Waymo, Whistleblowers, and the Return of Bench Seats

[00:00:00] Introduction to the Center for Auto Safety Podcast

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

[00:00:25] Michael: is hot.

[00:00:28] Anthony: Hey, everybody, welcome to another soon to be contentious issue of the Center for Auto Safety Podcast. There ought to be a law. Good morning, folks. If you haven’t done so already, click click subscribe. I don’t know what app you’re using, so I don’t know how to do that. But tell your friends and then go to autosafety.

org, click on donate. And we begin.

[00:00:49] NHTSA’s Rear Seat Belt Reminder Rule

[00:00:49] Anthony: So it’s the end of the year. It’s the end of administration. And NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is getting busy with it. They are releasing rule after rule. [00:01:00] Let’s start off with releasing the rear seat belt reminder rule. If you’ve ever driven a car in the last decade, I just figured this was a rule.

As sometimes my groceries set it off, Michael.

[00:01:12] Michael: Yeah. This is a rule that we’ve been waiting for a long time. It was first petitioned for in 2007 by advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and Public Citizen. Congress required NHTSA to do it in 2012. About what, two or three infrastructure acts ago to be finished up by 2015.

It wasn’t finished by 2015. So we sued NHTSA in 2017 and essentially lost that lawsuit on the basis that the rule was based on assurances by the Department of Transportation that the rule was going to be released imminently. Imminently apparently means. Seven years these days in the federal government but beyond, all that introduction, which is a lot of the negatives and how long it takes, somewhat simple [00:02:00] rules in the grand scheme of things to be put through And to be required, it takes a long time.

Essentially here you’re taking the beeper that was going in the front seat, the driver seated vehicles and spreading it around to the rear seats and the passenger seat. And we call this the rear seat reminder rule, but ultimately it’s more than that. What they’re doing here.

Is adding the passenger seat in the front. A lot of manufacturers had already been putting rear seat belt reminders in that seat, but neglecting to put them in the rear seats. But what this does is, mandate rear seat belt. Seat belt reminders period for all seats in the vehicle, including, vehicles in the rear seats that vehicles that have seats that are removable.

When you pull them out and put them back in, they have to reconnect up electronically to the system so that they work. And it’s a great rule for, a pretty simple reason. Right now we’re [00:03:00] seeing, around 40, 000 deaths on our roads every year. Half of the people who are dying, 51 percent are unbuckled.

And while things Front seat belt use is somewhere around 91%. Rear seat belt use is around 80%. Those seem decent numbers. Some commenters seem to think those are good numbers. I think they show we still have a long way to go. Half of the fatalities we see are due to people who don’t have their seat belts on.

So it’s more important than ever that these reminders are effective and that, and it’s just trying to make sure that, the standard that was around for the front seat sense. The seventies basically just required that audible chime that you hear the new standards going to require both audio and visual notifications.

And in some circumstances, it’s not going to turn off and stop annoying someone until they buckle their seatbelt. So it’s hopefully going to be very effective overall. I think the agency is predicting [00:04:00] that, it will save somewhere around 50 lives per year and prevent, thousands of injuries.

I think it may do more than that. Especially if people start heeding the warnings and, they’re not gonna be able to shut the systems off, they’re essentially going to have to either be very annoyed or put on their seatbelts so that they’re protected. It’s a great rule. Took far too long to get put in place and the manufacturers could have been better at getting this technology into their vehicles before 2027, which I believe is the final compliance date for this rule.

[00:04:35] Anthony: This just sounds like more of the nanny state telling me what to do. Now, so you just said the front belt, front seat belt reminders was put in place in the 70s?

[00:04:46] Michael: For the driver’s seat. There was never a requirement to have these reminders in the passenger seat in the front of the car.

[00:04:53] Anthony: You’re telling me the cars built in the 1970s had to have this, cause I do not remember any of the adults I lived with in [00:05:00] the 1970s or probably up until the late 80s wearing a seatbelt in the driver’s seat.

[00:05:06] Michael: Yeah, I think it was just a chime at that point, like a very brief kind of, I think it was often, they used the same chime that was used for when you left your keys in the car and opened your door.

It was all connected to a similar sound system, if my memory serves correct.

[00:05:21] Anthony: Ah, see, I think they should have a vibrating seat warning. Oh, then people would like it as a massage chair. chair.

[00:05:27] Michael: What you could do is simply, not allow the car to be started until the seat belts are on, which is another way to ensure that vehicle, the occupants are buckled.

[00:05:38] Anthony: I love it. I’m on board with that.

[00:05:40] Whistleblower Rule and Its Implications

[00:05:40] Anthony: The next rule is the whistleblower rule. Now this is surprising. This is interesting because This is from a Walsh Journal article. Before the rules were finalized, the NHTSA had already issued a 24. 3 million to a former Hyundai motor engineer in 2021 in its first ever whistleblower award.

The [00:06:00] recipient, South Korean automotive engineer Kim Kwang ho, first reported to NHTSA in 2016 that his then employer Hyundai had failed to address a design flaw linked to engines seizing up and at times catching fire. So back in 2016, this guy blows the whistle on it. But there’s no actual whistleblower protections at this point?

[00:06:17] Michael: They had been passed by Congress in 2015 in the FAST Act, but it’s taken, nine, I think that’s nine years for the actual final rule to be entered, to be released. However, during that time period, NHTSA said they were operating. As though at least the current NHTSA, the Biden administration’s NHTSA said they were operating as though that rule were already in effect.

But essentially that rule extended some of the people who could qualify as whistleblowers under the law, the previous guidance that had been issued around this. Didn’t extend didn’t extend it to things like suppliers and contractors of [00:07:00] automakers and didn’t provide really any guidance for what the awards could or would be.

There’s still a little pushback from, the whistleblower community around the award structure here. The NHTSA administrator will have some. Some discretion in terms of how much these whistleblowers are going to be rewarded for coming forward. In the, in that Hyundai case, the whistleblower that came forward the South Korean man, he, his life was essentially ruined by him coming forward.

He lost his job. I think his family and it was a terrible story. When people take great risks. to their livelihood, to their family structure, to their safety in some circumstances to come forward and save lives. We think they should be rewarded generously for, all the suffering that they incurred along the way.

