Gee, Ya Think

Hoocoodanode that cuts to the USDA safety program would result in more instances of tainted food?

Could Upton Sinclear please pick up the white courtesy phone? 

The number of complaints filed about the safety of meat, poultry and egg products jumped nearly 40% last year, from 1,443 to 2,016, according to a new federal report.

The report comes a year after the Trump administration approved some of the most sweeping staffing cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in recent memory.

Between January and June of last year, USDA reduced its workforce by 18%. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the agency responsible for placing inspectors in slaughterhouses and processing plants, lost about 9% of its staff.

It's almost as if meat packers are nut universally businesses run by executives with sterling character.

My Bagels!!!!!

New York state is set to ban bromated flour because bromine is a carcinogen.  (Also why Bromo-Seltzer no longer contains bromine)

The use of bromated flour is ubiquitous among New York City bagel shops.  (When I made bagels, I used non-brominated and malt free flour, [family allergies] and they turned out OK.) 

The additive in question potassium bromate  (KBrO3) is a slow acting oxidizing agent, and as such, it makes the dough springier more quickly.

There are techniques and other additives (ascorbic acid comes to mind) and mixing and kneading the dough for a longer time can ameliorate the effects as well.  (For my bagels, I added additional gluten directly, but use a stand mixer with a dough hook.  My hands hurt for 3 days afterwards)

The recipe for Utopia Bagels has remained unchanged since the popular bakery opened in Queens in 1981. Louie and Ernie’s Pizza in the Bronx has used the same ingredients in its slice for nearly as long.

But if lawmakers in Albany prevail, these bakers and thousands of others in New York State will have to stop using a key component, bromated flour, potentially raising costs and changing the character of their breads, bagels and pizza crusts.

Last month by a wide margin, legislators passed the Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act, which bans potassium bromate (along with propylparaben and Red Dye No. 3) from any food sold in the state. The bill now goes to Gov. Kathy Hochul; a spokeswoman said only that the governor “will review” it.

Used by an estimated 80 to 90 percent of commercial bakeries in the state, bromated flour makes doughs springier, stretchier and more consistent. Sam Silverman, a New York bagel evangelist who runs tours, classes and an annual gathering called BagelFest, said that after bromated flour became widely used in the 1940s, it helped create the signature modern New York bagel: tall and fluffy, with significant chew. In pizza, it produces an airy crust with enough structure to hold sauce and cheese, and enough pliability to be folded in half.

………

But since the 1980s, when studies first linked potassium bromate to thyroid and kidney cancers in rats, it has gradually been removed from the food supply in most of the world. It’s banned in China, Canada, India, the European Union and many other countries. Starting next January, it will be illegal in California, as part of the so-called “Skittles ban” signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023.

This is not actually a big deal, and my guess will be that after 6 months or so, the bakers will find a combination of other proofing agents and techniques to address this.

Headline of the Day

To Protect And Swerve: NYPD Cop Has 547 Speeding Tickets Yet Remains On The Force 

—Streetsblog New York City, on the serial (to the point of being surreal) traffic offender NYC police officer

The fact that this guy has been caught multiple times speeding on residential streets, school zones, etc. yet remains a police officer indicates a problem.

I'm a bit of a cynic, but my guess is that he's used his law enforcement connections to get out of paying fines. 

Conservatively, the total fines for those speeding tickets is something north of 30 Grand. 

Is this public enemy #1?

James Giovansanti lives and works on Staten Island. Since 2022, traffic cameras have caught his pickup truck blasting through school zones or running red lights 547 times in that one borough. He received 187 camera-issued tickets in 2025 alone — an average of one every other day.

That record makes Giovansanti the second-most-reckless driver in the city. Because he pilots a 4,800-pound RAM 1500 truck at more than 41 mph across the island, he poses a unique danger to himself and his neighbors. Ticket data show a pattern of dangerous driving in a wide arc from Pleasant Plains to Tompkinsville.

