have a sense of community, so let’s go to the individuals who are like man, cars are, there’s too many tech features in it and they don’t work.

I don’t really like it. There’s an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, The Latest Car Technology is Starting to Drive People Nuts. Ha, I see what they did there, starting to drive people. Quoting from the article this is about a guy in Canada, a 36 year old engineer in Montreal, scurried out into the 15 degree night in shorts and flip flops, thinking that he’d be back indoors quickly, because he was trying to remotely start charging his Volkswagen.

But the car doors wouldn’t open because their sensor equipped handles were on the fritz in the cold. He ended up having to shimmy into his car through the trunk. But they don’t point out in the article that this guy likes to do that all the time. But his complaint is, just [00:20:00] give me a normal door handle.

I agree. What’s wrong? We’ve talked about this with the emergency exit from cars, like mechanical things work pretty good. Yeah,

Michael: there’s this cool factor that that vehicle door handers, and I think it comes from it’s probably started with Tesla’s little electric. Door latches and electric door handles that are flush with the vehicle.

And then I think they pop out somehow when you’re about to enter the car and use it. So I think a lot of manufacturers have gone with this kind of whiz bang door handle thing. And what that’s resulted in is that the. The complaint rate with J. D. Power on door handles has gone from, I think, 0. 2 per 100 problems per 100 vehicles to 3.

1 problems for 100 vehicles. So in the last 4 years, that complaint rate is as. Gotten 15 hot times higher than it was in 2020. So door handles work. They work great. [00:21:00] Just like we talked about, buttons in cars, buttons work great. And people knew where they were and they weren’t distracting.

And then some of those buttons were moved to touch screens and now they’re distracting and they seem to be causing some problems. So there’s a lot of things that are coming out on cars and the guys of technology and these whiz bang features that. People, they seem to sell cars with this, Hey, look at me factor.

I’m a cool I’m a cool cat car, but at the same time, they don’t work as well as what we used to have, and beyond touchscreens also their capacitive buttons, which sets your finger versus you being able to push and verify that something’s been done. I don’t have any capacitive switches.

in my vehicle. I don’t know if either one of you do, but I know that things like that don’t always work for me. The the faucets in airports or other types of bathrooms where you have to, they have to sense your hands under the faucet before the water will come out. Those don’t always work for me.

[00:22:00] It’s like I’m invisible to them. So I would be a little bit I’m You know, worried that in a vehicle with capacitive switches that relies on sensing my presence that I might not be visible but who knows? There’s just so many things going into vehicles now that, are. Not really important to the fact that you want to get from point A to point B, but are there simply to attract buyers.

And also, as the article points out, all of these whiz bang features, when it comes time to resell the car, don’t really do a lot for the vehicle’s value. Base models tend to do the best because they have less of these electronic features that they’re. And the electronic features just like your computer at home, have a short shelf life and aren’t exactly working or as wonderful six years from now as they were when you bought the vehicle.

Anthony: Fred, do you want to let Michael know why these sensors don’t pick him up, or should I tell him?

Fred: I just wanted to set the reference here. Michael, are you [00:23:00] still driving that 72 Dodge Dart? Oh, I switched to a Gremlin.

Anthony: So Michael, unfortunately the reason these sensors don’t pick you up is, we haven’t had the heart to tell you, but you died in the middle of season two, like the fifth episode.

We’re just letting you know now. You’re just an AI right now.

Michael: Wow. I knew that I lost some emotion, but I, I, it seems to be going pretty well, so I don’t have any complaints. Death is good.

Anthony: Fred, you’re muted, but you seem very animated and death is good. I was just going to

Fred: say, now that Michael’s a movie star, maybe he’s got better visibility than he did before.

Oh. So I’d go and try those airport Sinks again, Michael. Should work better this time.

Anthony: I feel bad that you have to go use the airport bathroom all the time. I don’t know what the situation is like in your home, but you’re like, I’d rather go out to Dulles.

Fred: We shouldn’t go too deeply into that, I think.

