Man claims Tesla was in auto-pilot mode when it crashed into fire truck.

The San Jose (CA) Mercury News (8/25, Sanchez, 552K) reports Michael Tran, the 37 year-old driver of a Tesla who crashed his vehicle into a fire truck, said, “I think I had auto-pilot on” at the time of the accident early Saturday morning in San Jose. A Tesla spokesperson said the company “has not yet received any data from the car, but we are working to establish the facts of the incident.” The New York Post (8/27, Press, 4.46M) reports similarly

Fiat Chrysler recalls 205K new SUVs, vans in US, Canada, Mexico due to brake issue.

MLive (MI) (8/27, Raven, 983K) reports that Fiat Chrysler “says it is recalling more than 150,000 newer SUVs and minivans in the United States and another 55,000 in Canada and Mexico due to a brake issue.” The automaker “says in a news release the recall affects the 2018 Dodge Journey, 2018-2019 Dodge Grand Caravan, 2018-2019 Jeep Compass and 2019 Jeep Cherokee.” The automaker reports in the news release, “An investigation by FCA US discovered certain shipments of a supplied brake-system component had not been manufactured to specification and were inadvertently installed on vehicles during spring 2018.”

Autonomous car advocates want pedestrians to adhere to traffic laws.

Bloomberg News (8/16, Kahn, 4.46M) reports that some autonomous car advocates believe the large-scale adaption of self-driving vehicles could be sped up if pedestrians can be convinced “to behave less erratically,” such as avoiding jaywalking and crossing streets at designated crossings where autonomous vehicles will be more likely to detect the person. The piece mentions that the US Department of Transportation’s latest guidance on automated vehicles “has stressed the need for such consumer education.” Bloomberg says that the “novelty” of autonomous vehicles can lead pedestrians to “test the technology’s artificial reflexes,” noting that Waymo vehicles “routinely encounters pedestrians who deliberately try to ‘prank’ its cars, continually stepping in front of them, moving away and then stepping back in front of them, to impede their progress.”

Mazda, Suzuki and Yamaha admit to using falsified emissions data.

The Hill (8/9, Keller, 2.71M) reports officials in Japan yesterday announced “that Suzuki Motor Corp., Mazda Motor Corp., and Yamaha Motor Co. have admitted to using falsified emissions data in vehicle inspections, according to multiple reports.” The Hill adds that “the three admissions came in the midst of an internal investigation ordered by the government, the Associated Press reported.” According to a report from Reuters, “Suzuki most often inspected vehicles with manipulated emissions data,” and the report added that “the company confirmed that almost half of its 12,819 new car inspections were improper dating back to 2012.” The Hill adds that “none of the automakers reportedly found problems in their vehicles’ correct emissions and fuel economy performance that warranted a recall.” 

IIHS report raises safety concerns about vehicles with automated assist features.

NBC Nightly News (8/7, story 6, 1:45, Holt, 7.51M) reports that a new report released Tuesday is “raising safety concerns about vehicles with automated assist features, including the autopilot function already available on some newer models.” The new Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS) report “warned that electronic driver assistance systems may not see stopped vehicles, and may lead you into a crash if you’re not careful.” Of the five models tested, “the group found two of the Teslas, Model S and Model Three, hit a stationary balloon when they had adaptive cruise control on.”

        The AP (8/7, Krisher) reports that IIHS “said on the road, the institute’s engineers found that all the vehicles but Tesla’s Model 3 failed to respond to stopped vehicles ahead of them.” IIHS’ Chief Research Officer David Zuby said, “We have found situations where the vehicles under semi-automated control may do things that can put you and your passengers at risk, and so you really need to be on top of it to prevent that from happening.” Zuby “said IIHS is developing ratings for driver assist systems and eventually will make recommendations on regulations for fully autonomous vehicles”

        The Hill (8/7, Keller, 2.71M) reports that “researchers expressed caution about the viability of testing self-driving vehicles on real roads, pointing to the incident last March when a self-driving Uber prototype hit and killed a pedestrian.” The report said, “The Uber crash in Arizona that took the life of a pedestrian in March shows the hazards of beta testing self-driving vehicles on public roads.”

        Citing the IIHS report, Bloomberg News (8/7, Gardner, 4.46M) says that “the Uber Technologies Inc. self-driving test vehicle that killed a pedestrian in Arizona earlier this year may have been able to avoid the crash had the ride-hailing company not disabled Volvo Cars’ safety system.” The report “criticizes Uber for turning off Volvo’s collision-avoidance technology in the XC90 sport utility vehicle that struck and killed a woman in Tempe on March 18.”

        The story was reported similarly by NBC News (8/7, Eisenstein, 5.76M), CBS News (8/7, Van Cleave, 6.78M), Digital Trends (8/7, Edelstein, 472K), and Business Insider (8/7, Ma, 5.65M)