Top Ten Lists: Tesla Turkeys and NHSTA’s last stand?

[00:00:00] Introduction and Thanksgiving Greetings

[00:00:00] Anthony: You’re listening to there auto be a law, the center for auto safety podcast with executive director, Michael Brooks, chief engineer, Fred Perkins, and hosted by me, Anthony Cimino for over 50 years. The center for auto safety has worked to make cars safer.

Hey everybody. I know you’re taking a break from your family. And these arguments around the Thanksgiving table, or it’s the day after, or it’s the weekend and you’re like, Hey, I’ve caught up on all American life stories considered and now you’re listening to us. Thanks for listening. And I guess it’s just me talking today.

The other two are just looking at me like, what, when do I say something now?

[00:00:47] Fred: Oh, good morning, folks. We just discussed an intellectual trauma before you had on, so we’re recovering

[00:00:54] Anthony: here. Sorry I shelf shocked them.

[00:00:57] Top Ten List: Center for Auto Safety’s Thankful Moments

[00:00:57] Anthony: But anyway, so this is Thanksgiving [00:01:00] episode, and around that period of time, we want to give, we came up with our own little top ten list of the top ten things that we think the Center for Auto Safety is important, or thankful for.

So I’m going to start with my list. You ready? Ready? Yeah. Number ten, Cybertruck. So dumb, it inspired us to create an ad that got us on the front page of Rollingstone. com. That’s right. We put together this ad, and then people said that. I am inadequate as a man in the comments. It was pretty funny. It was good, but basically pointed out that a cyber truck is a dumb.

[00:01:35] Michael: Has it delivered on its promise?

[00:01:38] Anthony: The cyber truck? Yeah. It’s been recalled what? Four times?

[00:01:43] Michael: Six.

[00:01:45] Anthony: Yeah it’s not that good. All right. I’m going to go, I guess I’m going to continue my list. Number nine, NHTSA. I’m thankful for them because this year they made some improvements on safety standards.

It’s not perfect, it’s better, and they’re getting, they’re trying to do what they can [00:02:00] before they cease to exist as an agency. Ah, no. Then number eight, the California DMV, specifically for stopping General Motors crews and helping my friend Kyle find a new line of work, not related to the automotive field.

Remember, GM crews ran over a woman, dragged her, and then lied about it. We didn’t do this! And then they tried to hide it from regulators. But why do we need regular? Number seven. I’m thankful for full self driving. It’s bullshit. And every day more and more people realize it. Friend of the show, Phil Kopman, has a great write up on how Tesla in specific, I don’t know why I can’t speak, is not the safest car on the road.

And in fact, it’s more dangerous than other ones, mainly because of their self driving bullshit, where people just become complacent and they think this thing will take care of my driving needs and instead crash into the walls. Number six, Waymo for [00:03:00] demonstrating that autonomous cars can drive drunk. We they always claim that, self driving cars, they won’t drive drunk, they won’t get distracted, but Waymo has shown their vehicles weaving over traffic lines, going the wrong way down one way streets, driving into telephone poles.

Hey. Thank you Waymo for showing that autonomous vehicles can drive drunk. All right, number five. I guess it’s just all me talking. Are these microphones working today? I don’t know. They’re just looking at me. All right, number five. Senators Marky, Warren, and can’t think of his name from Connecticut.

What’s the guy’s name?

[00:03:40] Michael: Blumenthal.

[00:03:41] Anthony: Blumenthal. Blumenthal. Blumenthal. For introducing laws that help consumers make cars safer. That’s right. Hey,

[00:03:47] Fred: two of those come from which great state, Anthony? Hey. Hey. That’d be Massachusetts. Ah, thank you so much.

[00:03:54] Anthony: Yeah. I feel warm

[00:03:55] Fred: already.

[00:03:56] Anthony: You are wearing a jumper.

Number four, I want to thank Phil Kopman and [00:04:00] Jeffrey Wishart for demystifying autonomous vehicles in our very special podcast episode where we delve into autonomous vehicles. It’s a good one. Check it out. It’s somewhere in the archives. What number? I don’t know. I don’t remember. Number three, all of our guests that we’ve had on this year, and we’ve had some great guests.

We’ve had people from Consumer Reports that they explained how they do child seat crash test safety things. We’ve had people explaining autonomous trucking industry. We’ve had a bunch of great guests. Number two, I’m gonna say it is all of our listeners that submit complaints.

