Tag: news

Why are new cars so expensive? Part 3: Mandated airbags leading to mandated “smart” airbags

It’s great to be a bureaucrat. You create lifetime job security for yourself and a sweet taxpayer funded pension. These generous perks come at the expense of everyone driving a new car, paying Federal taxes, or merely holding US dollars.

Best of all, no regular American citizen ever voted for these jokers to have any power to dictate the minimum options that are part of their (very limited) new vehicle choices today.

These are Americans’ new vehicle options today:

  • Unaffordable, barely serviceable, quickly depreciating, morbidly obese cars in several colors
  • Unaffordable, barely serviceable, quickly depreciating, morbidly obese trucks in several colors
  • Unaffordable, barely serviceable, quickly depreciating, morbidly obese SUVs in several colors
  • Unaffordable, barely serviceable, quickly depreciating, morbidly obese Crossovers in several colors

Isn’t capitalism great? Oh wait – that’s not capitalism at all – it’s that other ism that starts with an “F.” It really perturbs me when an industry as massively regulated as automotive is slapped with a “free market capitalism” label.

When I say massively regulated – you have no idea. I haven’t even gotten started on the EPA, CARB, and the DOE. Be patient – I will. They’ll get theirs – just you wait.

NHTSA mandated driver and passenger airbags be installed in every passenger vehicle by September 1998. The rule forcing these airbags was published in 1991.

Turns out, these airbags tended to kill some smaller passenger seat occupants when they deployed. Oopsie. The solution: More cost, weight, and complexity, at the direct expense of long term reliability / total cost of ownership. At gunpoint. Of course that’s the solution. That’s always the solution.

Let’s start with Occupant Classification Systems (OCS). AKA “Smart” passenger airbags. I had direct experience in this system as a release engineer at a North American OEM, and as a Field Applications Engineer at a Tier 1 supplier for the parts. This is the “Smart” system that turns the Passenger Airbag off automatically (when it works). The light that the customer sees is know as the PADI (Passenger Airbag Disabled Indicator).

Passenger airbags were forced into the IP over every new car since 1998. Since these mandated explosive devices were killing some smaller occupants, NHTSA mandated that the passenger airbag system automatically detect the size of the occupant. The system would disable the passenger airbag if it decided the occupant was small enough. This “smart” passenger airbag deployment system was mandated to be part of every 2006+ model year vehilce. It is part of FMVSS 208.

You see how this works? One mandate leads to the next. Lifetime job security. Great scam.

You may have noticed even a generous sub sandwich or bag of groceries placed on your passenger seat may light up the PADI.

The rule stated that a 6 year old child must have the airbag automatically disabled, but the airbag needs to turn back on (again – automatically) for a 5th percentile female occupant.

Different manufacturers used different methods to try to accomplish this. Some used silicone filled bladders under the passenger seat. This bladder, when squished by the weight of the posterior sitting on the passenger seat would create a pressure. This pressure was read by a pressure sensor, whose signal fed into the module controlling the airbag’s deployment.

Sounds simple enough, but it doesn’t stop there. Some passenger seat belts have friction “cinching” mechanisms on the lap portion – creating a tension on the lap belt section. This is used to cinch child seats with tension to keep them in place and not flopping around. Why does this have anything to do with the silicone bladder under the passenger seat you ask? Well, this seat belt tension creates additional downward force on the bladder, making it appear (to the pressure sensor) as if a heavier occupant is in the passenger seat.

The solution: Seat Belt Tension Sensors (BTS). These sensors read the lap belt tension at one of the lap belt’s anchor points. Different methods were used: Hall effect sensors, strain gages, etc. The theory was that force created by the seat belt tension would be subtracted from the total force on the bladder.

That’s the theory anyway. In practical applications, there are a massive number of variables between how much seat belt tension is read by the BTS, and how much force this adds to the bladder or weight sensors. The lap belt is at a variable fore/aft angle to the seat depending on seat position. The friction between the seat belt and side of the seat was a wild guess to start and variable after that. The height above the seat cushion for the lap belt is always unknown. This impacts the angle between the side of the seat cushion and the lap belt above the seat cushion. This impacts the force placed on the bladder. I could go on, but this is not meant to be a comprehensive DFMEA of this system.

