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)

Volvo Braking System was Disabled in Fatal Uber Crash

The Volvo XC90 involved in the fatal Uber/pedestrian crash had its Volvo-equipped automatic braking system disabled at the time of the crash. Apparently, the Uber Volvo first detected the woman walking her bicycle as an unknown object, then a vehicle, and then a bicyclist. All three of the detections were coded as having an "unknown path", and the system first detected her six seconds prior to the collision. The only braking of the vehicle was from the human safety driver after impact.

Center for Auto Safety asks Ford to recall 1.35 million Explorers over exhaust fumes complaints.

The AP (7/3) reported that the Center for Auto Safety is asking Ford to “recall 1.35 million Explorer SUVs due to continued complaints of exhaust fumes in the passenger compartments.” The group “says it found 44 complaints in a government database about fumes and potential carbon monoxide after owners had taken Explorers in for free repairs in a Ford customer service campaign that started last October.” The group made “its request in a letter to Ford CEO Jim Hackett this week.” The NHTSA has been “investigating the problem for two years in police and civilian Explorers from the 2011 through 2017 model years, but it has not reached a conclusion.”

Under pressure from federal regulators, Kia recalls 580,000 vehicles.

Forbes (6/20, Cheryl, Jensen, 10.34M) reports that “following pressure from federal regulators, Kia is recalling about 508,000 vehicles because the air bags may not protect occupants in a crash.” The recall comes “four years after the automaker was named in a suit alleging air bags failed to deploy, according to a chronology included in a report the automaker made to the NHTSA.” Kia maintained that it “had investigated the issue and didn’t think a recall was necessary” even after its parent company Hyundai “recalled 580,000 vehicles earlier this year for the same problem.” In March, “federal regulators announced it was investigating reports of six accidents involving Kias in which the airbags did not deploy.” Kia continued to resist “saying the design of its vehicles was different,” but in May the NHTSA “formally requested a recall.”

Defective Takata airbags remain in use due to lack of replacement parts.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel (6/18, 601K) reports that owners of some vehicles equipped with recalled Takata airbags have been unable to have their air bags replaced because replacement parts for some vehicles remain on back order. An AutoNation spokesman said that replacements exist for about 90 percent of vehicles with recalled airbags, but some owners have been waiting for years to have their airbags replaced. The piece lists dozens of vehicles for which replacement parts are difficult to acquire.

NTSB sends investigators to look at Tesla Model S explosion.

In continuing coverage, ABC World News Tonight (6/18, story 6, 1:25, Muir, 14.63M) reported that NTSB is sending investigators to look at a Tesla Model S that exploded in Los Angeles. The LA County Sheriff’s Department “said no one was hurt and that the culprit was a battery or mechanical issue.” The AP (6/18) reports that NHTSA said in a statement that it “continues to collect information regarding this incident and will take appropriate action as warranted.”

        NBC Nightly News (6/18, story 4, 1:50, Holt, 8.26M) reported that the incident was caught on video, which has since been viewed over a million times. The car in the video was driven by director Michael Morris. According to Tesla, the fire was an unusual occurrence and that the vehicle’s batteries are fortified to prevent any fire from spreading into the interior.

        The Washington Post (6/18, Holley, 15.68M) reports that the video was posted on Twitter by actress Mary McCormack, who is Morris’ wife. McCormack said in a post that has since been deleted, “This is what happened to my husband and his car today.” McCormack added, “And thank god my three little girls weren’t in the car with him.” McCormack also thanked the “kind couple” who told her husband to pull over. The article notes that in recent months, “Tesla has faced increasing scrutiny about the performance of its semiautonomous Autopilot feature, production delays and the company’s financial health. But batteries bursting into flames have not been an issue.”

Kia recalls more than 500,000 vehicles in US for airbag issue.

The AP (6/8, Krisher) reports on the recall of “over a half-million vehicles in the U.S.” by Kia “because the air bags may not work in a crash.” The story says the recall is connected to Hyundai’s recall, with both automakers now having recalled “nearly 1.1 million vehicles due to the” same issue, “which has been linked to four deaths.” NHTSA has been investigating the issue since March and “said at the time it had reports of six front-end crashes with significant damage to the cars.”