That’s right. We’ve got a ton of complaints submitted, not just about the show. I’m not talking about the show itself. They write, they got, we get a few of those. Yeah. Yeah. But they’re weird complaints. They’re like, I hate you. And then they write paragraphs why they agree with everything we said. It’s very strange.

But no, there’s people go to autosafety. org. They look up your [00:05:00] car and you’re like, Hey, this is a problem I’m having with my transmission, steering wheel, board. It’s always forward. And the number one. I’m thankful for is our listeners, and everyone that’s donated. You guys are the reason we keep doing this.

And it’s also because the three of us are social pariahs, and this is the only time we get to talk to people who understand us. Yep. Okay. That’s my list. Can I stop talking now? This is too much for me. I’m not

[00:05:24] Fred: sure. That’s you’re

[00:05:26] Anthony: pretty

[00:05:26] Fred: good at

[00:05:26] Anthony: that. Somebody else.

[00:05:29] Fred: Who’s up next?

[00:05:30] Fred Perkins’ Gratitude List

[00:05:30] Fred: Fred Perkins. Mine tends to be a little bit serious, so I’m sorry.

I know that’s not really my type, but number 10 international standards organization. Basically for providing an international forum for the center to participate in developing safety focus for AV development and operations. Number nine, SAE International. We’re doing much the same thing, but on the on the national level within the U.

S., there are some foreign [00:06:00] participants, but it’s basically our chance to get in and at least have a seat at the table while these things are being discussed. Number eight is the Anonymous Material Scientist. Who are constantly improving the friction products materials because they’ve been able to remove asbestos from the asbestos dust from the cars and vehicles and nobody will have to do what I did when I was a kid, which is clear out a break full of asbestos by squirting it with compressed air and breathing through the cloud of dust.

That was a good one. Yeah,

[00:06:38] Anthony: it’s a really good one like this. Not you breathing asbestos, but the anonymous friction material scientists. That’s good. I

[00:06:44] Fred: do worry about that. There’s still some particles in there somewhere. Next up is the chemists who find a way to remove lead from motor fuels. So that’s saving untold number of lives and developmental problems that people otherwise would have [00:07:00] had from the lead in the air.

A lot of interesting statistics about that and actually in the relationship between that and violence in the streets. So that’s a good one. I’m going to call out Joan Claybrook as number 6 for her tireless promotion of automotive safety. And for recruiting in for homeless lunch bucket engineer to be the chief engineer at the center for auto safety.

Thank you, Joan. The world owes you a lot. Number 5, I’m going to give it to the center for automotive safety. I haven’t been here for more than 50 years, but the center has been here helping get a lot of really important and innovative safety features. Built into cars that have saved millions of lives over the 50 years of the center’s existence.

Next up, number 4, the inventor and engineers who developed and delivered the dual [00:08:00] diagonal braking systems. That have virtually eliminated the injury and death by brake failure. When I was a kid, you had to learn how to drive a car by pumping the brakes because they were always leaking and you don’t want to pump the brakes to build up pressure.

So you could actually stop the car. Doesn’t happen anymore. My children and grandchildren just can rely on the brakes and it’s virtually eliminated deaths due to brake failure. Thank you for those folks out there.

[00:08:26] Anthony: I was taught to pump the brakes. Like when you had to slam on the brakes, so they wouldn’t lock up, but then anti lock brakes took care of that.

I don’t know. You got to pump the brakes to actually get the hydraulic fluid moving.

[00:08:36] Fred: Yeah. And if it’s leaking, then pump the brakes to just get the pressure up high enough. So the brakes would actually work. Now this Volkswagen. Bug that I had that another safety feature, which was a rotted out floor panel.

So every time you went through a puddle, it would squirt cold water in your face. So that was a way of avoiding automation complacency, but that’s a different story. [00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Anthony: It was an anti drowsiness measure in the vehicle too.

[00:09:04] Fred: Number three is I’m thankful for the millions of people whose lives have been saved by seat belts and airbags.

And the technology that Joan and the Center for Honor of Safety have promoted over the 50 years. Number 2, I’ve given it to the dedicated pulpit servants who detect, analyze and demand remediation of automotive design, development, and manufacture. Of defective and hazardous automotive technology and features and our friends at NHTSA, our friends at the transportation state, what am I failing to remember the Department of Transportation.

No the National Highway

[00:09:46] Michael: Traffic Safety Administration. No, and National Transportation Safety

[00:09:52] Fred: Board. There you go. National Transportation Safety Board. I need more coffee. Sorry about that. But anyway they deserve a shout out and I’m really glad that [00:10:00] they’re out there doing what they do. And number one is I’ve got to give it to the Constitution of the United States that I’m thankful for, because it gives us the ability to speak truth to power in the interest of saving lives.