The rule gives a wide latitude to how much can be awarded to whistleblowers. And, maybe that’s justified because some [00:08:00] whistleblowers might have, far better information than others. But that’s one of the only areas where I’ve seen some pushback on the new rules.

[00:08:08] Fred: A question for you, Michael.

If one of our listeners happens to have an issue they think could be addressed through this whistleblower rule, what should they do? Should they contact you? Should they contact me or call NHTSA or call their local country lawyer?

[00:08:24] Michael: Yeah, reach out to us and probably the best thing to do in that circumstance would be to connect with an experienced attorney who is, knows the whistleblower laws back and forth.

And it’s, it has been through the process before

[00:08:36] Fred: Where would they find such a person? I, that’s most people don’t really have a intimate contact with a lawyer who’s experienced in whistleblower cases.

[00:08:47] Michael: We know of a few that we’d be happy to recommend, it would depend on their case and other things.

We get, we, we occasionally get calls from people. I guess the first thing to note is that if you’re not working through, For a motor vehicle [00:09:00] manufacturer in any capacity, you’re not going to qualify as a whistleblower. If you’re just a listener to see something wrong, you’re not going to be eligible for the whistleblower program.

It’s going to be limited to employees, contractors, suppliers of automakers. That’s the 1st step. And then. Once you have, if you meet that standard, then you probably want to look at, documenting your claims in very thoroughly and in a way that, you know, really helps shed light on, on the case that you’re presenting.

And also, a lot of whistleblowers are. rightly concerned about protecting their privacy and preventing their identity from being released because, sometimes they’re actually still employed by the same company they might be blowing the whistle on. So it’s that’s really why it really, why it helps immensely to have some legal guidance along the way.

[00:09:52] Fred: So what people should do is 1st, be convinced they’ve got something worth talking about. 2nd would be to call [00:10:00] you or contact you to get a referral. And 3rd would be to work with that referred lawyer to develop the case. Is that correct? Yes,

[00:10:08] Michael: and at that point, yes, you would submit a, essentially make your whistleblower submission to NHTSA under the new rules and guidelines and, nitsa will, Nitsa essentially would, it’s a black box there because we’re talking about an enforcement action and an action that, essentially most things that whistleblowers, if they’re successful whistleblower submissions, you could be looking at civil penalties and fines against the manufacturer.

That’s actually where the whistleblower award money comes from. And It’s really important to dot your I’s and cross your T’s and present the best case you can. So summarizing,

[00:10:44] Fred: I guess you would say, do not try this at home, get expert advice.

[00:10:49] Michael: I yeah, I would definitely say that.

Simply because it helps to be knowledgeable of. The types of things, the types of safety violations that NITS is going to [00:11:00] be focused on. And, just how, it helps to have a friend in that situation. And a lot of cases, that’s one thing that, many whistleblowers don’t exactly feel like they have the full support of all their Companions at work and, their bosses certainly.

And, they’re looking for someone who can help guide them through the process most of the time.

[00:11:21] Anthony: All right. And after you get your whistleblower award, go to autosafety. org and click on that donate button. Come on. All right. Let’s go to the the next NHTSA bit of wonderfulness.

[00:11:33] NHTSA’s Impact on Road Safety

[00:11:33] Anthony: NHTSA put out their study on how many lives have been saved.

I’m going to say this slowly. So Michael finds the correct press release. NHTSA. You,

[00:11:43] Michael: You skipped an important rule, another rule. Oh I’m getting

[00:11:46] Anthony: to the EDR rule later on. Don’t you worry.

[00:11:49] Michael: And the crash

[00:11:49] Anthony: data. Yeah.

[00:11:50] Michael: Yeah. So NHTSA put out a it’s a study they conduct every few years where essentially they go back and review the number of fatalities [00:12:00] that have been prevented or injuries that have been prevented because.

of the motor vehicle safety standards that have been put in place over the years. And I think in the latest NHTSA report, there were somewhere, they’re saying that since 1968 NHTSA safety standards have prevented about 860, 000 deaths and 49, 49 million non fatal injuries. 65 million damaged vehicles.

So that is a huge economic benefit to the country. And I have to think far outweighs. I think even just taking seatbelt requirements alone, you’re going to far outweigh the cost to install a lot of these safety technologies into vehicles. And even a rough estimate, it suggests, that maybe, this is numbers here are a little low.

If you look at the crash rate in 1967 before NHTSA was founded, [00:13:00] it was about 5. 34 fatalities. Per 100 million miles traveled. If you bring that forward to today’s population, instead of seeing, a little under 40, 000 fatalities per year on our roads, we’d be seeing right about 170, 000 fatalities per year on our roads.

I don’t think there’s any question that the federal motor vehicle safety standards have been the main impetus behind that that drop. That in fatalities per mile traveled that we’ve seen in the past 50 years.

[00:13:32] Anthony: So why would anyone want to roll these things back and remove regulations like that?

[00:13:37] Michael: There is a large faction of America that seems to believe that the market can protect people just as well as regulations. We disagree strongly because mainly we’ve seen some of the problems that happen when you have companies that don’t really have a proper safety culture that care a lot more about making money and care a lot more about their quarterly [00:14:00] earnings reports than they do about actually preventing problems on the road.

Hey, you’re

[00:14:05] Fred: stealing my thunder for gaslight illumination. All right, I’ll stop.

[00:14:09] Michael: I’ll stop. I said we were

[00:14:11] Anthony: never going to discuss GM Cruise again.

[00:14:14] Michael: But this, it’s important for people to realize this. And you look at, different presidential administrations and you start to see where the impact happens.

I, we’ve had three Final rules that NETS has announced this week. We’ve talked about two of them so far. We’re going to get to EDR. That is I’m pretty sure that’s more than the number of final rules that were issued during the entire four years of the Trump administration where they, I think they issued two, one of them was on sounds that hybrid electric vehicles produced.

And one was on I want to say What

[00:14:44] Anthony: do you mean by steering wheels? Yeah, I can’t remember.

[00:14:46] Michael: I think maybe it had been battery electrolyte spillage I can’t remember the other rule that was acted on. But, certain administrations simply do not believe in using regulations to advance safety and some do.