And here’s what makes him a true enemy of the public: Giovansanti is an officer in the New York City Police Department — the agency supposedly in charge of keeping New Yorkers out of harm’s way.

………

Activists say that Giovansanti is a poster child for the urgency of passing the “Stop Super Speeders Act,” a pending bill in Albany that would force the worst repeat speeders to install a speed limiter in their vehicles. If such a law was already in place, Giovansanti’s truck would have been rendered unable to speed on Aug. 7, 2022, just months after he bought it. 

………

Records show that James Giovansanti, 33, reserves the bulk of his speeding for the borough’s densely populated North Shore. A traffic camera on Richmond Avenue and Monsey Place — the same block as P.S. 22, an elementary school that enrolls more than 700 students — issued 25 speeding tickets to the truck.

Another camera on Richmond Terrace and John Street ticketed the truck 50 times. A third camera on Richmond Terrace and Nicholas Avenue ticketed the truck 55 times. Those last two cameras are located just north of Port Richmond High School, which enrolls more than 1,500 teens. 

………

Giovansanti’s choice of car dramatically heightens these risks. An unmodified 2022 RAM 1500 weighs at least 4,775 pounds, measures at least 77 inches tall, and features an enormous, boxy and flat-faced hood. This design limits the driver’s ability to see pedestrians and cyclists and makes it far more likely they will drag a crash victim beneath their car’s chassis instead of throwing them onto its hood.

We could not determine whether Giovansanti has ever harmed someone by speeding. But the circumstantial evidence is not reassuring: The right side of his truck is visibly damaged, and he refused to answer a straightforward question about his collision history.  

Support your local police.

The Front Fell Off?

My bad, it's not the front of a ship falling off, it's Tesla Cybertrucks wheels falling off. 

I am shocked that such a thing could happen on the immaculate engineering masterpiece that is the Swastikar. 

Tesla is recalling some Cybertrucks over concerns that their wheel studs could separate, potentially causing drivers to lose control.

The recall affects certain 2024 to 2026 Cybertrucks that were equipped with 18-inch steel wheels either during production, beginning in August 2025, or later during service, according to a report filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In total, the recall covers just 173 vehicles.

The issue centers on the trucks’ brake rotors. According to the report, rough road conditions and cornering could strain the stud holes in the wheel rotor and cause cracks to form. If those cracks spread with continued driving, a stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub. Tesla said early signs of the problem could include vibrations or noises audible from inside the truck. 

………

The recall also offers a glimpse at demand for Tesla’s short-lived, cheaper rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck. The NHTSA filing noted that production of the affected vehicles stopped in November because of “limited demand of Cybertrucks equipped with 18-inch steel wheels.”

Several outlets have connected that line to Tesla’s cheaper rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck, which launched in April 2025 and was discontinued later that year. That version started at around $70,000 and omitted several features found on more expensive Cybertrucks. It also came with either 18-inch or 20-inch wheels.

Considering the recall affects only 173 vehicles total, it appears Tesla sold very few Cybertrucks with the 18-inch steel wheel setup before pulling the plug.

It ain't just the Incel Camino though.  A few miles from my house there is a parking lot for a former Walmart that is has hundreds of cars parked in it.

None of the cars are selling. 

From the Department of, "About F%$#ing Time"

The California DMV has issued new regulations allowing police to ticket robotaxies.

Hopefully cops will take this responsibility seriously.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles announced new autonomous vehicle regulations on Tuesday that will, among other things, allow police officers to issue moving violations to AV companies like Waymo and Tesla when their robotaxis break the law.

The new regulations, which will be enforced starting July 1, also require AV companies to respond to first responder calls within 30 seconds. Emergency officials will be allowed to issue geofencing instructions that force robotaxis to be cleared from areas where an active emergency is taking place.

………

Back in 2023, NBC Bay Area was the first to report that robotaxis were immune from traffic tickets since humans needed to be present to accept the ticket. It took almost three years, but that problem has now been fixed.