Thank you. We’ll see how that holds up over the next few years, but it’s a, it’s an amazing and a wonderful thing. So thanks for that. Over to you, Michael.

[00:10:21] Anthony: That’s pretty good. I just want to recap real quick, just for the scoreboard. I have one point for Cybertruck. Fred’s got two points for anonymous friction scientists.

Michael, can you

[00:10:29] Michael: Yeah, I don’t know if I’m going to beat that.

[00:10:31] Michael Brooks’ NHTSA Highlights

[00:10:31] Michael: I’m a little hyper focused today on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, since this may be the last time I really get to be thankful for them for a few years. We’re going to go over, just some things I’m thankful for that they accomplished just this year.

So at number 10, they proposed new rules for both hydrogen and battery fuel system integrity. This is two standards that Will help, future hydrogen vehicles, prevent them from exploding and causing all sorts of mayhem on our [00:11:00] roads. And also they are aligning a lot of their battery standards to international standards, prevent battery fires and to require better battery monitoring systems that can detect problems and prevent the fires from ever occurring.

Number nine, something that’s a did just last week which was the civil penalty they issued to Ford Motor Company for not doing recalls properly. That’s a really important part of NHTSA’s authority is that they. They investigate how recalls are being conducted, not just that they are certain defect cases, but overall, how are they working?

How are they reporting them? Are they reporting in time? All of those things are really important to getting fixes out to consumers fast and preventing deaths. So that large civil penalty they issued for Ford last week was a great step and one of the largest. Things they’ve done in that area in the past 4 years.

At number 8, it [00:12:00] introduced its first pedestrian crash worthiness rulemaking. That was the pedestrian safety rule that they started a few months back. I believe it was in September. It’s going to protect pedestrians from head injuries caused by giant vehicle hoods and tall cars and all the big trucks and the things we talk about almost every week.

Number 7, NHTSA was able to finalize new fuel economy standards, which in combination with the emissions rule at the EPA are going to make cars a lot cleaner and safer. And number six. Is NHTSA opening finally an investigation into Tesla’s full self driving, which is not full self driving. It is a gimmick that Tesla’s been selling to get people into their cars, but it is killing people when they use it improperly.

Number five, NHTSA issued [00:13:00] a an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on seatback safety, which is an issue that is. Very near and dear to the hearts of us over at the center where we see a lot of children being killed and injured in the back seats of vehicles because the front seats aren’t strong enough to keep their parents from colliding with them in rear end collisions.

That rule probably has a long way to go in this new administration, but we are nonetheless thankful that it finally occurred. And at number four, NHTSA put out another Proposal, that’s an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, which was on impaired driving technology, which is. It’s, which could ultimately eliminate drunk drivers from our roads in America.

Thousands of people are still killed by drunk drivers every year. It is a huge problem and it’s ultimately not going away unless, the courts and states and laws against it have done. Some [00:14:00] help over the years in reducing the number of incidents, but to eliminate it and to save those thousands of lives every year.

We need our cars to get into the game and to start kicking drunk drivers out of the car. Drunk drivers shouldn’t be allowed to operate a vehicle. And it’s the text available to do that. We should have it in every vehicle. Number three, NHTSA is, has updated their new car assessment program, the five star safety ratings program to cover really important things that are coming down the pipe automatic emergency braking, blind spot warning, pedestrian warnings.

This is a long overdue update. We’re really glad to see this NHTSA get that through and over the finish line that’s going to result in much better information for consumers who are buying new vehicles. At number two, and this one could have been number one NHTSA issued its final rule on automatic emergency braking.

We think that is going to save hundreds, maybe more, maybe thousands of lives. When the technology is perfect [00:15:00] in, or closer to perfect than it is right now and in a couple of decades, maybe it may take some time to get there, but the current NHTSA rule is going to protect people up to 62 miles per hour.

It’s got a no contact requirement which is going to make it through the final rule because NHTSA denied the industry’s petition to remove that requirement just yesterday, I believe. And at number one, this is not all NHTSA, but it certainly has something to do with the great work they’ve been doing recently.

We have seen, and NHTSA announced yesterday, a decrease in fatalities of 3. 2 percent for the first half of this year. And we saw decreases in almost every major subcategory of crashes, which suggests that a lot of good things are being done. We hope that can, that we can keep that number keep that going for the next few years.