And we’re [00:15:00] about to run into another four years of one that doesn’t. NHTSA, the current NHTSA I believe is approaching 40, final rules and about 25 proposed rules in their four years. So right there you can see the gigantic difference in the approach to regulatory safety regulation from the two parties.

[00:15:21] Anthony: And listen, this is why we need you and your support to help us fight through the next four years. Because we’ve survived over 50 years fighting through people who are like, I don’t want to do regulations. But they need that pressure on them constantly. Even when it feels like it’s a losing battle, they need that pressure.

And we provide that pressure. And now it’s time for that final NHTSA rule.

[00:15:40] Event Data Recorders: New Regulations

[00:15:40] Anthony: This final rule amends regulations regarding event data recorders to extend the event data recorder period Recording period for timed data metrics from 5 seconds of pre crash data at a frequency of 2 Hz to 20 seconds of pre crash data at a frequency of 10 Hz, and if you think I’m Fred Perkins, you’re wrong.

[00:15:57] Michael: The 2 Hz and 10 Hz things aren’t [00:16:00] quite as confusing as they sound, right? Essentially they’re adding another 15 seconds pre crash, and that’s to capture, Certain precap pre crash factors that occur, in the in those additional 15 seconds before the crash event data recorders, black boxes, as you’ll most, most often hear them called, they record.

A small subset of the data that vehicles are generating, they’re certainly not capturing everything there. They’re recording, whether the airbags were deployed. And when that happened, where they’re recording, breaking and acceleration and some basic things you’re not going to, that additional 15 seconds.

I don’t think you’re going to be capturing a lot about the vehicles. Partial automations, we wonder about this a lot in Tesla crashes, for instance, what exactly happened in those final seconds before a crash where, you know, who was in control? Was the vehicle in control? Was it warning the driver properly?

The EDR is not going to be able to capture a lot of that. And in many ways the current event data [00:17:00] recorders, the black boxes, They’re somewhat dinosaurs, they’re old technology, a lot of manufacturers are capturing far more depth and detail and of data on vehicle safety and on crashes than the EDRs would, but it still really helps.

crash investigators to figure out the basics of a crash. And so they’re super important. They’re still not required on vehicles. 99. 5 percent of vehicles have them. I know that the major outlier there is Porsche who refuses to put them in their vehicles and the federal government so far has not been willing to mandate them across industry, even though everyone except Porsche and maybe one other small manufacturer using them.

So it’s, it’s great that NHTSA got the rule out to update the time standard. We do think that, we think that there should be an advanced EDR rule. We need, we think that we need to mandate more collection of new types of data on vehicles and that [00:18:00] ultimately That’s something that’s going to have to happen at some point.

Not sure how far down the line that will happen. And then back to the Hertz thing that I didn’t cover. So the Hertz, the they’re raising the sampling rate from two Hertz, which is, they’re basically taking the, Two data points every second to 10 Hertz, which is 10 data points. Every second.

So they’re collecting it, the data more frequently as the crash approaches.

[00:18:24] Anthony: All right. That’s pretty good. And we know what’s happening in a Porsche before a crash. Everything’s awesome. The driver is just, I am the best person on planet earth. But then they’re having imposter syndrome, and that’s why they crashed.

Ha!

[00:18:37] Gaslight Illumination: Waymo’s Safety Claims

[00:18:37] Anthony: Anyway, he’s been vibrating like a tuning fork the entire show, dying to get to his gaslight illumination of the week, and we’re gonna start off with Fred Perkins, because myself and Michael will battle later on over ours. Yeah. Mr. Perkins, please illuminate us with your gaslight ness.

[00:18:54] Fred: Thank you, I’m so excited.

This is an announcement by Waymo. That the title is Waymo’s First [00:19:00] Responder Program Receives Independent Safety Confirmation. This is actually a master class in gaslighting, or shall we say, a brownwashing automatic. It’s it’s really wonderful. That’s just a great example. So I’m glad I didn’t have the job to do this.

I’m a very creative writer when it’s this, but let me go ahead. So they say, quoting today, we are proud to share the way most first responder program. Was independently reviewed by Tuvsud, if I’ve got that pronunciation right, a global leader in safety testing and certification, making it the industry’s first such program to be validated according to industry best practices by a third party.

That sounds pretty good. We’ve been calling for third party review of A. V. safety for a long time. Who paid this third

[00:19:53] Anthony: party?

[00:19:54] Fred: Sorry? Who paid

[00:19:55] Anthony: this third party? Who pays this third party? Who paid this happened to be [00:20:00] paid by Waymo. By Waymo? Okay, just real independents.

[00:20:06] Michael: Nobody’s going to do the work for free, right?

So you’re going to have to pay

[00:20:10] Fred: Like reminiscent of 2008 when the people who are selling mortgages were free to shop the mortgages to the

best credit rating. Yeah. So it’s like that.

[00:20:24] VO: Yeah.

[00:20:25] Fred: Okay. So what’s wrong with that? First of all, they say that. Their responder, first responder program was independently reviewed, doesn’t say audited, it says reviewed. Okay, so review is a pretty squishy word reviewed by Tuv Sud. Okay, so what history has Tuv Sud got for Looking at the operational safety of AVs and it turns out none.

Oh so they’ve been around for a long time, but they’ve, they said that they’ve got a simulation training framework, which allows multiple scenarios, [00:21:00] system configurations, and driver characteristics to be tested and analyzed. That’s good. If you dig a little deeper, it turns out that they’ve never done this before.

I’m looking for that quote right now.

[00:21:17] Michael: Yeah, it would have, it’s, this is a very new field, so it would have been hard for them to do it, before anyway, right?

[00:21:23] Fred: Yeah that’s true. That’s correct. So there’s really, but I guess summarizing there is no industry history. So it’s hard to know exactly what that means.

So Waymo goes on to say, making industry’s first search program to be validated, Yeah. Note again, the use of validated, but 1st, they were reviewing now they’re validating, but they’re not auditing. And then they finally say, according to industry best practices by a 3rd party. That sounds awfully good, but, there are no industry best practices.

