Free Republic

A provision in the 2021 "infrastructure" spending package, as it turns out, includes a provision that directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to come up with a way to stop you from driving your car or truck if the government doesn't want you to. The measure is sold as a way to keep people from driving while impaired, but the implications are chilling. "A provision in the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2021 directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to come up with a rule by this year requiring new...

WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A U.S. auto safety regulator said on Friday it is opening an investigation into 73,000 Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid cars over reports of abrupt loss of power, failures to restart and other issues. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was opening the preliminary evaluation into the 2016 through 2019 model year Chevrolet Volt after 61 complaints tied to the battery energy control module (BECM). Some complaints reported there was little to no warning before the loss of operating power or reduced power mode occurred. General Motors (GM.N) previously issued a technical service bulletin...

The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) inspector general has been called on to investigate a top official in Democrat President Biden’s administration who has been leading the push to force Americans into switching to electric vehicles (EVs). A complaint was filed by watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust against Ann Carlson, acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In a Monday letter to DOT Inspector General Eric Soskin, the watchdog alleges that Biden violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) when he appointed Carlson. The FVRA stipulates that the president cannot appoint an acting officer to a position if...

U.S. auto safety regulators said on Monday that they are investigating whether Ford Motor’s 2022 recall of nearly 49,000 Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicles adequately addressed concerns and whether it should be expanded to more vehicles. Ford issued the June 2022 recall because high voltage battery main contactors may overheat from DC fast-charging and repeated wide-open pedal events, which could result in an immediate loss of propulsion power, increasing the risk of a crash. Following the recall for 2021 and 2022 model year vehicles, Ford issued a technical service bulletin to replace the High Voltage Battery Junction Box on recalled...

The Biden administration proposed a new and ambitious set of fuel economy standards for cars and light-duty trucks Friday, its latest move to prod American consumers towards adopting electric vehicles (EVs). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a subagency of the Department of Transportation (DOT), unveiled the updated Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which would require cars and lighter trucks to improve their respective fuel efficiencies by 2% and 4% starting in 2027, according to a DOT press release announcing the proposal. The rule would also mandate work vans and pickup trucks to increase their fuel efficiencies by...

Ann Carlson's 'attacks on American energy reek of hypocrisy' in light of fossil fuel investment, said Sen. Ted Cruz ... Biden's pick for a top Department of Transportation (DOT) post quietly disclosed a significant stake in an oil and gas development firm despite her past climate activism. Ann Carlson — an environmental law expert whom Biden nominated in February to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) — owns a financial stake ... Carlson, who was first appointed in early 2021 to oversee climate standards for cars and trucks at NHTSA as the agency's chief counsel, has for years...

New vehicles sold in the United States will have to travel an average of at least 40 miles per gallon of gasoline in 2026, up from about 28 mpg, under new federal rules unveiled Friday. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said its fuel economy requirements will undo a rollback of standards enacted under President Donald Trump. For the current model year, standards enacted under Trump require the fleet of new vehicles to get just under 28 miles per gallon in real-world driving. The new requirements increase gas mileage by 8% per year for 2024 and 2025 year models and...

New rules announced late Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reverse the agency’s previous requirements for cars to pass crash standards. The NHTSA said the updated regulations were meant to amend “wording that has or will become obsolete as applied to new design,” while still retaining comparable safety standards. Previous rules presumed vehicles would come equipped with a driver’s seat, steering wheel, and an accompanying steering column, however, the emergence of new classes of vehicles built specifically with automation in mind make these controls “logically unnecessary,” according to the NHTSA. The new standards could pave the way...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is holding talks with General Motors Co (GM.N) on the automaker’s petition to deploy a limited number of self-driving vehicles on American roads without steering wheels or other human controls, the head of the agency said on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tesla Inc shares fell sharply again Wednesday, reeling from a credit downgrade by Moody's Investors Service, federal probes of a fatal crash and concerns about Model 3 production. On Tuesday, Tesla tumbled 8.2 percent to its lowest close in almost a year after the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation into a fatal crash and vehicle fire in California on March 23. On Wednesday, a second federal regulator, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), said it was sending a team to California to investigate the crash. On Tuesday, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Tesla’s...