We’re concerned that they, the next NHTSA that comes in we won’t be quite so thankful for, but [00:16:00] we’ll see what happens and see if the folks who remain at NHTSA are able to push safety up the chain, despite what we think are going to be some top down efforts pushing back against safety. That’s

[00:16:11] Fred: a

[00:16:11] Michael: good one.

Good ones. That’s a

[00:16:15] Anthony: pretty good list. I think you would have had the most points, but yours was just all just NHTSA related. So you lose points. Yeah. Yep. I

[00:16:22] Michael: expect that. No, no humor.

[00:16:25] Anthony: Straight talk. No, it was good, please. That was great.

[00:16:28] Discussion on Decrease in Traffic Fatalities

[00:16:28] Anthony: So you mentioned the last thing you’re talking about was the decrease in fatalities.

And so we have a link to a NHTSA press release where they’re explaining that compared to the first half of. This year versus first half of last year, the decrease and this is a, it’s pretty interesting. It breaks down all the decreases, like a 4 percent decrease at night, 4 percent decrease in weekends, 3 percent in pedestrians.

But so what’s the cause of why did this drop? Is this just because of, we know during the pandemic, people were driving like maniacs. [00:17:00] Has that decreased? Is there something else going on?

[00:17:03] Michael: I don’t think there have been any studies that they don’t really suggest any reasons for these declines.

It usually takes a little more time and a little more data and the data for each year gets finalized a couple of years, almost after the end of the year. Probably going to be quite some time before they analyze it to see what might have happened there to call some of these drops.

But, it could be a common. I think it’s most likely going to be a combination of things, efforts to make infrastructure better, we see the drop in pedestrians and the drop in people killed at night. Those could be pedestrian improvements. Infrastructure improvements that are working to lower those rates.

We see decreases in under strained occupants of passenger vehicles. That means more people are buckling up. Maybe that’s because more safety seatbelt warnings are going into cars and into rear seats and anticipation of the final rule that’s is Hopefully going to get to requiring seatbelt buzzers for [00:18:00] back seats.

We also saw a reduction in 9 percent and ejected passengers, which along the same lines is maybe due to people increasing wearing their seatbelts. Ultimately, we don’t know right now, but there’s suggestions. It’s that, it’s a combination of, elucidating probably of some of the factors that we saw during COVID, but also some improvements in vehicle technology and infrastructure that contribute to these.

[00:18:25] Fred: I think it’s got to have something to do with the expanding listener base for this podcast. There’s a direct correlation here. I’m not sure we can claim causality yet, the future will allow us to vindicate that.

[00:18:38] Anthony: I think you’re right. Cause I think if you’re driving down the road, you’re listening to this podcast immediately, you’re pulling over cause you’re like these guys, what are they saying?

This is ridiculous. And you got to wipe all the spittle from the inside of your windshield. No, that’s not us. One of the interesting ones here was 7 percent decline in unrestrained occupants of passenger vehicles. [00:19:00] That means people not wearing their seatbelts still?

[00:19:04] Michael: No, that actually means there are less fatalities.

Occurring to unrestrained occupants, which basically means there are fewer unrestrained occupants. More people are wearing their seatbelts. So that, that would drop.

[00:19:16] Anthony: Ah, okay. That’s good. Please, people, wear your seatbelt. Who the hell is not wearing a seatbelt? They’re

[00:19:21] Michael: A lot of people aren’t, and they make up, I think, almost half of the fatalities we see every year.

It’s crazy not to wear your seatbelt.

[00:19:29] Anthony: Really? I Literally

[00:19:31] Michael: crazy.

[00:19:31] Anthony: That’s I can’t imagine the last time I didn’t wear a seatbelt. I want to say it was like the early 90s. I remember as a little kid sitting in between my dad and my brother in the front bench seat of I don’t know what kind of car it was.

[00:19:43] Seatbelt Safety and Misconceptions

[00:19:43] Anthony: Some crazy thing and stopping too short and both of them slamming their arms against me so I didn’t fly forward. And I’m like, ah, you guys could have killed me. Maybe a seatbelt’s a better thing, but then it was just the lap band. And that probably would have caused some major damage to wear your [00:20:00] seatbelt.

Come on. They’re not bad.

[00:20:03] Fred: I spoke with the woman once who says she didn’t wear seatbelts because she knew somebody’s cousin had been in a crash and the car was sinking and he couldn’t get out because they couldn’t figure out how to wear this, how to unbuckle the seatbelt. So people believe all kinds of things.