Anthony: Great. Good. I get the sense, seriously, now [00:24:00] that do you guys ever feel that maybe we’re living in a world now that’s 15 year old boy? Cause a lot of these car features are just kinda as a 15 year old boy, come on, think back, we were all there. Hey, wouldn’t this be cool? And that’s the extent of the thought.

Is wouldn’t this be cool, and you never put any sort of practicality. I could work for Doggy. Elon, I could work for you.

Michael: Wouldn’t this be cool? And I can charge these folks an extra few bucks a month on a subscription and make a lot more money over the life of the vehicle than I would just selling a vehicle like I would traditionally someone where they have availability of all those options like the guy in this article points out.

that he’s paying an extra 15 a month just to be able to start his car remotely. Over the, the what vehicles are now is a 13 year life over 13 years, 1, 500 a month. 15 a month turns into about 2, 400 over the life of your vehicle. So when you, [00:25:00] it’s a calculation, you may need to.

Form on a car. Now, when you buy one, how much are my subscriptions to the things I thought I was going to get with this car going to cost me or the life of the vehicle and add that to your calculation of how much the car is going to cost you.

Anthony: Yeah. The article mentions that one person he likes to remotely warm up his Toyota Tundra but he has to pay 15 a month to use the app to do that.

That’s insane. But hey, not all is bad. Some drivers are, from the article, drivers are most enthusiastic about tech features such as wireless phone charging pads, heated and ventilated seats, rain sensing wipers, and built in vacuum cleaners. Cars have built in vacuum cleaners?

Michael: That’s the only good thing I’ve ever heard recently about new tech.

I would love that.

Anthony: That sounds amazing. I’ve never heard of that.

Michael: I want a house like that.

Anthony: Oh, I’ve seen a house like that. But that’s not what this show’s about.

Zoox and Autonomous Vehicles

Anthony: Hey, let’s go to let’s talk silly AV cars. [00:26:00] We’ve talked about this adorable little box with wheels. Zoox! That’s right. Jeff Bezos, one of his little projects, along with Fallick Shake Rocket Chips and the Washington Post has a little A.

V. company, a robo taxi called Zooks. And for whatever reason, this has a interior layout tech bros seem to like, where it’s two bench seats facing each other. Because apparently they think that people want to get into a car and stare directly into the face of whoever they’re with. I’ve never had this urge.

I don’t know why people are into it. So anyway, Zoox is it doesn’t have any steering wheels or pedals or manual controls because it’s all just the future, man. So from the Washington Post, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report was produced as a part of a review last year of an unusual vehicle by Amazon Zoox.

It doesn’t have a steering wheel or human controls and has no way for a person to drive. Zoox has asserted that the vehicle’s technology, backed by artificial [00:27:00] intelligence, man, complies with the agency’s standards. But the NHTSA report documents apparent non compliance with eight safety rules. Unfortunately, none of these safety rules are bench seats that face each other.

Michael: Yeah, so it’s

Anthony: the,

Michael: so this is basically my gaslight of the week. It’s been a long gaslight in progress over at Zoox, where they basically said, We’re going to be we’re the first AV company. They said this, I think in November, 2023, we’re the first AV company to self certify that our vehicle meet meets motor vehicle safety standards which at the time, we looked at and we’re like there’s simply no way.

You can’t do it. This vehicle doesn’t have mirrors. It doesn’t have a lot of things that are required. Zoox. Thought they could gaslight NHTSA and say, we’re meeting all this. We don’t need to meet the requirement for mirrors because this car doesn’t need mirrors. Therefore, that part of the federal motor vehicle safety standards shouldn’t apply to us.

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and Zoox’s Self-Certification

Michael: That’s essentially the argument for all these [00:28:00] standards that they won’t meet. That’s not how the federal motor vehicle safety standards work. You gotta have mirrors. You even have to have, as they found out, and if you read the report, you’ve got to have mirrors. Sun visors in your vehicle. So essentially what they’re doing is what happened here was right after Zoox claimed to be able to self certify this vehicle in 2023.

And it’s a said we’re going to take a look at this. So they opened up what they call an audit query where they. We’re investigating this self certification by Zoox. And as part of that, they sent a team out to Zoox to take a look at a couple of these vehicles. And they were only able to look at them in a non destructive fashion.