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology on all new light-duty vehicles, enabling new crash-avoidance applications that, once fully deployed, could help prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes every year by helping vehicles “talk” to each other. In February 2014, Secretary Foxx announced the DOT would accelerate its work to enable V2V, directing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to begin work on the rulemaking. NHTSA issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in August 2014. The advancement of the V2V rulemaking complements the DOT’s work on automated vehicles. The proposed rule would require automakers...

The U.S. is seeking to forcibly limit how fast trucks, buses and other large vehicles can travel on the nation’s highways. A new proposal Friday would impose a nationwide limit by electronically capping speeds with a device on newly made U.S. vehicles that weigh more than 26,000 pounds. Regulators are considering a cap of 60, 65 or 68 mph, though that could change. Whatever the speed limit, drivers would be physically prevented from exceeding it.The proposal, which comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, does not force older heavy vehicles to add the...

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration jointly issued a new regulation last week that is meant to help protect the world from “climate change” by limiting “greenhouse gas emissions” and improving fuel efficiency in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles operated in the United States. The 1,690-page regulation is approximately 700,000 words long. A “regulatory impact analysis” published by EPA and NHTSA estimates the regulation will add an average of as much as $13,749 to the cost of a tractor truck and $1,370 to a trailer, making some tractor-trailer combinations $15,119 more expensive in 2027 than they...

"The FBI and NHTSA are warning the general public and manufacturers — of vehicles, vehicle components, and aftermarket devices — to maintain awareness of potential issues and cybersecurity threats related to connected vehicle technologies in modern vehicles," the agencies said in the bulletin. In July 2015, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV recalled 1.4 million U.S. vehicles to install software after a magazine report raised concerns about hacking, the first action of its kind for the auto industry. ... "While not all hacking incidents may result in a risk to safety — such as an attacker taking control of a vehicle —...

Major automakers and the U.S. government have reached agreement to make automatic emergency braking standard equipment on most cars by 2022, two people briefed on the deal said. The agreement will be announced Thursday by automakers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Automakers will phase in the equipment on nearly all models except some with older electronic capabilities and some with manual transmissions, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because terms of the agreement haven’t been announced. Automatic emergency braking uses cameras, radar and other sensors to see objects in the way and slow or stop...

The Obama Administration's Justice Department is now suing Volkswagen for "up to $90 billion for allegedly violating environmental law." Politically-favored General Motors was fined $900 million, or 1% of that amount, for covering up an ignition switch defect that led to the deaths of at least 124 people. At last count, the number of people who lost their lives as a result of emissions' tampering by VW stood at zero. Meanwhile, the GM board unanimoulsy elected CEO Mary Barra as its Chairman, demonstrating that it is still not independent of the White House political operation, even years after the...

Fiat Chrysler has decided to recall about 1.4 million cars and trucks in the U.S. just days after two hackers revealed that they took control of a Jeep Cherokee SUV over the Internet. The company also disclosed in government documents that the hackers got into the Jeep through an electronic opening in the radio and said it would update software to close it. On Thursday, Fiat Chrysler sealed off a loophole in its internal cellular telephone network with vehicles to prevent similar attacks, the automaker said in a statement. The vulnerability exposed by the hack rippled through the auto industry...

The New York Times reports that the Justice Department has concluded that there was criminal wrongdoing by General Motors as the company covered-up a deadly ignition switch defect for years. That defect has now been blamed for causing the deaths of at least 104 motorists. While many observers may have been able to come to the conclusion that GM was guilty long before the Justice Department’s recent epiphany, the bigger question now is, what’s next? GM still faces litigation risks as ongoing lawsuits seek justice for the victims’ families that suffered as a result of GM’s criminal actions. Full...

Marijuana use has not been found to increase the risk of car crashes, according to a new federal report. Studying car accidents in Virginia Beach, Va., during a 20-month period ending in 2012, researchers randomly sampled 3,000 accident-involved drivers and found no evidence suggesting those with marijuana in their system were more prone to accidents, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report released Friday. When researchers controlled for factors such as age and gender, they found no evidence marijuana use increases accident risks. This was despite the fact that, in the study, drivers who tested positive for marijuana...

The number of people driving under the influence of alcohol on U.S. roads continues to decline, but the number of drivers using marijuana and prescription drugs that can affect road safety is climbing, according to two studies released by the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. One study found that the number of inebriated drivers has declined by nearly one-third since 2007, but that same survey found a large increase in the number of drivers using marijuana or other illegal drugs. In the 2014 survey, nearly one in four drivers tested positive for at least one drug that...