So it’s. It’s simple. I don’t know. It’s funny. People will do things for their beliefs that they won’t do at all in response to facts. So yeah, people should wear the seatbelts, even if you’re in the great granite state of New Hampshire, where which is the only state that no longer, that does not require people to wear seatbelts when they’re driving a car.

[00:20:42] Anthony: That’s crazy.

[00:20:44] Michael: And if you’re, if that can happen. It’s rare, but it does happen that a seatbelt will be engaged and someone won’t be able to unengage it to escape the vehicle. That’s why a lot of, you’ll see, Jeanette from kids and car safety sent us [00:21:00] a combination window breaker and seatbelt.

Seat belt cutter that you’ll see there. They’re a, it’s a common escape tool, for people, you need to cut your seat belt and you need to be able to break the window to escape a vehicle. That’s something that I think everyone should have with them in their vehicle is some way of cutting their seat belt.

They’re crash available to them.

[00:21:19] Anthony: So I took that window breaker seatbelt thing and I didn’t really understand how the little part that breaks the window works. So I like put my thumb up against it and pulled the trigger and boy, did that hurt. That was not fun. That was not fun at all.

[00:21:32] Michael: Can you do that for us again right now?

[00:21:34] Anthony: No, really, thankfully it wasn’t that bad, but yeah, it ooh, ah. But speaking of beliefs that I have that, is totally justified. I believe that if you donate to the Center for Auto Safety, you’re among the best looking and smelling people on this planet. That’s just my belief. So give it a shot.

Let’s find out. Autosafety. org. Click on donate. All right. Okay. [00:22:00] That felt a

[00:22:00] Fred: little flat, but I’ll give you credit. That’s good. It did. All right. Thanks.

[00:22:03] Tesla Safety Myths and Realities

[00:22:03] Anthony: Another thing we talked about during our top ten list was our friend’s Tesla. And so I mentioned that a friend of the show, Phil Kopman, we have a link to this article he wrote about the misbelief that Tesla’s our safest cars on the road.

And he goes in there and explains that during the NHTSA five star crash tests, yeah, they ace it, but he also points out the NCAP tests that everybody aces it because it hasn’t been updated in decades and it’s not that hard, but As Michael mentioned a week or two ago, they said, hey, we’re, we got to update this because everybody’s passing it.

Hugo’s would pass it at this point. And then he says, okay the European model’s a little harder. Hey, for the 22 year Model Y, Model S scored great in Euro NCAP. They don’t have tests for the 23, 24 cars. But I think the main thing is the issue that Teslas are unsafe. is because of people driving them.

Because they become complacent with autopilot and auto full self [00:23:00] drive and they think, they believe what Elon’s been telling people for over a decade at this point, the car drives itself. And so people just say, oh yeah, car drives itself. Into a barrier. Into a wall.

[00:23:14] Michael: Yeah, and that’s definitely a concern.

That’s something in caps not going to be testing for us is, does the vehicles manufacture marketed in a way that, that, that makes people think it has capabilities that it doesn’t, they don’t get stars taken off for that. They also, another thing I think Tesla is appealed to is, are people who want to speed, they have, some some functions that allow folks to accelerate at a pretty incredible rates.

I think they call it ludicrous mode or something like that, accelerating at rates that are unneeded on public roads. But, what’s the first thing that a teenage male driver is going to want to do when he gets in a tesla? Hit that button. There’s a lot of Traps essentially that are set not only with the autopilot and full self driving, but even with other features like that, like the extreme speeds that [00:24:00] teslas can reach that, people simply aren’t trained to operate vehicles that are accelerating that quickly and they often get into trouble.

[00:24:07] Anthony: I was looking at if I happen to leave this country and move to Europe what it would take to get a driver’s license over there? Really hard. It’s not easy. Yeah, the UK

[00:24:16] Michael: is really tough. People have to take their tests over and over there sometimes to get it. Some people, a lot of people in London don’t even drive.

But it’s very difficult and it’s something that, we really need to do in the United States is. Truly take a look at driver education and driver testing and making sure that people can actually drive before we put them on the road.

[00:24:39] Fred: I think there was another key point in Phil’s Substack letter, which is that Elon Musk is almost true when he says that the Teslas are safer by far than the average car.

And that’s true because the [00:25:00] comparison when you talk about an average car is really with cars that are around 10 and 12 years old. That’s the average age of a car on the road. And Phil makes the point that every new car, every single new car, is safer than the average car on the road today.