So there are safety standards that you can do measurements and you can look at a vehicle in some of these vehicles. Circumstances that, doesn’t have mirrors, doesn’t have certain components and say that violates the FMDSS. And [00:29:00] so NHTSA did that.

NHTSA’s Investigation and Transparency Issues

Michael: Now, they didn’t make this report public.

They, this was required, acquired by a Washington Post reporter who put in a public records request with California. This report had been submitted somehow to the California DMV or one of those agencies in California, but had not been. posted by NHTSA. So NHTSA’s, this report’s been out since December.

So NHTSA’s been basically sitting on this for three months. It’s not in the investigative file for the audit query that they’re conducting. So that’s bad that NHTSA’s not being more transparent about, their activities. And this is a pretty important subject, whether a manufacturer that’s claiming to be able to self certify a vehicle is actually able to meet that bar.

They’re not. I’m not sure where this goes. Is Zooks in violation of federal motor vehicle safety standards because they’ve had these vehicles operational on the roads? Are they subject to fines and civil penalties? That’s possible. You can’t [00:30:00] just invent a certification and then put a vehicle on the road and expect there not to be any consequences.

Zoox’s Noncompliance and Safety Concerns

Michael: So the other part of this is, this study was conducted and did not look at any of the destructive testing that the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards require. There’s no side impact, rear impact, frontal impact, front impact. Crashing going on here zoops has performed some crash testing.

They have a video on youtube about it But it’s hard to tell from that whether They’re trying to meet federal motor vehicle safety standards or just showing that these vehicles can survive their crash test It’s a little unclear but when you see that zoops has you know Eight plus noncompliances in their vehicles based on just a non destructive look at the cars.

It really makes you wonder, how these vehicles are actually going to perform in crash tests. And when it really comes to, dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s on safety, [00:31:00] have they done the work required on the crash worthiness level, if they can’t even figure out that, Hey, I need to have.

The proper type of glass in my windshield, which is an area they screwed up on it. And in these Duke’s vehicles, they had, the windshields were both made out of an eighth. It’s an a four glazing when that’s not allowed in windshields in the United States. So it looks like they need to go back to the drawing board and do some more work on these things.

And also they could have used this year to file for an exemption with Nitsa versus just claiming that they have certified. And that probably would have gotten them a little farther at this point. They could have at least gotten an exemption, possibly for the vehicles that they’re planning to test and deploy on the roads.

And now they’ve really gotten nowhere because they haven’t filed a petition for exemption for all these motor vehicle safety standards, but they’re clearly not meeting. Um. This is all probably I hope the listeners eyes aren’t blazing over yet. But, this is a there’s some issues [00:32:00] in this compliance that are important, right?

No sun visor on these vehicles. Nobody’s driving them. Sunlight getting in the eyes of a passenger. Maybe that’s not a big deal, but. There are also rules that they’re violating around defogging and defrosting system and windshield wipers as a passenger in a V. Do you need the ability to see out of the vehicle so that you could, possibly hit an emergency stop button or take control in some way. If there’s an emergency, I’d argue. Yes. I think we’d all argue. Yes, that’s an area that they violated. Do you need mirrors or, a video equivalent of mirrors to be able to exit the vehicle safely to make sure there are no vehicles in front of you behind you?

Possibly. Yeah. So there’s still some safety concerns in these vehicles and the way they approach this whole.

Gaslight of the Week: Zoox’s Approach to Safety

Michael: problem is a perfect nomination for Gaslight of the Week. So that’s who’s getting it [00:33:00] from me.

Anthony: That’s a pretty good one. I like this. I like, especially because tax season’s coming up and self certification is an excellent way to do your taxes as well.

That’s right. When you’re looking at things just like this doesn’t apply to me. Cross it out. You can become a billionaire too, but know what you can do with your taxes. You can go to autosafety. org, click on donate, and I’m not an accountant or anyone who works in that field and qualified to give you any sort of financial or legal advice, but I think you can get a tax deduction.

Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a nonprofit. It’s charitable donation. Go there. autosafety. org. Click on donate. We’re still here? Yeah, we’re still here. What? What happened to Fred there? Fred, you okay? I think Fred froze on us. Which is fine. Because further in this Washington Post article, there is the Secretary of Transportation, former reality show star, Sean P.

