Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Tuesday, Sept. 9.
Few people not employed by an automaker have influenced as much change in the modern U.S. auto industry as iconic consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
He's 91 years old and still well versed on automotive issues and active in consumer advocacy.
Reporter Molly Boigon caught up with him for this story in our series focusing on disruptive figures in the auto industry. Nader said he believes the auto industry's push for vehicle safety has stalled, Boigon wrote.
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"There's been a lot of diversionary attention to autonomous cars or semiautonomous features, and then a drive in Congress, which failed, by the auto companies to not regulate autonomous cars at all," he said.
The Trump administration's elimination of fines for automakers that fail to meet NHTSA's emissions standards, the slashing of California's regulatory authority and the plan to weaken the EPA amount to an "open sesame" message to automaker pollution, Nader told Automotive News.
Still, Nader is pragmatic about the electric vehicle transition. The auto industry moved too quickly, he told Boigon.
"You're still going to have a lot of internal combustion engines for the foreseeable future," he said. Improving the efficiency of those vehicles "has got to be a priority" for the auto industry.
Boigon wrote that Nader's passion is as intense as ever. At times, he gets so worked up that he trips over his own Ed Murrow-like baritone, the story says.
"It doesn't matter whether [consumers are] conservatives or liberals — they all bleed the same color from being ripped off economically by these corporate crooks," he said.
One more factoid about Nader: He has never owned a car.
In other news, Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson, back in charge of the automaker for a second time, said in this interview with Bloomberg that he won't stay beyond his two-year contract.
"My ambition is to find somebody who can take this on," he said. "It has to be somebody who has been part of making this story. There are several internal candidates who, within two years, could absolutely be capable of doing this job. Of course, the board will also consider external solutions but bringing in someone from outside is always a bit of a gamble."
That's it for now. If you want to see this story in your browser, click here.
— Philip Nussel, online editor
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