This week Ralph Nader issued a stinging indictment of the domestic auto industry’s failure to stimulate innovation, “Innovation and Stagnation in Automotive Safety and Fuel Efficiency.” The report details what he calls “glaring oversights” by the auto industry, identifying specific missed opportunities in the areas of safety and fuel economy, and provides a blueprint to jolt the domestic industry out of its downward slide. Nader, a longtime auto safety advocate, is issuing the report now to call on automakers to reverse decades-long trends of putting “marketing hype” before engineering quality. “General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have always preferred to squeeze their suppliers on price rather than seek technological improvements. It’s a short-term, bully’s approach to a business relationship that should be collaborative, cooperative, and dynamic. Even as some Japanese and European manufacturers prove that advanced technology sells — especially in safety and fuel efficiency — the market-shrinking domestic auto industry thinks that the only path to profitability is penny pinching on parts.”

The report also underscores the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s “foot-dragging” on new safety and fuel economy technologies. “NHTSA schedules the standardization of safety technology that’s already commercially available — it doesn’t challenge manufacturers to deliver innovative solutions,” Nader said.

The report identifies major barriers to innovation in safety and fuel efficiency, including:

• A technology-stifling relationship between manufacturers and suppliers
• Options bundling that dissuades consumers from buying safety technology
• NHTSA’s poor attention to innovators and entrepreneurs
• A reluctance by the General Services Administration to purchase innovations in fleet vehicles
• Insurers who refuse to offer incentives for safety innovations

The report presents 10 recommendations, including: (1) a return to NHTSA-contracted advanced vehicle programs like the 1970’s Research Safety Vehicle; (2) a new collaboration between NHTSA and parts suppliers; (3) CAFE increases to at least 46 mpg for cars and 40 mpg for light trucks by 2014; and (4) NHTSA-sponsored contests for super-efficient and extra-safe vehicle designs.

    Print This Post