Duffy, has said creating a path to get more autonomous vehicles on the road is a priority. It is a priority, Michael. That’s right. As [00:34:00] long as they self certify away, which is gonna lead me into my gaslight. Are you ready for it? I think you’re ready for it. I’m ready. He gets skeptical with his face. Fred’s still frozen.

I think he has to log back in.

Waymo’s Profitability and Autonomous Vehicle Market

Anthony: Is Waymo. That’s right. I’m going, I’m sticking with Waymo. I did this with GM Cruise. It comes down to basic mathematics. And so this is my message to Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet, which owns Waymo. Now, Sundar you came from McKinsey Company, so you understand basic mathematics.

There’s no way Alphabet ever becomes profitable! Never ever wait.

Michael: Alphabet or Waymo?

Anthony: Oh, I’m sorry. Waymo. Waymo. Wait, sorry, wait. Yeah, wait, sorry. Lemme send out. There’s no way Waymo ever becomes profitable. If anything, it is a giant liability sinkhole for you. It will be the death of your company. It is a giant morass.

[00:35:00] Think of the amount of time you’ll have to spend with your head far up, Musk and Trump’s butt. To even get anywhere with this. Stop it.

Michael: Do you think so? Do you, look, if autonomous vehicle, if Waymo’s clearly the I think, in my mind at least, and maybe some, someone would argue with this, but I think they’re clearly the leader.

And much further ahead than, certainly than Tesla and probably further ahead, a good bit ahead of Zooks and some of the other people who might be contenders. We seen Apple, GM and others drop out of the race. And I think that was partially because they didn’t see a future market.

They are having some problems, but also because, they, Waymo was. What’s further out than them and doing a better job. So ultimately, if autonomous vehicles become a real thing, if there are, robo taxis everywhere, if people are someday buying them, does Waymo getting to the finish [00:36:00] line first and licensing that technology to everyone become profitable?

Possibly.

Anthony: There’s this myth in technology of a first mover advantage who’s ever first. But then I look at a company called Google, and they weren’t first. They were like fifth. Okay, look at Facebook. They weren’t first. They were like fifth. Look at computers. Apple wasn’t first. No, Apple failed for the first 20 years of its existence, but still First is nonsense.

I think Decades out. Decades out when Sundar is living on his own private island somewhere. Maybe then, but at this point you’ve set Tens of billions of dollars on fire. Your engineering staff and I don’t know the engineering staff so much, but the marketing and business people at Waymo, they’re just gaslighting you.

You’re being gaslit by them, like constantly. They’re gaslighting you, sit down, break out your calculator, your abacus, your tea leaves, whatever. And realize [00:37:00] what the hell are we doing here? This is why are you trying to compete in a market that just doesn’t make any mathematical sense? This message brought to you by somebody who only completed Calculus 1.

Anyway, bread! Ready for a gaslight?

Fred: I am, courtesy of our friend Marco Rubio. No friend of mine. We’re the same height. And his associates in the State Department. Apparently they had decided at one point After the inauguration of current president to purchase 400 million worth of armored Tesla cybertrucks.

And there was some pushback from some of our favorite legislators and who asked them some questions about this. And the reporter for NPR said the document from the Biden White House obtained by NPR. It shows that the state department plan to spend only 483, [00:38:00] 000 dollars on electric vehicle acquisition 2025 under the previous administration, less than 1 percent of the 400, 000, 000 estimated expenditure.

That first showed up in a spreadsheet of expected State Department contracts. And so when this was fed back to the Department of State, they, the Department of State official edited the document to say that the award was for armored electric vehicles, not armored Tesla, which it originally said. And then they backdated the document so that it appeared that document had been the original issue and tried to avoid the ethical problems associated with that.

The State Department and Musk did not return a request for comment on that. I’m giving, excuse me, the Department of State and the Department of Government Efficiency or, sorry, [00:39:00] or the Destroyers of Government Ethics the Gaslight Award this week.

Anthony: Well done. I like this, but I’m going to give the award this week to Michael.