Other methods were also used to detect passenger’s weight. Strain gages (basically an electronic scale) under the seat frame, etc.

When you want to get an accurate weight of yourself, do you tend to stand on the scale, or sit on it? Now you start to see the challenges with trying to incorporate an accurate scale in any seat.

Why not just put a passenger airbag disable switch in the car and dispose with all this wizardry?

Great question. Here’s the answer: Because NHTSA mandated that this needs to be a passive system. The OEM I worked for wanted to add a key switch to this system for the inevitable cases where the system could not automatically detect the passengers’ size. Rejected.

Here we have an OEM asking NHTSA: Please NHTSA, can we add cost to the system you mandated us to install in order to make it safer? They were rejected.

That’s when my red pill moment started.

NHTSA does not care about safety. They only care about submission. Submit. Obey. Comply. Respect my authoritah!!!!

NHTSA does not care about poor and middle class people. NHTSA has utter contempt for poor and middle class people. Why?

Because poor and middle class people can not afford any new car today. Don’t get me wrong, they may qualify for financing a new car. But they definitely can’t afford one. Even the lowest cost ones today are a bad deal for poor and middle income people.

Poor and middle class people are increasingly being forced to buy 25+ year old hoopties. If they live in the Midwest, the selection of 25+ year old hoopties is nearly non-existent due to decades of salt exposure – rusting them into the scrapyard. 25+ year old hoopties also have the benefit of their OEM service parts having been discontinued 15+ years ago.

Good luck servicing this system when it breaks. You’re looking at 4 figures minimum, for a system whose sole purpose could have been implemented with a $5 switch.

Thanks for forcing those hoopties on the masses NHTSA!

Why are new cars so expensive? Part 2: Rearview cameras.

I’m a very recently unemployed (53 hours ago) automotive professional. I will not be “updating my resume” and looking for ways to worm my way back in to this regulatorily suffocated nightmarish hellscape of morbidly obese, souless safety cages on wheels.

I actually did update my resume, and thought no – better to connect more directly with end users. I’ve been there, done that for 28+ years. Stick a fork in me – I’m done.

The auto industry (specifically, new cars) is in trouble. Who could have seen this coming? This was literally unpredictable. A black swan event if you will. Oh wait – somebody actually did see this coming.

All else equal – complexity is inversely proportional to reliability. Here’s a layman’s example: Anvils rarely fail. Even cheap Chinese knockoff anvils are quite reliable. I want no part of “Smart Anvils” or “Connected Anvils”

Electronic, and especially “connected” complexity increases the rate of depreciation. Just ask your mobile device. Apple or Android – they don’t last long until they become obsolete or just “brick out.” Your new car is getting more and more device like every passing year.

There is a mandatory backup camera and monitor system present on all new cars. The OEMs have been forced to implement this system – at gunpoint – since Spring 2018. You’re likely familiar with these cameras. Maybe you like them. I’ve got no quarrel with you if you do. That’s not the point. The point is you have no choice to “pass” on this once “optional” system if you want to buy any new car in the land of the free.

This system is now baked into the new vehicle transaction price for every new car manufactured after May 2018, plus a generous marginal profit. If you are unfortunate enough to live in one of the several nanny states where annual vehicle “safety” inspections are required, it means you are footing the bill of the 600-1000+% markup of the service parts (not including labor) once that system takes a crap. And it will take that giant, stinking, steaming crap – generally at the least opportune time. Hear that sound? It’s your new car’s depreciation curve, car payment and insurance premiums sucking up more of your income every passing year.

My ex company is working on a rearview vision system. Separate from the system above. High end luxury cars already have this. It apparently works better for rearward night vision than a mirror. I sure hope so: This “Advance safety system” costs about 80 times (8,000%) the cost of a rearview mirror. “If it saves one life…” Excuse me while I throw up. Your argument is beyond absurd and quite tiresome.

