Good morning! It is Monday, April 29, 2024, and this is The morning shift, your daily roundup of the biggest automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: NHTSA Blames Autopilot Deaths on “Poor Driver Engagement.”
After a series of high-profile accidents involving cars equipped with Tesla’s advanced driver assistance technology Autopilotthe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched a probe into the system to see how safe it was for thousands of drivers to rely on every day. Now this investigation has come to this conclusion The software does a bad job It’s all about keeping drivers happy, which has been linked to more than 200 crashes and 29 deaths on America’s roads.
NHTSA just released its findings in a report looking at nearly 1,000 crashes involving Tesla cars, and it doesn’t look good. According to VergeThe report linked Autopilot and Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software to 956 accidents between January 2018 and August 2023. As The Verge reports:
In its report, the agency found that Autopilot – and in some cases FSD – is not designed to keep the driver engaged in the driving task. Tesla says it is warning its customers that they need to pay attention when using Autopilot and FSD, which means keeping their hands on the wheels and their eyes on the road. However, according to NHTSA, in many cases drivers would become overly complacent and lose focus. And when it was time to react, it was often too late.
In 59 crashes NHTSA investigated, the agency found that Tesla drivers had “five or more seconds” enough time to react before crashing into another object. In 19 of these accidents, the hazard was visible for at least 10 seconds before the collision. In reviewing accident logs and data provided by Tesla, NHTSA found that in most accidents analyzed, drivers did not brake or steer to avoid the hazard.
When compared with similar technology from other companies, NHTSA investigators found that the Tesla systems were not up to date The aim is to keep drivers busy with the task of driving. The investigation found that Tesla combined a “weak driver engagement system” with a “misleading” name in Autopilot, The Verge reports. As a result, Tesla’s products “tempt drivers into thinking they are more powerful than they actually are,” the website adds.
2nd gear: Tesla wants to expand Autopilot to China
However, a few selected words from regulators in the USA won’t do much to stem Elon Musk’s campaign to conquer the world with his flood of electric vehicles. Now the Tesla boss is in China, where he appears to have overcome most of the regulatory hurdles required to introduce autopilot in the largest car market in the world.
Before Introducing Autopilot and full self-driving For cars in China, Musk reportedly had to get permission to collect data from roads across China and share driving data abroad. reports Reuters. These two hurdles appear to have been overcome, as Reuters explains:
On Monday, two different sources told Reuters that Tesla had reached an agreement with Baidu to use the Chinese tech giant’s mapping license for data collection on China’s public roads, which they described as an important step towards the rollout of FSD in the country.
And a leading Chinese automobile association said Sunday that Tesla’s Models 3 and Y were among the models it tested and found compliant with China’s data security requirements.
Data security and compliance were the main reasons why the US electric vehicle maker, which launched the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software four years ago, is yet to make FSD available in China, its second-largest market worldwide, despite customer demand.
Tesla recently cut costs Price of its advanced driver assistance features here in the US after repeatedly cutting the cost of its cars. By opening up the systems to foreign markets like China, the automaker hopes to recoup some of that Profits it lost in the first quarter this year.
3rd Gear: DOJ ends investigation into Mercedes diesel emissions
If there isn’t research into autonomous cars here in the US, then there is examines diesel emissions. Now it’s time for the latter, as the Justice Department has reportedly closed its doors Investigation of Mercedes-Benz emissions diesel engines, without pressing charges against the German automaker.
The eight year old The investigations against Mercedes were discontinued without any charges being brought against the car manufacturer, reports Forbes. The move comes just four years after Mercedes reached a $1.5 billion settlement over a number of different fraud allegations related to emissions testing. As Forbes explains:
According to Bloomberg, the investigation stemmed from a class action lawsuit alleging that some of the automaker’s vehicles violated emissions standards. Mercedes-Benz said it was “ready to cooperate fully with the investigation” and reportedly said the allegations in the lawsuit were “baseless.”
Daimler and Mercedes-Benz agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in September 2020 with regulators – the DOJ, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board – to resolve allegations of emissions cheating violates the Clean Air Act and California state law. The settlement arose from separate civil lawsuits brought by the California Air Resources Board and the United States
The German Handelsblatt first reported on the closure of the Mercedes-Benz investigation, and has not yet reported what led the Justice Department to drop its investigation. Handelsblatt and Forbes have reached out to the DOJ for comment, but it has not yet commented on the reasons for dropping the investigation.
4th Gear: UAW reaches deal with Daimler Trucks and avoids strike
At the end of today, a pinch of slightly better news: Workers at Daimler Trucks have reached a tentative agreement with the company on the eve of their contract expiry.
Employees of the United Auto Workers union The truck maker closed the deal just before the contract was set to expire on April 26. Reports Automotive News. The new contract secured wage increases of more than 25 percent, the abolition of pay scales and the introduction of profit sharing and living subsidies. As the website reports:
“If this deal is ratified, you will receive a 10 percent increase,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in his prepared remarks. “Six months later another 3 percent. Six months later another 3 percent. That’s an increase of 16 percent in the first year of the agreement alone.”
Daimler Truck said in a statement: “UAW members … are now invited to vote on the new contracts and we hope to finalize them soon for the mutual benefit of all parties.”
The contract applies to more than 7,300 Daimler employees in unionized workplaces in America. The final vote on the contract will now be presented to members in the coming days.