Michael wins. He seemed to be the most passionate. I was really just buying time. I still stand by what I was saying. And you had to clear your throat too much, spread. So I’m sorry. I did. I am sorry about

Fred: that too. No,

Anthony: it’s fine. I’ll edit it. People won’t even know that this happened. Are you ready for a Tao though?

Cause I’m excited for this week’s Tao. If I have this week’s Tau correctly, is it lightning? You’ve now entered the Tau. Dammit, we’re not doing lightning?

Michael: We’re doing Wabi. We can do lightning some of the time. We’ll do lightning once the, once more lightning happens in the spring. We’ll push that a couple weeks.

I was interested in

Anthony: that

Michael: too. I wanted to hear about Faraday cages.

Anthony: Oh, he was my favorite character on Lost. Stay tuned for a lightning episode in the future. But while you’re waiting, go to autosage. org, click on donate, tell all your friends! Five stars! Something! And now with that, the dulcet tones of Mr.

Fredberg. [00:40:00]

Wabi’s Self-Driving Truck Simulations

Fred: There is a company in Canada called Wabi, W A B I. That is promoting self driving heavy trucks, and they say that their virtual robot trucks, which are computer programs, are realistic enough to prove that the real ones are safe. And so that’s interesting. Apparently they’ve never heard of permutations and combinations, so let me talk about that for just a minute.

The truck probably has hundreds of electronic units, and each of those electronic units has probably hundreds of components, and it also has a main computer. It’s got all this stuff going on, right? Probably thousands. And if any one of those components fails, it could have a safety critical impact. So how do you manage this?

How do you do that? How do you figure that out in a simulation to make sure that everything’s going to be okay? So I did a little arithmetic here and to simplify the arithmetic, I’m going to say [00:41:00] that there are only a hundred different parameters. In this truck, which actually has thousands of them, and if you only consider 10 of them as being active and the rest of them just being stable.

Okay. Assuming that 90 out of those 100 are constants, you end up with 4. 3 times 10 to the 13th or 43 billion different distinct configurations need to consider. At each time step of your simulation for a full evaluation, so nobody can do that. That’s too much calculations. And maybe you want to have constant computers.

They can address some of that, but that’s still a long way off. So what are the 10 that you would pick? I. Just thought I’d take a look at tires alone, just the tires, right? Because everything that the truck does goes through the tires. It goes forward with propulsion. It goes backwards when you brake.

It goes sideways when you turn the wheel. So everything [00:42:00] that the truck does, really the driving, has to go through the tires. And in order to represent a tire, In a simulation and is contacted with the road. I put a quick list together of the tire type, tire size, tire pressure, tire age, the tread type, the tread wear, tire chemistry, road surface type, road surface condition, the temperature.

The loading on the tires, both lateral and longitudinal, the tire balance, the mounting considerations, caster camber, toe in, toe out. So I’m up to about 17 parameters already that are all safety critical before I’ve even left the tires. So the idea that you can just use a simulation within the capabilities of modern computers and address the real safety issues associated with these trucks is pure nonsense.

So [00:43:00] there’s no simulation that can be complete. Simulations, one of the expressions they’ve got in the community is, every simulation is doomed to succeed. What that means is that if you’re an engineer working on a simulation, You keep banging away at it until you get the results that you want.

So from an engineering viewpoint, it’s pure nonsense. But if the purpose of the simulation is to get regulatory approval, It can be very effective because the simulations can have very convincing outputs, all kinds of colors and lights and graphs and charts, and you can easily immerse yourself in this and think that they’re actually real, unless you say we’ve got to have some real world validation on this.

And the simulations they claim are good for 20 seconds. So I don’t think, yeah, with 20 seconds of operation on the road, they claim to be 99 plus [00:44:00] percent accurate. Okay, that’s fine. But if you take 99 percent accuracy. And extrapolate it out to a, thousands of simulations that are necessary to go, we’ll say a couple of miles, you can see that there’s a lot of room for error here.

Anytime you see somebody who has got a simulation that is not grounded carefully in real world results you should be very suspect. Any simulation can be good only within the bounds that they can prove. And with this simulation, there’s no proof at all. So that’s the word on Wabi for this week.

