General Motors Violated Customers' Rights In 'Unthinkable Ways' When It Secretly Sold Data: Texas

Happy Wednesday! It’s August 14, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.

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Contents

1st Gear: Texas Sues GM Over Data Sales

General Motors collected and sold the driving data from millions of car buyers, profiting off the sales while the insurance companies that bought the information profited off the jacked-up rates. Texas, it seems, has a problem with that. From Reuters:

General Motors (GM.N), opens new tab has been sued by the state of Texas, which accused the automaker of installing technology on more than 14 million vehicles to collect data about drivers, which it then sold to insurers and other companies without drivers’ consent.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday’s lawsuit arose from a probe announced in June into whether several automakers collected and sold mass amounts of data without drivers’ knowledge.

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Paxton said GM’s practice was for dealers to subject unwitting consumers who had just completed the stressful buying and leasing process into believing that enrolling in its OnStar diagnostic products, which collected the data, was mandatory.

“Companies are using invasive technology to violate the rights of our citizens in unthinkable ways,” Paxton said in a statement. “Our investigation revealed that General Motors has engaged in egregious business practices that violated Texans’ privacy and broke the law. We will hold them accountable.”

This is a real “Worst person you know just made a great point” situation. I do not in any way have to hand it to Ken Paxton, a man who hates me and everyone like me, but he’s right that companies should not be allowed to sell customer data so freely. Somehow this suit is going to end up at the Supreme Court, where Thomas will use 5D chess and use it to overturn Lawrence v. Texas.

2nd Gear: Another Robotaxi Company Can Legally Carry Passengers In California

Robotaxis are all the rage out in California, where driving is either a traffic-laden pain or a distraction from the Silicon Valley hustle grindset yet public transit is simply unthinkable as an alternative. Now, a new company is entering the fray: WeRide. From Reuters:

China-based autonomous driving startup WeRide has received approval from California to test its driverless vehicles with passengers, according to a permit from the state’s utility regulator.

The move comes as the company seeks a valuation of as much as $5 billion from its New York IPO even as the U.S. is set to ban vehicles with China-developed systems, according to people briefed on the matter.

The permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) – issued earlier this month for three years – allows WeRide to ferry passengers in test vehicles with a driver and without one. WeRide will not be allowed to offer rides to the general public and cannot charge any fares.

WeRide’s fleet is tiny — just 12 vehicles to Waymo’s 700 — and the company will likely face regulatory battles long before it sees a single fare. Can we please just get one (1) train, instead of all this? My life for some light rail.

3rd Gear: GM Recalls Almost All Lyriqs

When the Cadillac Lyriq was freshly launched, it was quickly recalled and stop-sale’d for technical issues. Now, nearly every car has been recalled again, this time for a truly serious issue: Brakes that may lose all pressure. From the Detroit Free Press:

While the recall covers 2023 and 2024 all-wheel drive Lyriqs, it amounts to 21,469 vehicles. Since its launch, GM has sold a total of 22,370 Lyriqs in the United States, according to GM sales reports.

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According to a letter to GM from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration posted on NHTSA’s website dated Monday, GM is recalling “certain 2023-2024 Cadillac Lyriq all-wheel drive vehicles” because “the anti-lock brake system may activate unexpectedly and release brake pressure in the vehicle’s service brake system,” wrote Alex Ansley, NHTSA chief of the recall management division in the Office of Defects Investigation.

The fix is apparently an over-the-air update, which raises the horrifying possibility that a misplaced semicolon could cause your brakes to fail. Here’s hoping GM’s code review procedures are stringent.

4th Gear: Tesla Seems Safe From Suspension Failure Investigation

NHTSA has been investigating Tesla recently, over concerns of suspension failures in Model S cars and Model X crossovers. Now, that investigation seems to be wrapping up, and it appears to have gone in Tesla’s favor. From Automotive News:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Wednesday it has closed a preliminary evaluation into 74,918 Tesla Inc. vehicles over front suspension failures.

The auto safety agency’s Office of Defects Investigation had opened a probe into the issue in 2020, based on complaints alleging failure of front suspension fore links in 2015-2017 Tesla Model S and 2016-2017 Model X vehicles.

A failed fore link, a crucial component of a vehicle’s suspension system could cause additional damage to other parts.

However, the agency said it closed the investigation as no instance showed that a failure of the part prevented the ability to control the vehicle in testing and reported instances of failure.

The part apparently breaks most often at parking lot speeds, and while the issue is widespread in Tesla’s cars — NHTSA recorded over 400 failures — it’s never been linked to even a single injury. Teslas may be poorly built, but they apparently don’t rise to the level of “deadly.” Well, for this fault, anyway.