Yeah, so Tesla will give you some safety in comparison with the average car, but so will the key or real, if it’s your buy, so please, please don’t be misled by that.

[00:25:28] Michael: That’s interesting too, because it suggests that if you’re a car company that builds vehicles that fall apart after five or six years, you’re always going to have a newer fleet on the road and you’re always going to have better crash statistics than the other guys, right?

[00:25:43] Anthony: Interesting point.

[00:25:45] Tesla’s Design Flaws and Safety Tips

[00:25:45] Anthony: Related to Tesla, we have a link to torquenews. com That’s a good name. It’s an article, five ways to prevent your Tesla from killing you. Oh boy. So we talked about this, I believe it was last week where the [00:26:00] there’s an, the Tesla’s door handles and the open releases are all electronic and the battery system dies.

You can’t open the doors unless you know the secret password and can remove a speaker grill or find the hidden thing. And so this article starts off. The number one thing you can learn is learn how to open your doors manually. And the thing is each. Tesla, it’s different where the manual releases for the door.

I, I don’t know if other manufacturers have this issue that are electric.

[00:26:27] Michael: Yeah, they do. Oh, are they just as hidden the releases? They aren’t, no, they’re not standardized at all. So manufacturers can put them really anywhere they want and they. If you buy a vehicle that has electronic latches you really need to read that part of your owner’s manual before you take the vehicle out on the road.

I can’t stress that enough. You need to know where those manual releases are. And even, Remove that speaker cover or that panel to make sure that they’re there and operable before you take your car out so that, you know what to do [00:27:00] in an emergency where seconds count.

[00:27:02] Anthony: So would this be a good thing for, say, I don’t know, a federal regulator to say, Hey, this is, we need to have a standard location for these things.

[00:27:10] Michael: It would be exactly the type of thing that federal regulators could do. And it would be, standardizing where these things are located and, how they are labeled so that they’re easy to find. And that stuff is really easy. This isn’t, a really burdensome regulation that, Sets everyone’s pants on fire.

I, I, we just need guidance here to put these things in standard places so that, people that are, hopping into an Uber who don’t have access to an owner’s manual for the vehicle, have a way to escape the vehicle if something bad happens, that it just needs to be standardized across all vehicles so that there’s no, no question of how to escape a car in an emergency situation.

[00:27:52] Fred: There’s another design approach that would be even easier to implement, which is that simply if you have a door latch that’s [00:28:00] electronic. Design it so that if somebody pulls on it with excessive force, that it activates the mechanical release. That wouldn’t allow anybody to learn anything and when they panic and grab the door handle and try to open it, it’ll open regardless of what the electronic state is.

There’s a lot of possible solutions.

[00:28:18] Michael: I like that. That would be the alternative means for compliance with the federal standard. I like that. Good. Yeah.

[00:28:24] Fred: That’s our comment. When the, notice of advanced rulemaking comes out that we’ve already written our comment. That would be 20,

[00:28:32] Anthony: 2033.

That’s what I was going to ask is, okay, so the electronic door thing, it’s more of hey, I’m approaching my car and oh, magically my car door opened because I’m too lazy to touch things or whatever. That’s the that’s essentially what it is. But yeah, I don’t see any reason why they can’t have some sort of little electronic motor there that opens it for you, but also that you can just manually override.

There’s no. Engineering reason why you can’t have these things together, right?

[00:28:59] Fred: I don’t believe there [00:29:00] is. I think

[00:29:00] Anthony: you couldn’t usually do that. Like brakes in your car. I mean You slam on the brake. It’s a mechanical function, but there’s also a lot of cars that there’s power behind that, where there’s a, some sort of, isn’t there power, braking power, but there’s

[00:29:14] Fred: always that when you have power brakes, if the power system fails, you just stomp on it and then hydraulic manual system takes over,

[00:29:22] Anthony: there you go.

Perfect. Put brakes on doors. That’s what I’m saying. Wait, what? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s ridiculous. Another thing they talk about, so a lot of this stuff that they talk about in this TarkNews article, I think is really applicable to all cars, really. Because the next thing they have is, be aware that the central screen is a huge distraction.

Yes, 100 percent agree. There was some car I saw that came out where they didn’t have The center console screen where they had the little screen to the left of the driver there’s a little screen there. And they said from their human factors testing that this was less distracting to drivers and quicker for them to glance at.