Anthony: Oh, that is a good one. I like that a lot. ’cause the, them claiming that the simulation is, it affects the real world because as a fan of Formula One, all of those racing teams have multi multimillion dollar investments and simulators. And they use that for engineering to help the drivers, but they always have a problem of correlating it to the real [00:45:00] world and some teams get it closer to real world and then it helps and smooths out their engineering process and other teams.

Like for example, Mercedes, very smart engineers. They had a problem, I think, moving from their wind tunnel simulations, which was using a model of the car and they were doing something slightly wrong, so all the results to the real world were totally wrong, totally off. And they’ve been doing this for decades.

But hey, some Canadian trucking company’s I got this. I believe them, because Canadians are nice people.

Fred: Sure they are. Welcome to the United States. You’ve also got the simple observation that if the simulations really worked, you wouldn’t need to have the race.

Anthony: Oh, that’s true. But then there’s wind and weather.

Oh, we’re going to simulate all of that. Oh, and we don’t know what the guys eat for breakfast that, whoa, mind blown. This episode brought to you by mushrooms. They’re magical.

Fred: Now simulations can be useful within the strict parameters. for which they’ve been [00:46:00] proven, but extrapolations never work very well.

Interpolations can work because you’re looking between two data points that you can justify, but extrapolations into the future are really problematic.

Anthony: Or maybe he just knows the truth.

Fred: How do you know that I’m real? How do you know I’m

Anthony: not a computer? It’s early in the morning. I only had coffee as my drug today. Hey, with that, let’s jump into oh, let’s jump into the sensitive world of Cybertrucks.

Cybertruck Hate Crimes and Tesla Controversies

Anthony: Let’s pretend you’re somebody and you’re like, Hey man, I got a hundred grand in my pocket.

I was thinking about just setting it on fire. Instead, I’m gonna buy a piece of shit. I’m a cyber truck. So some cyber truck owner in I believe it was the great state of California. Decided that People don’t like me because I drive a Cybertruck and a Tesla and it’s [00:47:00] not nice. People are being rude to me.

So they sent a letter to their congressman saying quoting from the letter they sent to them, saying I have personally experienced multiple alarming incidents. On 80 Another driver deliberately attempted to run me off the road. In another unsettling encounter, while washing my car in my own driveway, a stranger drove up, rolled insults at me, and then left while running stop signs.

Reviewing my HOA security footage, I confirmed this individual had never been in my neighborhood before, making clear that I was specifically targeted. There’s just I don’t know what I, besides myself so many layers of nonsense here, but. This person, Mike Miller, I believe his name is, yes, Mike Miller is asking that insults against Tesla drivers are considered a hate crime and he wants a federal law for this to happen.

Michael: Yeah, look, that’s all nonsense, right? There’s no way that you’re going to make a, a. [00:48:00] particular buyer of a certain type of vehicle, a protected class under federal law. But as crazy as that sounds, I don’t even think that would happen under this crazy government we’re involved with at the moment, but, you know, why do people feel the need to harass other people for their choice of car?

I obviously don’t have a whole lot of love for the cyber truck. And I’ve commented that they’re great because they let you know immediately the character of the person behind the wheel in one. But even with all of that said, and everything that we’ve said about the Cybertrucks, which has not been positive I don’t see any reason why people need to harass other people for their choice of vehicle.

And you could much better spend that time and that energy doing something positive for the world versus. You know screaming at or harassing or even threatening in some cases people who own cyber trucks or teslas generally because I know that other tesla owners are currently experiencing some pushback due to elon musk’s [00:49:00] activity at the at in the federal government, so You know if you really want to Push back on Tesla and Cybertrucks and Cybertruck owners.

You’d be better off, going to autosafety. org and making a donation to the center so that we can do that for you in ways that are meaningful, more meaningful than middle fingers and screening.

Anthony: Oh, Fred, you’re muted again. But while you’re, hold on to your thought, because I realize with Elon Musk, yes, these cool, these cars, people are against them.

But you know what? Hitler came out with a car that eventually, over time, people really liked the VW bug. So maybe that’s what will happen with the Teslas.