There are no [00:22:00] standards. There are no generally accepted standards for what the operational safety of an ought to do. They

[00:22:06] Michael: have the Autonomous Vehicle Safety Coalition has put out what they call best practice guidelines.

[00:22:14] Fred: They sure have.

[00:22:14] Michael: And that is what TÜV Süd was, they weren’t certifying, I want to be clear about that, I think a couple of media reports of this used the word certification.

They’re not certifying anything. Essentially you’ve got this independent third party, which is TÜV Süd, being approached by Waymo and saying that, yeah, Waymo meets. These best practice guidelines, which is about as wishy washy of language as you can get, put out by a autonomous vehicle, a consortium of autonomous vehicle manufacturers, there aren’t any safety experts involved there.

And on top of that, we’ve got this kind of This system of loosey goosey confirmation by a third party, but also, Waymo didn’t show us the [00:23:00] report. Nobody’s seen the report from Tooth Sooth. We have no idea what they tested, why they tested, how they tested, it’s it’s like this, I don’t know, a closed circuit of this pretend certification regime where, the public ultimately doesn’t really get any new information other than Waymo saying, trust us.

That’s

[00:23:17] Anthony: right. Sorry. This autonomous vehicle coalition, would Waymo happen to be its, I don’t know, largest member? Let me get to that. This is like a layer

[00:23:27] Fred: cake. Okay. So let’s go back to TÜV SÜD first. So they say that on their website, they’re developed, they are, excuse me, TÜV SÜD is developing a simulation and testing framework.

Which allows multiple scenarios environments yada, yada to be tested and analyzed. We’ll be providing these links, by the way, for interested people. That seems to be a work in progress. They don’t have their work done. They’re developing it. And [00:24:00] so that’s interesting. So Tufusud was hired by Waymo to do it, was ordered to do it according to the AVSC.

to be But what is what is the AVSC, right? The AVSC is an industry group that was formed in 2019, and according to their website, it’s an industry program of SAE Industry Technologies Consortia that produced this document. Now notice they cite SAE, but the SAE ITC Is a subsidiary of SAE International.

So they’re hanging on to the idea that because it’s an SAE document that it’s been vetted and it’s been accepted by industry. That’s not the case. They were just using that as a cover so they can do this without antitrust problems. So that’s another lie that’s in there that they are another implication that they’ve got [00:25:00] and premature, but they don’t really the group.

They’re using just publishes things. In fact, they say it’s an industry program of industries technologies consortia. And according to their website, it’s where industry comes together to address shared needs and opportunities. But industry is not the only stakeholder in AV safety. Other stakeholders include the public includes regulators.

None of those people were involved in the development of this document by AVSC. So where WAMO says it’s a standard, what it really is a white paper that’s been put out without any industry or safety advocacy review.

[00:25:45] Michael: and if you look at the standards, not, they’re not standards, the guidelines of the best practices document that they’re talking about, there aren’t any tests specified in it.

There’s just a, there’s a lot of, there are a lot of words, but not a [00:26:00] lot of actual tests that need to be run. That’s certainly no, Yeah, no guidance on simulation testing that too soon seems to be conducting.

[00:26:08] Fred: It’s even worse. There’s not a single. What’s called a normative statement.

A normative statement is something that you must conform to in order to comply with a standard, for example. A number or a hard characteristic would be a normative standard. There’s nothing in here. So if you look at compliance with this document for AV safety, your grandfather’s 1970 Ford Pinto could equally well be certified to be compliant with this document.

AV safety document there’s just nothing there. In fact, the word safety is undefined. They refer obliquely to ISO 26262, but that document does not define safety in any affirmative way. It just says that safety is the absence of unacceptable risk or unreasonable risk, but that’s not definition.

That’s just a property. [00:27:00] That such a definition would have there’s just so much here. I’m sorry. I feel like I’m rambling a little bit. This is itself is contradicting their own standards when they say that they’re, when I say that they’re doing this, because on their website, they say that international government regulations are required.

So why are they then compromising themselves by going ahead and apparently certifying or somehow testifying that what William is doing is okay in the absence of the requirements that they advocate are necessary on their own website. You start with that, and they’re probably get up to the.

Which has got no basis for saying that they have an industry standard, except that they declare it’s an industry standard. And then you move into the actual announcement, parsing the words there, it just doesn’t support things. AVSC has 9 corporate members. It does not include Tesla, [00:28:00] which is the largest producer of extended duration self driving vehicles in the world.

You wonder how did they come up with the best practice that doesn’t include the people who are actually doing the work.

[00:28:15] Michael: I would say that, yeah, Tesla’s not going to be an exemplar for any best practices in that area.

[00:28:22] Anthony: really doing self driving.

[00:28:23] Michael: Yeah.

[00:28:25] Anthony: No,

[00:28:26] Fred: but the fact is that they do that.

[00:28:28] Anthony: They do the level 2 stuff. Yes, they do the level 2 plus.

[00:28:31] Fred: Let me wrap this up. I know I’m going on long, but For misrepresenting the pedigree underlying the third party assessment safety basis for claiming the AVSC’s output as legitimate industry standard versus the reality of a self serving vacuity, for not clarifying the scope of TubeSUD’s validation, Versus an audit the contradicts to its own safety advocacy and generally pathetically claiming safety certification to industry standards where [00:29:00] in fact none exist.

I’m nominating way more as the gaslight of the week. If not the year, this is a real master class and gaslighting.

[00:29:10] Anthony: Bravo. I think this is excellent. I think we’ve pointed out over the last couple of months that Waymo’s been on a really big PR push lately since they drove into a stationary utility pole.

They’ve been really hitting the media up and talking about how great they are constantly. And the media is just I will cut and paste the document you sent to me. And this is part of that. But Toobsood I’ve got on the internet and I’ve done some research about this. This company here and let’s see they inspect and audit engineering things.

They do everything. They started with steam boilers and locomotives. And in 2015, they they audited and certified a dam from the mining company, Val. And that, that dam collapsed and killed a bunch of people, so the Brazilians where it collapsed, they, yeah, they they issued arrest [00:30:00] warrants for two of the, two of the sued, quote unquote, engineers.