Superior technology never requires a mandate. Have Cathode Ray Tube TVs been banned? No. – they didn’t need to be banned. Did landline phones get banned? No – they didn’t need to be banned. The people calling for “banning the things” are always the bad guys. No exceptions.

Some wise man once stated there was once a day where if your main concern was vehicle safety – you tended to buy a Volvo, and if your primary concern was fuel efficiency – you tended to buy a Honda.

When did Volvo first showcase rearview camera systems? 1972 Even the car company most dedicated to safety decided there was no market for it.

This is directly from the NHTSA “Rule” linked above. Geniuses there I tell ya:

This reads as if 70+ year olds are killed by getting backed over when playing behind the rear wheels of cars. Those obnoxious and annoying 70+ year olds you always see playing doen on the pavement behind cars. I hate those people… They’re everywhere.

It only took them them 46 years (or about 9,660ish dead kids) to mandate it. Glad NHTSA was on the ball.

Anybody can add, or pay someone to add, a rearview camera system to their car. Any car. Any model year. Even a Model T if that’s your ride. The OEMs were free to install them on their new cars – and did – long before they became mandatory. There is absolutely, positively, no reason to mandate such technology – unless you’re a psychopathic, unimpressive, rent-seeking control freak possessing neither logical reasoning ability nor marketable skills. Did NHTSA also mandate that nobody could buy or drive a pre 2018 vehicle? Well I guess they don’t “care about the senseless back over deaths of the 210 innocent chilllllllllllllllldren a year” to throw their own emotionally appealing but logically void argument right back at them.

Nobody is making the argument to ban rearview camera systems. Congrats on the strawman slaying. You’re a hero. I’m a demon. Shiver me timbers. You’re scary. Many, including myself, are arguing banning their mandate. In fact – I would argue for completely dissolving NHTSA, and the EPA, and the DOE, and CARB, just to start. I have no quarrel with IIHS so long as auto insurance is optional, not mandatory. If it remains mandatory – then IIHS can buzz off as well.

Believe it or not, I actually can sympathize with anyone who has killed or injured anyone by backing over them by accident. I can’t imagine the guilt they must feel. Here’s the punchline though: In the end – it is the driver’s fault. The parents who let their very young kids play, unwatched, behind the neighbor’s car bear some (arguably more) responsibility as well.

You know who doesn’t deserve any blame whatsoever: Everyone buying a new economy trimmed car who would have never checked that 300ish dollar option box.

You know who else doesn’t deserve any blame whatsoever: The 99.99990987% of licensed drivers in the US who don’t accidently back over kids annually – back when this system was forced down our throats.

Mission creep anyone?

Stop offshoring your guilt by making new cars financially out of reach for low, and increasingly, even middle income people.

I raise your “You don’t care about the Chillllllldren’s safety” with a “You don’t care about low or middle income people’s ability to have an affordable and reliable way to get to work. You want them to starve to death. Murderer!” You see: 2 can play this stupid game.

Just a guess, but the “Moms for Common Sense Vehicle Safety” have absolutely no clue about how to build anything. I made that group up – but I’d bet my bottom dollar there’s something similar.

Moms for Common Sense Vehicle Safety (MCSVS) have destroyed your ability to buy any affordable new car in the US and Canada. MCSVS should learn to look behind their car before backing up or watch their damn kids.

Guess what: If you have one of the many large or even midsize (they’re all giant now) 4WD pickup trucks or SUVs, a kid (or one of those pesky 70+ year olds) could still be underneath the back end playing, completely out of view of the rearview camera system. Let’s add another few hundred bucks for a new “Rear Undercar Camera System” (RUCS in industry speak) to the new vehicle price – just in case. Better put one more more in the front too (FUCS) since they might be playing there as well, invisible from the driver’s seat. What’s another thousand bucks give or take? If it saves one life right?

This is just one of many hundred to thousand dollar bills added to the new car price in the past couple decades from our betters at the 3, 4 and 5 letter agencies. These thousand dollar bills have been mandated by these agencies. No voter in America voted for a single one of these people to have any power over their vehicles’ options – but here we are.

Here we are indeed. If it saves one life…