………

Wired published a new piece on Thursday about complaints from emergency responders, including firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and paramedics, who have warned that some robotaxis seem to be performing worse than when they were initially introduced. Wired cites a private meeting between emergency responders and federal officials in March, where robotaxis were described as blocking fire stations and “freezing up” in dangerous ways.

One question though, how do you handcuff a Waymo?

I Was Today Years Old When I Learned This

With both my late (and not particularly lamented) 2025 Toyota Prius and my current 2026 Corolla, I have noticed a pronounced whine at low speed and in reverse.

I had assumed that the whine was caused by using higher speed electric motors in the drive train which would allow for smaller and lighter motors.

I was wrong.  Both of these cars have speakers to generate noise to warn pedestrians.

It appears that this was regulation put in place by the NHTSA. 

Now, how about making SUVs safer to pedestrians, particularly the cheese grater on wheels that is the Tesla Cybertruck? 

Go China

At least on car safety, where China has announced a ban on hidden car door handles.

This is not a surprise.

They make it difficult for first responders to make a rescue, and, in the case of Teslas at least, they do not function if electrical power is lost.

There is talk about similar regulations in the United States, but I'm not holding my breath, since they have allowed the pedestrian box grater known as the Cybertruck on the roads.

China will soon ban concealed door handles on electric vehicles (EVs), becoming the first country to do so after several deadly incidents triggered global scrutiny of the controversial design first popularised by Tesla.

According to regulations announced on Monday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, cars sold in China will now be required to have a mechanical release on both the inside and outside of every door except the boot.

The new regulations will “improve the level of automotive safety design”, it said.

Due to take effect on 1 January next year, the regulations stipulate every car should provide hand-operable space measuring at least 6cm by 2cm by 2.5cm in order to manually release the door. Within the vehicle, there must also be signs showing occupants how to open the door.

The flush-mounted pop-out door handle was first popularised by Elon Musk’s Tesla Model S, released in 2012. The design integrates the handle into the door and uses electrical signals to activate the latch. Such door handles provide a slight boost to efficiency by reducing drag.

 

Yet Another Example of Fine British Automotive Engineering

Britain is rolling out a new armored fighting vehicle, the Ajax, and in a recent series of tests, noise levels were so loud that some troops participating in the exercise are still unfit for duty because of the noise levels. 

British soldiers who tested the new Ajax armoured fighting vehicle in the summer were so badly affected they can no longer be deployed overseas.

Around five soldiers were medically downgraded and at least two of those are still suffering to the extent they can no longer do their job properly, it is understood.

Ajax armoured fighting vehicles, of which there are six variants, are designed to find the enemy from five miles away, before infantry units and other assets deploy behind them. Using a range of cameras and sensors, the all-terrain vehicle is designed so its crew of three do not have to exit, remaining inside for a week if necessary.

Luke Pollard, the defence procurement minister, said last week that issues with the £10 million reconnaissance vehicles were “firmly in the past”. The £5.5 billion Ajax programme, which first began in 2010, has been delayed for years as trials were paused after hundreds of soldiers suffered hearing loss and other injuries.

………

The MoD commissioned Clive Sheldon KC to conduct a review into what went wrong with the Ajax programme. He found in 2023 that the failings that led to the programme going wrong were “systemic and institutional”. Warnings about the safety of the vehicle were played down or ignored, Sheldon found.

About ten soldiers who took part in a training exercise on Ajax vehicles in the summer, weeks before the vehicle was declared ready for operations, were sent to hospital for problems including serious headaches, loss of balance, motion issues and tinnitus, a defence source said.

The army refused to disclose whether the problems were ongoing but for at least two individuals health issues have persisted, The Times has been told.

………

When The Times visited General Dynamics last week, a meter on a mobile phone showed a reading of 90 decibels from a few metres away. Long or repeated exposure at sounds above 85 decibels can cause hearing loss, and employers must provide protection if that level is exceeded, according to the Health and Safety Executive.

Just as an FYI, the dB uses a logarithmic scale, so 90 dB is about 3 times the power of 85 dB. 