Also let’s see they certified the manufacturing process for breast implants that failed and injured over 1, 600 women. So tooth said, I’ll say anything for a dollar. They are not Underwriters Laboratory. They’re not. They’re like Standard Poor’s and Moody’s back in, 20, 2008.

Can I say all this? Yeah.

[00:30:25] Michael: What they’re setting up, what this is, this is Google’s dream is, and any autonomous vehicle manufacturer’s dream is to set up a fake certification scheme that doesn’t have any Hard rules, right? This is what the traditional auto manufacturers have been trying to put in place every time there’s an issue that comes up.

They tried it, with automatic emergency braking. We talked at all about that all the time.

[00:30:49] Waymo’s Safety Standards Controversy

[00:30:49] Michael: They want to come up with these voluntary agreements where they’re held to, as low a standard as possible so they can delay the investment in safety [00:31:00] technologies and safety Sell them as options for years before they come out.

They want a scheme that’s not mandatory. They just want kind of guidelines. They don’t want any, anyone to be able to hold their feet to the fire when they don’t put safety into their vehicles fast enough. This is essentially Waymo trying to create a similar scheme for autonomy. Certifying to standards that don’t exist with a third party Independent third party, supposedly holding your feet to the fire, which isn’t really a fire because there aren’t any standards.

So it’s a, a there’s no room in there for regulators or for safety advocates or for anyone to get any real safety put into those rules and those Certification processes. So that’s what they that’s ultimately what they want. And in addition to that, they want to, at some point, they’re going to be pushing in the next few months to get laws put on the books, the United States, where cities and states and localities, don’t have the ability to regulate these [00:32:00] vehicles either.

So essentially, they want to do whatever they want, and keep the rest of us at an arm’s length while they thrust these vehicles under our roads, and we won’t have a

[00:32:11] Fred: If Waymo and vehicles are so safe, why do they need to lie? I think this is just capital trying to preserve itself as the air is rapidly leaking out of the AV bubble.

[00:32:23] Anthony: I think as I mentioned last week, at some point in the not too distant future, Waymo or Google will go, wait a second, we’re an advertising company. Why are we burning all this billions and billions of dollars? Cause their CEO’s gonna be like, I have a driver. I don’t need this awful car. I’ll keep having Brad drive me around.

I assume in this scenario his driver’s name is Brad. He’s tall, he wears a cap.

[00:32:48] Nostalgia for Bench Seats

[00:32:48] Anthony: Anyway let’s continue with gaslighting. So this one, okay, turns out before the show started, Michael and I agreed on the same [00:33:00] But I think we’ll have,

[00:33:00] Michael: I think we’ll have different reasons. We’re going to have different

[00:33:02] Anthony: takes on it.

Okay.

[00:33:03] Michael: You go ahead first. Cause you’re just probably going to be funnier than mine.

[00:33:07] Anthony: Mine is on bench seats. Remember bench seats in cars. I do. I think my parents had a Chrysler Valiant maybe. And the entire front seat was just one big bench, and so you, Yeah, oh, we gotta move the seat forward.

Everyone had to bend down and grab and slide the seat forward with it. It was a time when we didn’t wear seatbelts. So there’s an article in Road and Track, And I feel bad for the person who wrote it, Because they’re dating a dangerous person. Quoting from the article My girlfriend’s chief complaint about modern cars is that I sit too damn far away.

A bench seat could fix all of that, she proclaimed. No! She’s saying I wanna die. When you’re driving, I wanna die. I wanna be in the center console where there’s no airbag protection. I want to die. Further down in the article it says that Millennials and Gen Z they’ve never [00:34:00] seen a bench seat.

So as a result, it holds a warm, nostalgic glow for the under 40 crowd. Social media these days is filled with videos of friends, young couples, and pet owners enjoying the closeness of a bench seat for the first time. Vomit! No! No! No, there’s a reason we don’t have bench seats anymore. Because people were dying.

That’s my assumption. And they’re And I imagine they’re more difficult to install. I think this bench seat nostalgia nonsense is maybe there was like three kids on the TikTok who posted something. Their parents at a marketing firm were like, Oh this is what the kids are into! Yeah, you don’t have to eat protein powder by the gallon.

This week, I can do bench seats.

[00:34:43] Fred: This is my thing. I think they’re trying to promote marital communication because there’ll be an awful lot of arguments about how close the seat is to the dashboard with a bench seat that are simply not there when you’ve got bucket seats, individually adjustable.

[00:34:57] Anthony: That’s an excellent point as well.

But I just still think, because [00:35:00] they show a photo where it’s like somebody sitting in front of the center console, where again, it’s, I don’t know how well airbags work covering that spot, but hey, that’s my take. What’s your take on it, Mr. Brooks? Mine is

[00:35:10] Michael: similar, actually, it’s, they’re still allowed under federal law.

The NHTSA’s regulations still allow for these bench seats to be put in the middle. However, NHTSA’s regulations don’t require airbag protection for those seats. And when you look at the pictures that come out for some of these bench seats, they’re not really bench seats. They’re not those.

One long seat in the front where if you want to be close to the steering wheel, you pull up and the person next to you has to move up as well. You’re not together. You’re separate. And then it’s more of a junk seat. I think is a better name for them. There’s a essentially a seat that pops up in your center console.

And then whatever’s in front of you in that seat, which is typically a touch screen, the air conditioner controls. The, it could be all sorts of [00:36:00] things, those are going to be, you’re going to be coming in contact with those in a crash. If you don’t have an airbag protecting the bench seat.

It’s unclear if, none of these vehicles have airbags that protect the bench seat. If some of them might, and then when you put a, passenger in that area, then you lose the ability to put in things like, the types of airbags that come in between passengers to protect them from hitting each other.

There’s a lot of problems with this. And, I would advise no one to sit in these seats, if possible, whether your marriage is in trouble or not, just stick to the seats that have been around for decades have been tested and that sort of thing. There’s one Yeah. Maybe bent seats are somewhat safer because you’re in the center of the vehicle and you’re more protected from side impact collisions.

But that one is probably not enough to outweigh all the other problems with them. I would advise no one to use bent seats.

