In review of fatal Arizona crash, U.S. agency says Uber software had flaws

An Uber self-driving test vehicle that struck and killed an Arizona woman in 2018 had software flaws, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday as it disclosed the company’s autonomous test vehicles were involved in 37 crashes over the prior 18 months. read more »

US fraud prosecutors demand Ford Focus, Fiesta documents

U.S. Department of Justice criminal fraud investigators have demanded documents related to the transmission used in about 2 million Ford Fiesta and Focus vehicles sold throughout this decade, the Free Press has learned.

A subpoena issued in April in Case No. 126 before a District of Columbia grand jury requesting “all documents, communications and electronically stored information” relating to the company’s actions involving the DPS6 PowerShift transmission dating to 2010. Asked for material that might show whether the company knew the transmissions were defective and couldn't be fixed or that it lied to federal safety regulators. read more »

NHTSA seeks bigger data to predict failures on older models

NHTSA will begin using predictive analytics to determine when safety-related auto parts will likely fail on older vehicles to improve the government's ability to make decisions on future recalls.

The nation's top auto safety regulator currently relies on warranty data, as well as customer complaints, to track product failures as they surface. But the administration's Office of Defect Investigations has contracted with the Ann Arbor, Mich., data analysis firm We Predict to probe deeper into available industry information. read more »