This level of sound is insane.

Headline of the Day

Tesla Withheld Data, Lied, and Misdirected Police and Plaintiffs to Avoid Blame in Autopilot Crash

—Electrek a brief description of how Tesla attempted to suppress and despoil evidence in the autopilot crash that they recently lost.

Why the f%$# are these guys not being frog-marched out of their offices in handcuffs? 

Tesla was caught withholding data, lying about it, and misdirecting authorities in the wrongful death case involving Autopilot that it lost this week. 

The automaker was undeniably covering up for Autopilot.

Last week, a jury found Tesla partially liable for a wrongful death involving a crash on Autopilot. I explained the case in the verdict in this article and video.

But we now have access to the trial transcripts, which confirm that Tesla was extremely misleading in its attempt to place all the blame on the driver. 

The company went as far as to actively withhold critical evidence that explained Autopilot’s performance around the crash.

What happened:

• The airbag deployed.
• Tesla collected all the camera, CAN Bus, autopilot, and performance data, put it in an archive file, and sent it back to the mothership.
• The car then automatically deleted the data archive.
• Their lawyer, under the guise of "helping" police investigators, gave them instructions in writing a request that, "Specifically crafted the letter to omit sharing the collision snapshot, which includes bundled video, EDR, CAN bus, and Autopilot data." (If there is a lawyer or paralegal among my reader(s) can you confirm to me just how f%$#ing unethical this is?)
• Lied to the police that the data on the onboard computers was corrupted. (Definitely illegal)
• Lied about the existence of this archive on their servers. 

I really hope that the judge refers Tesla counsel to the bar for disciplinary action, and I REALLY hope that the judge refers Tesla to the authorities for wire fraud.

This is RICO sh%$. 

A Small Data-Set, But

The Tesla Cybertruck is statistically more dangerous than the 4-wheeled Ronson lighter known as the Ford Pinto.

It should be noted that this is a small sample size, only 5 incidents for the WankPanzer because it has not been on the road that long, and there are not too many on the road, so this could just be an outlier, but the numbers show that the Deplorean is about 15 times less safe than the Pinto: 

In its first year on the road, the Cybertruck ended up being tied to five fire fatalities through Jan. 1, a concerning trend that makes the rate of such fatalities higher than that of the notorious Ford Pinto, which was in production from 1970–80.

According to an analysis by auto news website Fuel Arc comparing the rate of fire fatalities in the Cybertruck's first year to that of the Ford Pinto during its life, the Cybertruck has a fatality rate 17 times of the problematic Pinto. Fuel Arc carried out its analysis by calculating the fire fatalities per 100,000 units, which was 14.5 for the Cybertruck compared to 0.85 for the Ford Pinto.

Of course, the number should be per mile driven, but that would make the numbers even more lopsided, since the Pinto was made for 10 years, and many remained on the roads for decades after production ended.

Elon Musk is to car design what Homer Simpson is to car design. 

Bad Day at the Office

A pilot landing at the Minot Internal Airport in Minot, North Dakota, had to engage in violent maneuvers to avoid being struck by a B-52 Stratofortress.

Thankfully, beyond some shaken up passengers and crew, there was no harm done:

SkyWest Airlines says it’s investigating a near collision between one of its E175s with an Air Force B-52 that prompted one of the regional jet’s pilots to take “aggressive” evasive action at Minot Airport in North Dakota. The E175, flying for Delta Connection, was on final on a flight from Minneapolis Friday evening when pilots saw they were on a converging course with the giant nuclear bomber. “I don’t know how fast they were going but they were going a lot faster than us. I felt it was the safest thing to turn behind them,” he told passengers after the encounter. “Sorry for the aggressive maneuver. It caught me by surprise. It was not normal at all.” The pilot said he doesn’t know why he wasn’t given a “heads up” that the massive Air Force plane was in the pattern. There are dozens of B-52s based at nearby Minot Air Force Base, about 13 miles north of the civilian airport. The pilot got on the PA system after they were on the ground to explain the abrupt turn to the passengers.