[00:36:54] Anthony: I agree. And Fred, you had a great presentation for your gas light, but you’re outvoted due to one. [00:37:00] I’m sorry. I Waymo is Yeah. He’s trying to pull a con on everybody, but bench seats.

Yeah, but

[00:37:05] Fred: your pressure is against tall people, Anthony. That’s well established.

[00:37:09] Anthony: Look, if I’m ever in a car with you, I’m going to make sure it’s a bench seat and I’m driving because then your face is going to be pressed against the windshield as I move my tiny legs forward.

[00:37:24] The Debate on Autonomous Vehicle Regulations

[00:37:24] Anthony: Speaking of tiny legs, Donald Trump.

No, I meant Elon Musk. Both of them. From an article linking to an MSN. com, Donald Trump’s transition team is taking aim at a Biden era rule requiring automakers and tech companies to report crashes that involve fully or partially autonomous vehicles. Scrapping the crash reporting rule would greatly benefit Tesla, which to date has reported the most number of crashes.

Let me get this right, because, Essentially, every car sold since 2020 has some level of partially [00:38:00] autonomous feature to it.

[00:38:02] Michael: This one, it’s not quite everybody on this one because this is they’ve struggled to describe exactly what it is in simple terms. You can’t really say it’s level two or it’s almost level three under the SAE levels, but essentially it’s vehicles where an automation controls both the forward, reverse and lateral.

So side to side movements of a vehicle for, an extended period of time. So the advanced cruise controls, autopilot, full self driving, those types of things

[00:38:34] Anthony: So my adaptive cruise control, does that count?

[00:38:38] Michael: I, if your vehicle is able to control, it’s. It’s movement side to side and forward and rear for quite some time.

There’s, it’s not, it’s loose, loosely defined.

[00:38:49] Anthony: I’ve never used it backwards but it will do lane keeping assist and automated cruise control. If it’s doing those two,

[00:38:57] Michael: if it’s doing those two together on a [00:39:00] sustained basis, then it should be included.

[00:39:02] Anthony: Because I think that’s like most cars sold for the last, like I was saying, like the last four or so years.

Well, a

[00:39:06] Michael: lot of, a lot of vehicles still don’t come with that technology. Because it’s, automatic emergency braking isn’t required until 2029, right?

[00:39:13] Anthony: Okay.

[00:39:13] Michael: It’s in there voluntarily, but there’s, they’re still selling a lot of this stuff as optional. And they’re selling advanced cruise control features as optional.

Even Tesla does this. You have to subscribe to them, right? Before, so every car that comes out may have. certain capabilities there, but not all of them actually have the features. And what, this is, the day this standing general order was announced I want to say around three years ago, maybe three and a half years ago, my biggest concern was, Hey, what happens in the, after the next.

Presidential election. This is a not a rule that nets is issued that, is, went through the rulemaking process. And it’s, somewhat permanent part of the regulatory system. This was issued essentially [00:40:00] by the administrator of nets, which means that a new administrator can come in and erase the entire program.

And it looks like Okay. That’s what’s going to happen. It’s very cynical of them to remove this rule. We’re, these are very new technologies and in some ways the media coverage of these events is so heightened that these crashes are going to be noted at some point by NHTSA and looked into anyway.

This is essentially. Elon Musk saying, we’re collecting so much data on our vehicles that we know the crashes are going to happen. And so when we have to report these to the government, we look bad, right? And so because Tesla doesn’t want to look bad and because I think they represent something like 40 out of every 45 crashes that have been collected so far, mainly because Tesla’s beaming all of its crash data up to the cloud and they have it and therefore required to report it, it essentially makes them look [00:41:00] bad compared to the rest of the auto world.

I would suggest that, in my world, in my view, it doesn’t make them look bad. It makes them look like they’re doing a really job of compliance and they’re doing a really good job of collecting crash data, both of which are great things. But apparently, they’ve taken the other view that, simply posting public.

Documents that list the number of crashes that Tesla’s operating with autopilot or full self drive engaged on the wet and it’s, his website is a bad thing and they want to take it down. So I expect, and I think most of us expect that to happen as 1 of the 1st thing that’s a does when they have a new administrator or acting administrator or nominated administrator put into place in about a month and a half.

[00:41:41] Fred: Oh, do you think he bought influenced? That’s absolutely shocking that, that somebody who is crusading against immigrants coming to America would try to buy influence. Oh, wait, he’s an immigrant. I’m sorry. I overspoke.

[00:41:56] Anthony: So confusing, this world. I don’t want to tell you how bad my cars [00:42:00] are.

Donate to the Center for Auto Safety. We’ll tell you how bad cars are. Constantly. And with that, last week, we missed it. We missed Fred’s tau. And so this week we’re going to do is TAO. Can we do the TAO in seven and a half minutes? You’ve now

[00:42:11] Fred: entered the DAO threat. Okay.

[00:42:14] Cybersecurity in Software-Defined Vehicles

[00:42:14] Fred: So the, Michael suggested we talk about making software defined vehicles cyber secure, which was a article that was posted and this particular article, Addresses the issue of the possibility of cyber intrusion by a malicious sensor inputs after replacing the sensors that do not match the capabilities of the original equipment.

For example, if you have a radar on the vehicle and it breaks, then you have to replace it with another device to provide similar capabilities. The problem is that if the output of that device doesn’t match the output of the previous device. Then you’ve got a problem with correlation when you try to get the artificial intelligence engine working and [00:43:00] the perception of what that sensor is bringing in.

[00:43:03] Anthony: So I’m going to jump in real quick. So I think we talked about this once before, so I get a radar that I’ll say a camera, there’s a camera. And the one that came with my car is gets five megapixels response. And then I go to replace it with one that gets 10 megapixels. Is that kind of a, Yeah, that’s right.

So our

[00:43:21] Fred: human being would look at those two images of the cow and say, Oh, they’re both cows. But a computer has to look at it pixel by pixel and try to represent, that same cow, but with a very different numerical simulation. So what this researcher proposes is that you put an artificial intelligence engine between the sensor and the main computer so that it standardizes all the inputs coming in And that would allow the main computer to correlate through these images or the, through the sensor data much more easily, which is true.