Michael: Okay. Hitler did not invent the VW bug.

Fred: So here’s my thought. Inquiring minds might wonder if the act of buying a Tesla with full self driving and then switching it on the highway is itself the hate crime.

Anthony: Yeah. Oh, I [00:50:00] like that. It’s, but is it, is the hate crime aimed at yourself or others?

Fred: Both. Both, yeah. You’re ecumenical that way.

Anthony: Ah, I don’t know what that word means, but I liked it. If you know what that word means, go to autosafety. org and click on contact us and just let me know. But for now, let’s jump into recalls.

Volkswagen and Ford Recalls

Anthony: Not a lot of recalls this week, but we’re going to start off with Volkswagen. 177, 493 vehicles, the 2024 to 2025 Volkswagen Atlas, the Atlas Cross Sport. If the event engine cover is not installed properly after vehicle service, the engine cover may come loose and come into contact with extremely hot surface in the engine compartment.

That doesn’t sound good, but that makes me ask a question. Why do they start putting engine covers on cars? Because I remember as a kid you’d lift up the hood of a car and you could see the engine. And then at some point the 90s, you’d open it up and it was like everything was covered with a piece of plastic.

What, why, [00:51:00] what is it safety or is it just is it easier to clean? I don’t have to look at it. I

Michael: think there’s a couple of things. There could probably be some sound dampening involved, but also I think the engine covers to, to protect the interior of the engine from the elements, the more electronics we get loaded into cars.

I think there’s a role for that. Maybe the hood is not enough and you need something that’s a little more sealed to protect. To protect the engine components. So there’s gotta be a reason for them because if there wasn’t, we don’t, I don’t think the industry would be spending money to put them into vehicles.

Fred: In this case, Volkswagen recommends that if you open the hood and it’s on fire you should probably move away from it. So I like that.

Anthony: That is excellent advice. Owners will be notified in the middle of April. And then next up, so this is no specific recall, but this little company called FORD!

And Ford is recalling vehicle, vehicles again to fix issues caused by past recalls. And [00:52:00] these past recalls, they marked in their own databases, Yeah, we fixed it. And it turns out they never did. So Hey, Jim Farley, come on the show. Let’s talk.

Michael: Yeah, that’s a huge problem. It’s something we hear about from owners.

We I’ve heard over the years, just dozens of maybe hundreds of complaints from owners who show up at a dealership for a recall, and then they’re told you’ve already completed this recall even when they know they haven’t, the sounds a lot like what’s happening here, and this is. Six different recalls by Ford.

It seems like they got their either their dealers had a miscommunication or their data was faulty, but it’s incredibly frustrating as an owner to be told that you’ve done something that you haven’t. And then to then furthermore, to be told that you have, because there’s a checkbox next to recall complete and their database that you need to leave the dealership and drive around and you’re on.

Safe vehicle forever, because they’re not going to fix it for free under recall if they believe they’ve already done it. So that’s something I’m glad Ford recognized this [00:53:00] problem and, issued six recalls, which is probably going to put them into a very early lead in, in this year’s recall race.

But at the same time, it’s concerning that, either at the dealer level or at the national customer service level that recalls are being marked as completed when they’re not. That’s a problem. Dealerships do get reimbursed for performing recalls. So there’s an always a chance that a dealership is going to mark recalls complete.

An unscrupulous dealer not many dealers, maybe just a small minority. But there’s always that temptation to say, yeah, we fixed that car give us our money for that fix. That, I don’t know, I certainly don’t have any information as to whether that happened here, but that is a concern.

And ultimately we want the recall database to be completely truthful so that owners are made aware when they have open recalls and can get those fixes.

Fred: Unscrupulous dealers? I’ve never heard of such a [00:54:00] thing.

Michael: There was one on the on the front lawn of the White House yesterday.

Anthony: Ah, hey, yeah, but he was pushing ketamine.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Anthony: Anyway with that’s our show. Thank you for donating and while you’re at the Piggly Wiggly, just, throw a couple extra coins our way. And, Why go ink? Until next week. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening. Bye-bye.

Fred: For more information,

Michael: visit

Fred: www.auto safety.org.