I would note that there is an Amtrak station in Minot. 

Profoundly Weird

The initial Air India flight 171 probe is pointing to the engine fuel cutoff switches being thrown seconds after takeoff.

This raises a lot of questions.

As you can see, the switches are guarded on either side, and they are heavy switches requiring a fair amount of force to use.

This (very) strongly implies that this happened as a direct result of a deliberate action by either the pilot of the first officer.

The (very) preliminary is also (very) incomplete, further muddying the waters:

Guided by an opaque process that produced a preliminary report lacking basic details common to any competent accident investigation update, industry’s response to the June 12 crash of an Air India Boeing 787 is leaning heavily on precautions and reading the tea leaves of those with knowledge of the probe.

A preliminary report on Air India Flight 171 (AI 171), prepared by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and released early July 12, confirms a few key facts about the accident sequence. The most critical: Both of the 787’s engine fuel control switches “transitioned” from RUN to CUTOFF within about 1 sec. of each other, just after the aircraft rotated, investigators say. This immediately cut fuel to each GE Aerospace GEnx-1B engine.

But the report does not shed light on why or how the switches moved. The only conversation referenced in the report between the two pilots at the controls adds confusion where clarity is needed.

“In the cockpit voice recording [CVR], one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cut off,” the report states. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so.”

The switches, located in the throttle control module between the pilots, are designed to prevent accidental movement. They have fixed metal guards on either side and must be pulled out and then down over a gate before they can be toggled to stop fuel flow. The only reasons to touch them are for starting or stopping engines or troubleshooting an emergency.

There is no reason to move them 3 sec. after liftoff, as happened on AI 171, data gleaned from the aircraft’s enhanced airborne flight recorders (EAFR) shows.

………

Movement of the fuel cutoff switch in flight triggers the 787’s engine-indicating and crew-alerting system, which spotlights possible issues for pilots. The report does not reference this or any other flight deck alerts, cautions or warnings generated from engine startup to the last moments recorded on the EAFR—a span of about 22 min.

The report details no other information from the CVR—including discussions that would point to a potential technical fault, cockpit confusion or distraction or anything else that could shed light on the accident sequence.

………

Although the AAIB report does not discuss 787 system characteristics that could explain uncommanded or unintentional switch movement, it does note that inspections recommended in a December 2018 FAA special airworthiness information bulletin (SAIB) on a safety mechanism built into the switches were not done on the accident aircraft, VT-ANB. The SAIB revealed reports of installation problems with some 737 switches and recommended that operators inspect them and similarly designed switches on other Boeing models, including 787s. 

 I think that this is going to get a lot weirder before we see any clarity.

Boeing Can't Catch a Break

I am not sure if Boeing deserves to catch a break, but whether it is the fault of Boeing, or the airline, or a flock of birds, the first fatal crash of a B787 is yet another bump in the already pothole infested road that is Boeing.

Officials have revealed few clues that would explain why a London-bound Air India Boeing 787 went down about 30 sec. after liftoff from Ahmedabad airport, making a seemingly controlled descent into a residential area after failing to maintain altitude.

Air India Flight 171 (AI 171) was airborne for less than 30 sec., surveillance video from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport’ shows. The aircraft rotates near the end of Runway 23 and climbs for about 12 sec. It then levels off for a moment before entering a sudden but steady descent into a nearby area about 1 nm from the runway end. Its landing gear remained down throughout the entire flight sequence.

The pilots issued a mayday call to air traffic control immediately after liftoff “but thereafter no response was given by the aircraft to the calls made by ATC,” India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said. Several news outlets in India said the mayday message included a description of “no thrust,” but Aviation Week could not independently verify the reports.

There were fatalities on the ground, and one survivor on the aircraft, who reported hearing a bang before the crash.

We should get more information over the next few weeks. 

Can't Make Planes, Can Hire Lobbyists

It looks like, after screwing it up once and getting the charges reinstated, Boeing has successfully lobbied for another deal to avoid a criminal trial.