The problem is that every time you put an artificial engine in [00:44:00] place, you’re introducing an opaque system where you cannot really trace the inputs to the outputs in the rational way that, that you would like to have. So it’s extremely difficult to validate. that the system is working properly.

And putting this together, what you’re really proposing is that you have a chain of three different artificial intelligence engines that are associated with each of the sensor inputs. So you’ve got a radar, for example, then there’s an artificial intelligence engine that treats the data coming out of the radar.

So that it matches the format and is consistent with previous information, then that goes into another artificial intelligence engine, which does the perception, right? Is that a, is that an infant by the side of the road, or is that a fire hydrant? Perception is a very important step in that. Then the information from that perception goes into yet another artificial intelligence engine, which looks at [00:45:00] the state of the vehicle.

And the environment around the vehicle to determine what the next move of the control system should be. For example, it sees a fire hydrant by the side of the road and it says I don’t want to run into that. So I have to turn left. So what this. Researcher is proposing is that this is an improvement overall.

In the amount of projected safety. And reliability that you’re getting from the overall control system. But in order to do that, you have to accept that three levels of artificial intelligence can be performed accurately and safely every few milliseconds when you try to update the state of the vehicle.

So I think this is very challenging and Until computers run a lot faster, like maybe when the quantum computers come out, this is going to be a practical impossibility to run all these sequence of artificial intelligence engines on all the sensors [00:46:00] in order to drive the vehicle. So that’s a really long complicated explanation for why this is probably a great research topic.

And probably always will be.

[00:46:15] Anthony: So we’ve talked about this before, but replacing parts in cars. So we know Ford and GM, the legacy manufacturers, they have a whole parts infrastructure behind them. Like they’re making their own spare parts for vehicles and there’s third parties that make all this stuff.

But there’s, is there any regulations that require, Hey, I sell this Ford Bob car that I need to keep making. These parts for the next decade or something like that.

[00:46:43] Fred: Regulations, oh, you’re so cute. I

[00:46:45] Anthony: know.

[00:46:47] Fred: But this sounds abstract, but everybody does this every day. Because if you go to a website and it’s got an interface that says Take these screwy looking numbers and [00:47:00] letters and the numerals that are in here and translate that into text that you type in, right?

You’ve seen that where you’ve got the

[00:47:06] Anthony: really

[00:47:07] Fred: weird fonts. Yeah. That’s a great example because those really weird fonts are very difficult to be interpreted by the artificial intelligence engine that underlies The character recognition software that the bots are using to try to scoop up the data, scrape the data from the Internet.

Okay, so this is a good example of how that would actually work. And what this research is proposing is that we need to develop computer technology that will allow us to translate these screwy figures that you’re seeing on the computer into the very precise ASCII format. Okay, That the computer is used to analyzing.

It sounds abstract, but we all do it every day when we’re using the internet. Logging into sites that have any kind of protection against the intrusion of bots. [00:48:00]

[00:48:00] Anthony: You know what site doesn’t have those captions you have to fill out? Autosafety. org Because we do it another way, it’s hidden behind the scenes.

You don’t have to do that and do a vision test. You can go there, you can click on the red donate button. Why does he keep asking for money? Because it’s the end of the year, people. Come on, it’s time to, it’s time to donate. It’s the season of giving. Fred I love this. I think it’d be great if there was more information.

Around how people are doing this, like specifically around what you’re talking about replacing these parts, cause especially right now I see with EVs and hybrids that they hit in a crash, it’s a lot more expensive to repair them because we’ve got to replace these radar systems. We’ve got to replace all this stuff.

[00:48:37] Fred: And most of the industry, you’ve got third party providers for spare parts, right?

And go out and get whatever kind of tire that you want. When you go to the piggly wiggly auto parts store, you’ve got to take whatever they’ve got on the shelf. And 5 years from now, it’s likely that the radar that you bought in your car originally will be updated into something else.

And that something else has [00:49:00] got to be compatible with the data you’ve already accumulated if the artificial intelligence is going to work properly. This is a future problem, but something that’s going to be very difficult to implement in vehicles.

[00:49:14] Anthony: Do we know if any of the legacy manufacturers if they have a supply chain around these sensors, the radars, the lidars and whatnot, or are they playing fast and loose like Tesla does?

[00:49:27] Fred: We know that a lot of them have gone out of business.

[00:49:31] Anthony: Wait, what do you, I’m talking like, like Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, that, that’s what I mean, those,

[00:49:36] Fred: I have no knowledge of what their selection process is for their suppliers. I know it’s a complex process, but in terms of the durability, the only issue I know of that’s come up.

So far in this industry is preservation of the software and the the problem that’s associated with the company going out of the business that has provided previously a software defined vehicle for public use [00:50:00] that software is no longer going to be upgraded. And so you’re screwed basically.

Thanks, Viscar.

[00:50:06] Anthony: Yeah, there, there won’t be any cybersecurity threats to your cars in the future. Don’t worry people, you’ll be fine.

[00:50:12] Fred: A little cybersecurity threat if you can’t operate it and it’s just going to sit in your

[00:50:16] Anthony: driveway. It will look cool though. Hey, speaking of looking cool,

[00:50:21] Recall Roundup

[00:50:21] VO: let’s do some recalls.

Strap in,

[00:50:24] Anthony: time for the recall countdown. Nissan 322, 671 vehicles, the 2013 to 2016 Nissan Pathfinder. Wait. I like this. On certain Pathfinder vehicles, dust, dirt, and contamination may accumulate on and around the bell crank lever point joint. This may lead to mechanical binding. We’re seeing the letter remain open.

[00:50:48] Michael: This isn’t a new recall. This was a recall that got a re submission in the middle of November that we had pointed out to us by our companion organization, the [00:51:00] Automobile Protection Association in Canada, who said that they’re having some owners complain about this because Nissan issued this recall in June of 2020.

Two, I believe is the date somewhere around there, May, June, 2022. And so far owners have no repair for it. So we are about two and a half years into this recall. That is simply to repair a hood latch that’s coming undone. And Nissan has been unable to get these owners a fix. I think this is the.

Longest period I’ve ever seen for a recall to actually happen for owners and, for a manufacturer to require owners to drive around with potentially life threatening condition in their vehicle. So I wanted to point this one out just because of. That significance and also to, have owners contact NHTSA and let them know this is not okay.

