Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Wednesday, May 14.
Two U.S. recalls emerged today from Google's self-driving vehicle affiliate Waymo and legacy automaker Ford Motor Co. Neither recall was particularly large — 1,200 vehicles for Waymo and 273,000 at Ford — and no injuries were reported. But guess which one will get more attention from news organizations?
Of course, Waymo's relatively tiny recall, which was ordered to update software and address risks of self-driving vehicle collisions with chains, gates and other roadway barriers. Ford's recall was for the risk of brake malfunctions in 2022-24 Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators.
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News organizations, including Automotive News, value stories that are new and unusual, so even though the Ford recall was large and potentially impacts far more drivers, the Waymo recall is more newsworthy — and underscores the emergence of self-driving technology in the auto industry.
The Waymo recall also speaks to how the acceptance of these vehicles will play out on the roads. As Reuters reports, NHTSA said several incidents under investigation "involved collisions with clearly visible objects that a competent driver would be expected to avoid." The investigation remains open. Waymo said the issue has been fixed with its sixth-generation self-driving software, Reuters said.
"Waymo provides more than 250,000 paid trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments in the U.S.," Waymo said in a statement. "Our record of reducing injuries over tens of millions of fully autonomous miles driven shows our technology is making roads safer."
Meanwhile, two Nissan Motor Co. stories signal the troubled automaker's direction in North America. First, this feature on Christian Meunier's return to Nissan as chairman of the Americas details how he plans to fix the company's U.S. business. Meunier's strategy is to double down on what's working and ditch what's not. He's also tightening spending and driving employee focus with a four-day-in-the-office mandate, Urvaksh Karkaria wrote.
Karkaria also earned the scoop on Nissan considering moving its Sentra sedan production from Mexico to the U.S. The shift would allow Nissan to avoid a 25 percent import tariff on its No. 2 vehicle in the U.S., Karkaria reported.
That's it for now. Have a great rest of your day. If you want to view this story in your browser, click here.
— Philip Nussel, online editor
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