Can we please just frog march senior executives out of their offices in handcuffs?

Boeing is set to avoid prosecution in a fraud case sparked by two fatal crashes of its bestselling 737 Max jet that killed 346 people, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The US Department of Justice is considering a non-prosecution agreement, relatives of the victims were told on Friday, through which the US aerospace giant would not be required to plead guilty.

Representatives of the crash victims’ families expressed outrage, describing the proposal as “morally repugnant” after a tense call with senior justice department officials.

Of course the deal is, "Morally repugnant."  What would you expect from the juxtaposition of the Trump DoJ and Boeing

………

While Boeing initially resolved a criminal investigation in January 2021, prosecutors accused it of breaching the settlement in 2024. This led the justice department to offer the firm a controversial plea deal last summer.

In December, however, US district Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas rejected the agreement. He cited a diversity and inclusion provision related to the selection of an independent monitor.

While Boeing had agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay a fine of up to $487.2m during the final months of the Biden administration, O’Connor’s decision meant the Trump administration inherited the case.

In case you are wondering, O'Connor is a complete f%$#ing nut-job who is frequently overruled on appeal.

It should also be noted that it was the Biden DoJ who originally offered the sell out deal.

Put the company on trial, have a jury decide.  

Still Can't Make Planes

It looks like Boeing has been using the wrong alloy of titanium for its 787 Dreamliner.

The FAA wants to mandate  inspections:

The FAA has proposed mandating Boeing-recommended inspections of about 100 787-9s and -10s for fuselage fittings that may be constructed from the wrong grade of titanium.

A draft rule published May 14 would require inspections of affected aircraft within 48 months. An alert requirements bulletin issued in February lists 97 787-9s and -10s as possibly having the noncompliant parts. All affected aircraft were manufactured from early 2016 through mid-2017.

According to the draft rule, certain pressure deck area fittings may have been installed that are made from an “incorrect” grade 1 or 2 titanium. The parts should be made from Grade 5 Ti-6Al-4V, which is stronger and has higher damage tolerance.

………

Affected parts include pressure deck floor beam brackets and fittings at certain body stations. The pressure deck is located where the wings attach to the fuselage and separates the pressurized cabin and unpressurized wheel well.

Obviously, this is an almost decade old error, but I am a bit dubious of the clams of a renewed focus on safety that have been made over the past few years.

Boeing needs to fire its entire C-Suite.

Not a Pickup Truck, a 5 Passenger Portable Stove

Roll Tape!

It turns out that the Tesla Cybertruck is more likely to kill its passengers in a fire than the Ford Pinto.

Why am I not surprised? 

Elon Musk’s Cybertrucks may look indestructible: hulking blocks of aluminum and steel that appear to be better suited for a space station than a parking spot on a narrow city street. But a new report suggests that they’re actually deadlier than one of the most infamous—and flawed—American cars ever made: the Ford Pinto.

An analysis published Thursday by the auto news website FuelArc found that, in their one year of existence, the approximately 34,000 Cybertrucks on the roads had five fire fatalities, giving them a fatality rate of 14.5 per 100,000 units. That’s 17 times the fatality rate of the Ford Pintos, whose famously flawed gas tank design on the car’s rear end led to 27 reported fire fatalities in its nine years on the road, resulting in a fatality rate of 0.85 per 100,000 units, according to FuelArc.

The authors of the Cybertruck analysis openly acknowledge caveats in their methodology. First off, Tesla—the car’s manufacturer and one of Musk’s companies—has not confirmed how many Cybertrucks it has sold. FuelArc puts its best guess at 34,438, based on “a variety of means, including piecing together public reporting.” Secondly, the five Cybertruck fatalities include the one that occurred in Las Vegas last month outside Trump International Hotel, when an Army soldier fatally shot himself before the car, packed with fireworks, exploded. Musk claimed in a post on X that the explosion was “unrelated to the vehicle itself.” Thus, the FuelArc analysis acknowledges that this fatality is “controversial” since the driver’s cause of death was reportedly a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the burns occurred after his death.

