Kimberly Gross Kimberly Gross

Thoughts from the Driver’s Seat with Mike Nelson

Fleet Turnover and Electrification

Last year, in a piece replete with statistics and infographics, three New York times journalists explored the difficult task of moving the United States toward a fully-electric fleet (i.e., vehicles in circulation). According to the article:

Even in 2050, when electric vehicles are projected to make up 60 percent of new sales, the majority of vehicles on the road would still run on gasoline. Slow fleet turnover is a major challenge for climate policy.

If the United States wanted to move to a fully electric fleet by 2050—to meet President Biden’s goal of net zero emissions—then sales of gasoline-powered vehicles would likely have to end altogether by around 2035, a heavy lift.

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Kimberly Gross Kimberly Gross

NHTSA Revisits the 5-Second Rule

We have written about Event Data Recorders (“EDRs”) and their limitations before, noting “most significantly, an EDR only records data in a crash (or crash-like) event, and even then provides only a snapshot of the seconds leading up to the event.” Earlier this year, NHTSA published a proposal to address this limitation by amending its regulations regarding EDRs. Specifically, the amendment would “extend the EDR recording period for timed data metrics from 5 seconds of pre-crash data at a frequency of 2 Hz to 20 seconds of pre-crash data at a frequency of 10 Hz (i.e., increase from 2 samples per second to 10 samples per second).”

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Kimberly Gross Kimberly Gross

Do I Really Own My Car?

As vehicle connectivity becomes more prevalent, OEMs are increasingly migrating to a business model where consumers may own the wheels, engine, and seats in their new cars, but not the critical software that operates them. Because software “ownership” is directly related to profitability and control of key vehicle features, it is no surprise that an ownership battleground of sorts has emerged between OEMs and their customers.

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Kimberly Gross Kimberly Gross

Thoughts from the Driver’s Seat with Mike Nelson

Navigating the Steep Learning Curve of AV Technology

It seems that Tesla is always making some “big announcement,” but the recent announcement that FSD Beta would be made available to additional drivers really hit close to home. Over the weekend, Partner Mike Nelson’s Model Y alerted him that he was one of the chosen tens-of-thousands who had been granted access to the system. He promptly downloaded the FSD Beta 10.69.2.2 software update and has been digesting the release notes that came with it—technical jargon and all.

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Kimberly Gross Kimberly Gross

NHTSA “Levels Up” its Cybersecurity Best Practices

Earlier this month, NHTSA released its “Cybersecurity Best Practices for the Safety of Modern Vehicles.” This new release updates NHTSA’s original best practices, published in 2016, which were intended to provide NHTSA’s “non-binding guidance to the automotive industry for improving motor vehicle cybersecurity.” Likewise, the 2022 version is “non-binding and voluntary,” with NHTSA encouraging “vehicle and equipment manufacturers to review th[e] guidance to determine whether and, if so, how to apply this guidance to their unique systems.”

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