[00:52:00] That it’s not okay to issue a recall and not have a fix for two and a half years for your owners. It looks like the final fix won’t be coming until the first quarter of late the first quarter of next year. They’re going to be waiting ultimately almost three years for a recall fix on these Nissan hood latches, which is.

It’s completely unacceptable.

[00:52:22] Fred: I’ve just heard that Nissan and Honda are thinking about a merger. Is that going to have any effect on this? They

[00:52:27] Michael: are. I heard that Nissan’s stock went up significantly on that news and Honda’s went down a little. Which is probably what you should expect. Nissan has struggled significantly in the past few years.

And there’s some consolidation going on in the industry that, they, Both Hyundai and Nissan might benefit from an arrangement like that.

[00:52:47] Anthony: If they merge, do you think they can change their company name to Datsun?

[00:52:51] Fred: Ah!

[00:52:51] Michael: Ooh.

[00:52:52] Anthony: Anyway. That’s probably better

[00:52:53] Fred: than Nanda. Or Nita.

[00:52:57] Anthony: Come on, guys. I remember as a kid watching the [00:53:00] commercials like, we used to be called Datsun, now we’re called Nissan.

And it was like, it’s a very complex commercial. As a little kid, I was like, why is this playing during my Saturday morning cartoons? Anyway. Anyway. Anyway. Yeah, what?

[00:53:11] Michael: I was gonna say they made some nice dots and pickups back in the day. I missed those.

[00:53:16] Anthony: Next recall, Chrysler, 2, 135 vehicles, the 2021 to 2023 Jeep Renegades.

They’re violating FMBSS 49, oh my god, I’m not even gonna get into that. This has something to do with lamps.

[00:53:32] Michael: It’s FMDSS 108 you were going into the code of federal regulations. You should stay out of that. That’s not your domain.

[00:53:40] Anthony: Restraining order. Yeah,

[00:53:42] Michael: so essentially these Jeep Renegades they have, your reverse lamps that come on when you put your vehicle in reverse.

They are not there. They’re not sufficient to light up anything. I’m supposing is what’s going on. It looks like there’s an issue with. [00:54:00] They put the wrong bumper lamp assembly on the wrong vehicles. And so they’re going to have to go back and replace those with the correct bumper lamp assembly.

And it looks like owners won’t be hearing about this until the end of January. And they’re going to do it. I don’t, it also looks like they don’t know which vehicles have the bad bumper lamps. So they’re going to have to take a look at your vehicle, do an inspection. If you have the proper lamps, you’re good.

You go home. If not, they’re going to replace them.

[00:54:29] Anthony: In the meantime, we suggest you don’t back up. All right. Next up, General Motors, 7, 606 vehicles. The 2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV. Oh, I thought these things were good. Oh, the pedestrian alert sound system in these vehicles may have an incorrect software calibration and may not produce exterior sound at the required relative volume.

It’s they’re a whistler, can I call it? Is it a whistler? These EVs? It can be, yeah.

[00:54:55] Michael: It can be a whistle. There’s a couple other sounds I think that can be used, but it is No longer farts. [00:55:00] None of that weird stuff that the industry tried to get in a couple of years back, but this is basically the federal safety standard that requires those quieter hybrid and electric vehicles to make a noise when they’re traveling at lower speeds.

You hit a certain speed where. The vehicle just simply at that speed driving through air creates a noise that can alert pedestrians. But at the lower speeds, this one is the problem here is between the speeds of 12 and 18 miles per hour. So these vehicles aren’t, It seems like they’re, they, it doesn’t look like they’re not creating a noise at all.

They’re just not creating a noise that’s loud enough to be detected by pedestrians at those speeds. And so they’re going to have to go back and looks like they’re basically updating the software to correct the condition and to increase the volume at those speeds.

[00:55:53] Anthony: I suggest they put playing cards in the spokes.

So when they drive along. That works. I think it does work. Yeah. [00:56:00] Last recall Kia. 1, 385 vehicles, the 2025 Kia Sorento Plug in Hybrid. Oh. During certain frontal collisions, the front subframe may become displaced rearward, causing the steering rack to contact and damage the fuel line.

[00:56:18] Michael: Yeah these vehicles, I think it’s just some of them.

Not all of them have this rack mounted motor driven power steering system that apparently in, during certification testing of some sort. They found that when the vehicles hit in a frontal collision, the frame displaces rearward and moves the steering whack rack right into the fuel line, which can damage the fuel line.

Fuel leak and all the bad things that happened from that point on but looks like the fix is pretty readily available. They’ve already put it into place on the assembly line, and it’s essentially going to be putting additional protective covering around that fuel line. So that when this does inevitably happen, [00:57:00] hopefully.

There’s more protection for the fuel line when that, when the subframe displacement happens and makes your steering rack contact the fuel line. So hopefully that fix is good enough to prevent these issues. Although, a little protective coating doesn’t sound like a whole lot of protection to me.

[00:57:17] End of Year Reflections and Farewell

[00:57:17] Anthony: With that listeners, that is the end of this episode. And it is the end of us for this year. Cause we have the next two weeks off, cause we’re during our annual retreat to Guam, where we count snakes. No, it’s just next week is there’s two weeks in a row of holidays. I don’t know, maybe we’ll play some repeats?

Something like that?

[00:57:37] Michael: Yeah, I’m sure we could find some, we could do a a Dow of Fred review and just go back and look at all the interesting topics that have been covered there.

[00:57:46] Anthony: That’s maybe what we’ll have to do. Maybe we will throw a new one in here somehow. Not next week though. Snake counting next week.

[00:57:52] Fred: Yeah. But listeners, give us a Christmas present, send us your queries, send us your comments, send us your [00:58:00] appraisal of what we’re doing, and we’d like to improve, we’re far from perfection, so we really would like to get some in inputs from you as to ways we can serve you better.

[00:58:11] Anthony: And with that, thank you, till next time, bye bye.

[00:58:15] Fred: Bye bye. Happy Holidays. For

[00:58:19] Michael: more information,

[00:58:20] Fred: visit www. autosafety. org