Yes, I am aware that this is a small sample, and that the data is incomplete.

F%$# being fair about this, and f%$# the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™.

Deep Thought

Yeah, Boeing.

H/T Tim Boudreau

Of Course He Will

Trump is looking to kill a rule that requires car manufacturers to report fatal crashes. 

Rather unsurprisingly, this means that Tesla would no longer have to report this data which shows it to be the most dangerous make of car in America:

Elon Musk’s car company Tesla doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to road safety. In fact, a recent analysis of federal data came to the conclusion that Musk’s car company ranks highest in fatal crash incidents. We have this information because of a federal reporting rule that was instituted by the Biden administration several years ago, the purpose of which was to improve transparency surrounding the deployment of new autonomous technologies on America’s roadways. Unfortunately, now that Donald Trump is headed back to the White House, it seems increasingly likely that he will nix that rule, which would be a big win for Trump’s new political ally, Musk.

Reuters reported Friday that members of Trump’s transition team are recommending that he eliminate the car crash reporting requirement. Reuters is basing its reporting on a document that showed that the recommendation to kill the crash reporting rule came from “a transition team tasked with producing a 100-day strategy for automotive policy.” The group called the measure a mandate for “excessive” data collection. Getting rid of the reporting requirement has been a goal of the company for some time. Reuters reports:

………

Previous reports have found that Tesla ranks high when it comes to their involvement in fatal incidents. As previously stated, a recent analysis of NHTSA data arrived at the conclusion that Tesla has the highest rate of involvement in fatal accidents of any major brand. A 2022 report released by the NHTSA itself claimed that, in the preceding year, Teslas had accounted for some 70 percent of the car crashes that involved driver-assist systems. This year, the agency published another report that found that Tesla’s Autopilot function had a “critical safety gap” that could be linked to hundreds of crashes. A previous analysis of federal data published by the Washington Post showed that Tesla’s Autopilot function had been involved in 17 fatalities and as many as 736 crashes since 2019.

So Trump wants to do a solid for the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™, who has, by lying consistently for over a decade about the capabilities of its Autopilot and Full Self Driving capabilities, which has resulted in thousands of drivers driving unsafely.

But Elon's rich, and he supported Trump, so he gets  what he wants.

Gee, Ya Think?

It appears that the juxtaposition of electrically conductive seawater flooding and lithium ion car batteries are a fire threat.

Well knock me over with a Model 552AC Zamboni.

Lithium ion battery technolity is highly energetic and it is rather likely to short circuit itself under conditions where charging and discharging are not controlled, like being flooded with salt water:

Flooding from hurricanes Helene and Milton inflicted billions of dollars in damage across the Southeast in September and October 2024, pushing buildings off their foundations and undercutting roads and bridges. It also caused dozens of electric vehicles and other battery-powered objects, such as scooters and golf carts, to catch fire.

According to one tally, 11 electric cars and 48 lithium-ion batteries caught fire after exposure to salty floodwater from Helene. In some cases, these fires spread to homes.

When a lithium-ion battery pack bursts into flames, it releases toxic fumes, burns violently and is extremely hard to put out. Frequently, firefighters’ only option is to let it burn out by itself.

Particularly when these batteries are soaked in saltwater, they can become “ticking time bombs,” in the words of Florida State Fire Marshall Jimmy Patronis. That’s because the fire doesn’t always occur immediately when the battery is flooded. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 36 EVs flooded by Hurricane Ian in Florida in 2022 caught fire, including several that were being towed after the storm on flatbed trailers.

This is precisely the area where government regulation would be a good idea.

Cars bursting into flame post hurricane is not a good thing.

These regulations could cover things water tightness of the cells, resistance to corrosion, and possibly automatic controlled discharge devices.

Of course, this won't happen, because it would be socialism.

