#Safety

On Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that Volkswagen would need to recall 98,806 all-electric crossovers over an issue with the doors. The matter is effectively an expansion of a 2023 recall impacting the 2021-2022 VW ID.4. The recall now encompasses vehicles from the 2023 and 2024 model year.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched an investigation into basically every Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator from the 2021-2023 model years. The probe is looking into an estimated 781,459 vehicles over presumed electrical faults that could be causing fires. While nothing has been confirmed as of yet, it makes sense why the company is so adamant about how its upcoming Wagoneer EV will be of “perfect quality.”

Stellantis is about to be on the hook for an enormous recall involving one of its most popular models.

An intoxicated woman driving a Ford “Mustang” Mach-E, who struck and killed two people in Philadelphia last March, is being charged with homicide. However, the vehicle’s suite of advanced driving aids have muddled the case and are apparently being used as part of the defense. Meanwhile, the technology itself is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for presumed operational failures.

The United States is planning to relaunch a program to normalize vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology that would allow all modern vehicles to communicate with each other and the surrounding infrastructure in real time. Government agencies are claiming the resulting network would drastically improve safety for both drivers and pedestrians. However, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about V2X. The U.S. attempted a similar program years earlier before it lost momentum.

Toyota has been forced to recall 33,848 vehicles located in North America because a Texas-based distributor applied the wrong load-carrying capacity labels. The problem impacts 22 individual models. Despite the mistake causing no physical defect, it does mean the impacted automobiles are out of compliance with U.S. regulations.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) just praised seven out of eight crossovers it tested with rear automatic braking. This comes as the group has pivoted its focus toward pedestrian safety. However, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute (IIHS-HLDI) also published a paper expressing safety concerns over automated driving systems. The takeaway from that piece was that alleged self-driving systems added nothing in terms of safety, but that partially automated safety systems (like automatic braking) were a net positive.

Ford Motor Co. is recalling 552,188 F-Series trucks sold in the United States over a transmission issue that can force the vehicle to downshift into first gear unexpectedly. Based on documentation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the issue only pertains to vehicles from the 2014 model year F-150 pickups and mimics and earlier recall impacting 1.5 million trucks.

With the HALT Act having passed in 2021, the United States is less than two years away from making driver-monitoring technologies standard equipment. While this issue has been downplayed by the legacy media for years, the main reason was because the Department of Transportation hadn’t yet decided what form the equipment would take.

At the same time, consumer advocacy groups and a smattering of automotive enthusiasts have been sounding alarm bells relating to user privacy. With the government suggesting that these systems not only be ubiquitous in all new vehicles by 2026, but likewise communicate with law enforcement and even remotely deactivate a vehicle, there are some serious concerns about how they may serve as a giant violation of our collective rights.

Japanese manufacturers are in the middle of a minor crisis after the nation’s transport ministry noticed irregularities in the certification process of several domestic models before launching a formal investigation. Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha Motor have all been faulted with submitting either incorrect or intentionally misleading information in regard to vehicle certifications.

In  further news about older Nissan vehicles getting the stink eye from regulators, the NHTSA is investigating over 74,000 decade-old Rogue Select crossovers for unexpected airbag deployment.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announced it has updated its vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention test to account for higher speeds. Originally, the group was only running tests for things like automatic emergency braking below 25 mph. Now, it’s targeting higher speeds and obstacles of varying sizes. But the results aren’t any better. Out of the 10 small crossovers tested, only a single model garnered a good rating.

Audi’s all-electric e-tron subbrand continues suffering from battery issues, with the company recently issuing a recall for the GT sedan and its zestier RS variant. The issue is that the high-voltage batteries equipped to the models might short circuit, posing a fire risk to owners and whatever they’ve parked their EV next to. The recall report stipulates that Porsche warned Audi of the possibility of “thermal events” after realizing that some Taycan models were suffering from battery defects.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced that traffic deaths declined by 3.6 percent in 2023. While this is good news, the United States continues seeing per capita vehicle fatalities at the highest rate witnessed since the mid 2000s.

In 2023, the NHTSA reported 40,990. This is in contrast with the 42,514 on-road deaths cited for 2022. However, the U.S. witnessed a fairly staggering decline in vehicular safety starting around 2015 and we’re still seeing metrics that would be considered high from before that period.

A cargo container ship exiting the Port of Baltimore collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday morning. You’ve undoubtedly seen the footage by now, as well as the rampant speculation about what happened. As of now, nobody seems to know the full details of the incident but the ramifications should be relatively easy to predict. As a major shipping corridor for the United States, losing access means supply chain bottlenecks.