So I [00:30:00] don’t know. I think there’s gotta be some more human factors work around this instead of marketing saying big screen, we can do cool demos. There

[00:30:07] Fred: was a study in Sweden that showed that people who are distracted by anything on the road and then have to respond in an emergency, They don’t hit the controls first.

The first thing they do is they look at the screen. And so they’re, even the simple presence of a center console screen, delays people’s response to an emergency situation. If they’ve been distracted at all while they’re driving. So yeah, they’re a bad idea whose time has come apparently. No,

[00:30:37] Michael: the last, sorry.

Great. They point out a under the screen part they also point out a function that’s really not just screen related. The guy was the driving a Tesla down the road and his wife was riding with him. He was on the freeway and she hits a button on the touch screen that, that essentially personalizes the vehicle to the driver.

And since the last person who had [00:31:00] driven the vehicle and used that function was Tall and this person, this guy was strapped in, it pushed his seat back to a point where he could barely reach the steering wheel or the pedals anymore while he was riding down the freeway. So that’s a problem. I don’t think those personalization functions that change where the driver is in relation to the controls should be working at speed or while the vehicle is moving.

[00:31:25] Fred: And certainly not under the control of a third party. All right. Wow. That’s a pretty good one.

[00:31:31] Anthony: Huh? The last one I want to touch on in this article is Do not let inexperienced drivers drive your car.

[00:31:38] Driver Education and Licensing

[00:31:38] Anthony: Love this. And that relates to another thing we have a link to in an article. that says the Gen Z are the safest drivers on the road.

And basically this is because of graduated licensing. And obviously there are growing up in cars that are much safer than any of us grew up learning how to drive. So that’s pretty neat. And that’s again, going back to, I was looking at how to get a driver’s license in a non name European [00:32:00] country, which is not the UK, cause I know that’s not really part of Europe anymore.

And they had a whole right bunch of basically would take you minimum a year. To get a driver’s license because of the amount of testing and requirements. And you had to pay to go to driving school. And I think this is all good things. I don’t know why we don’t do more of this in the U S. Freedom.

Ha! Freedom! That’s right! Hey, freedom folks. And I’m gonna break it to you, I know you’re like, okay, I’ve been away from my family long enough. Have you had enough of a break? Are you ready to go back to your family? No! We’ll throw some recalls at you and we’ll do a quick episode today.

[00:32:38] Hyundai and Kia Recalls

[00:32:38] Anthony: How’s that? Hi,

[00:32:38] Fred: I’m Big One

[00:32:40] Anthony: from Hyundai Kia.

Where they have a loss of motive power, is that what the correct terms is? Basically, the Genesis G80, GV60, GV70, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Hyundai Ioniq 6 and I believe some others their power systems fail while you’re [00:33:00] driving. And so you drive along and you no longer can you don’t have power.

You don’t have power, you don’t have what? Steerage. You don’t have steerage, what do you have? You don’t have a car anymore. You’re just in a, you’re just in your coffin, unfortunately.

[00:33:13] Michael: Yeah, and this yeah, this was, there’s a problem with the, these are hybrid electric vehicles. A lot of key is hybrid electrics from Made in the past three or four years and what happens is you not only lose power, but I think the driver gets a you get a notice that you’re, you get a warning that your batteries just charging.

If you own 1 of these vehicles you should be receiving a warning that your vehicle. battery is discharging and that you will be operating in a reduced power mode for some time before the vehicle actually experiences a total loss of motive power. Keep an eye out for that if you own one of these vehicles.

And it looks like you’ll be getting more instructions from Kia and Hyundai in the middle of next month.

[00:33:59] Anthony: [00:34:00] Yeah, and they’re not just hybrid electrics because the Ioniq 6, that’s fully electric. The Genesis GV70s fully electric. So anyway, it’s a lot of them. It was like over 200, 000 of these things.

[00:34:12] Fred: The way they architect it is they have two separate electrical systems. They’ve got a 12 volt system, and then they’ve got a 400 some odd volt system that runs the runs the drive wheels. But the 12 volt system is what we’re talking about here, and that operates things like door latches and windows and the little accessories that are in the car.

What I don’t understand about this is that if the battery is discharging, It’s discharging it to something. So there’s either a short circuit somewhere, or there’s some device that’s operating anomalously. So I think there’s, we’ll be hearing more about this in the future as my desk.

[00:34:48] Anthony: Definitely a dangerous one.