This is F%$#ed Up and Sh%$ (Still Cannot Make Planes Edition)

Elizabeth Lund, who was appointed Sr. VP of commercial aircraft safety at Boeing has announced her retirement.

She's only been in the position since just after the door blew out of the 737, so I think that she has concluded that she was in a no-win scenario:

Elizabeth Lund, senior vice president of quality at Boeing Commercial Airplanes and one of the company’s most prominent female executives, will retire next month, the company said Monday.

Lund, 59, was given the job of restoring Boeing’s quality control after a door-sized fuselage panel blew out in-flight on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in January.

With Boeing in crisis ever since, she has been constantly under the spotlight, required to answer questions publicly from regulators and Congress about how the serious lapses happened, and explain the plan to fix the quality management system.

In an internal message to employees, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stephanie Pope wrote that Lund had planned to retire this year after more than 33 years at Boeing. Pope thanked Lund “for her strong leadership during a challenging year and her remarkable contributions to Boeing.”

………

A month after the Alaska Airlines fuselage blowout, Lund was tapped to lead the quality organization after the Federal Aviation Administration gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix its management of product quality.

Interviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board in June, Lund admitted that a major push in 2019 to cut the number of Boeing quality inspectors by Ernesto Gonzalez-Beltran, then head of quality at Commercial Airplanes, had been a mistake.

“We are undoing much of what was done there,” Lund told the NTSB. “We have undone it, and I don’t think that we appropriately controlled and looked at all the risks when they did it.”

Later that month, Lund made a misstep at a press briefing when she commented on details about the Alaska Airlines incident that had not previously been publicly disclosed. She was rebuked by the NTSB for breaking strict disclosure rules about ongoing accident investigations.

As a result, Boeing was sanctioned and its access to the NTSB’s investigative information on the incident was withdrawn.

Out after 10 months means something, and it ain't good.

In related news, someone at Bloomberg (of all places) has run the numbers on the machinist deal, and observed that, given the insane cost of living in the Seattle area, the post strike wage increases amount to a barely living wage.

When Covid-19 brought the US economy to a standstill in the spring of 2020, America’s top executives called for a “national conversation” about the need for workers to return to work, warning of an “economic catastrophe” if they didn’t. I wrote at the time that a conversation we also needed to have was one about giving workers the security of a living wage. So, when I read the news that Boeing Co.’s machinists approved a new labor contract on Monday, locking in a hike of nearly 44% over four years, it was clear to me that the deal they struck was inevitable.

A shocking percentage of full-time workers don’t earn enough to raise a family, and that was true even before the recent spike in inflation made everything a lot more expensive. As much as two-thirds of full-time workers age 25 and older can’t cover the basic necessities for a family of four with one parent working, according to wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and living wage estimates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

………

In the Seattle area, where Boeing produces most of its aircraft, a living wage is roughly $50 an hour for a family of four with one adult working, according to MIT’s living wage calculator, or about $104,000 a year based on a 40-hour work week. It’s probably no coincidence then that Boeing’s labor deal will raise the average machinist’s annual wage to $119,000 over four years. Assuming 3% annual inflation, a living wage for a family of four will be closer to $117,000 in four years, very nearly matching what Boeing’s workers agreed to.

………

Why should investors care? Because Boeing demonstrates that cutting corners with your workforce carries a cost. 

Now it seems as if Boeing merely delayed a reckoning, one that Covid may have accelerated but which would have eventually come. I can imagine Boeing executives saying a decade ago that they couldn’t afford to pay workers more, even though their own financial statements would have betrayed them. The truth is they couldn’t afford not to. How much of the company’s recent travails — the design flaws, the loose bolts, the sliding quality, the rumored coarsening culture — could have been avoided with greater care for its workforce? Most of it, I suspect.

Again, this article is remarkable because of the source, an asset manager and Bloomberg columnist.

Even he realizes that creating a disaffected workforce through relentless squeezing of the workers, costs the company big in the long run.

After all, they are the source of Boeing product and Boeing profits, not the overpaid and pampered executives, particularly in the case of Boeing.