Next up, we’ve got where are they? A Hyundai, oh wait, another separate Hyundai one? Oh. 42, 465 vehicles, the 2025 Hyundai Tucson, [00:35:00] Hyundai Santa Cruz and Rollaway can increase the risk of crash. Oh. Wait, extension wiring of upper console assembly interferes with the auto lever shift lock buttons.

What language is this in? What’s happening? This is a

[00:35:14] Fred: Friday afternoon problem, I think. If the wires go in the wrong route of the wrong way, eventually they can get damaged and stop working. And if they stop working, Then, unlike all cars that are currently on the road, you will be able to shift out of park without putting your foot on the brake.

All cars that are on the road now require you to put your foot on the brake before you can shift out of park. So that’s the defect here. It can be corrected by running the wires in the proper direction. So I don’t know if this was on days, Friday afternoon, or just, using illegal child labor

[00:35:57] Anthony: could be a lot of,

[00:35:58] Michael: a lot of issues.[00:36:00]

That’s the and Hyundai, they are recommending to owners that they set the parking bait parking break when you park the vehicle as an interim measure until mid January when I think they’re going to be notifying you basically to come back in and have your wires rerouted so that this problem doesn’t occur.

[00:36:19] Anthony: So I, in my car, I have a little, I remember back I used to have a parking brake in older cars where you’d pull up a lever. Now my car just has a little button labeled P as parking brake. I’ve never touched this thing in my life. I don’t understand it. It seems, I think it does it automatically.

Am I supposed to be pulling that button when I brake?

[00:36:38] Fred: You can do whatever you want, Anthony, free to remember that. But, okay, so here’s what happens when you put the transmission into park, it locks the transmission. When you use that little lever, that little button with a P on it, it locks the brakes.

Locks them electronically. So if you want to have surety that your car is going [00:37:00] to roll away, no matter what happens, using both and unless you’ve done something to really piss off the Russians and they might’ve put Novichok on your button, go ahead and use it.

[00:37:12] Anthony: Okay. Okay. I don’t live in a hilly area, so I think I’m okay.

I’m pretty much parking. I

[00:37:18] Michael: know that I parked mostly on flat ground too, so I don’t use mine in my driveway, for instance, but I will notice occasionally if I have the vehicle running and I open a door It will put it into the park mode and I’ll have to use that button to turn it off. Do you have the same thing?

[00:37:32] Anthony: Yeah. I see the light come on it, but I’d never touched it to turn it off or anything. And then driving away is harder. You hear a lot of squeaking and squealing.

[00:37:38] Michael: Yeah. It probably smells like burned rubber. Yeah,

[00:37:41] Anthony: no, it turns itself on and off. And so I was just like, ah, I figured it was just a manual override button.

And I did read the, I didn’t pay attention when I read the manual. Anyway last recall.

[00:37:52] Chrysler Recall Issues

[00:37:52] Anthony: Chrysler, 7, 198 vehicles, the 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The Jeep Grand Cherokee L. [00:38:00] I know And this is a displays and controls that requires the speedometer accurately display vehicle speed Suspect vehicles may experience a delay in the speedometer displaying the correct vehicle speed.

Oh my god How is this happening? What come on people? How did this happen? That’s what I want to know. This is not New technology. This is not something. How do we get the speedometer to work? What happened?

[00:38:31] Fred: I don’t know. I don’t know. Does it say how long the delay is? I don’t think it does.

[00:38:36] Michael: It doesn’t.

It doesn’t say that. But there is a delay of some sort and it’s enough to trigger a non compliance with FMVSS 101, which basically says your speedometer needs to accurately display your current vehicle speed not the speed it was at two seconds ago. Which can be really important, especially if you have, a car that accelerates quickly.

[00:38:57] Anthony: I, yeah, I’m. I’m at a loss. [00:39:00] I’m at a loss. But hey, thankfully, listeners, people like you, supporting the Center for Auto Safety, We can keep highlighting why I’m at a loss, even when I’m correct or I’m just incorrect, we can keep doing that with your help.

[00:39:15] Holiday Travel Safety Tips

[00:39:15] Anthony: Anything else we got to add before we send people back to watch the Detroit lions play or eat some tryptophan.

Have a

[00:39:25] Fred: great holiday and roads might be a little bit busy, so be careful.

[00:39:30] Michael: Yeah, be very careful. This is one of the biggest travel and. and accident weeks of the year. So everyone be careful.

[00:39:39] Anthony: All right. Thanks. We’ll be back next week. Bye. All right. Bye bye. Bye bye.

[00:39:46] Michael: For more information, visit www. autosafety. org.