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Regulators consider adding more carmakers to Takata recall

Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal has been getting a lot of press recently, but the Takata airbag inflator affair could be grabbing headlines again soon. According to Bloomberg, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is contemplating an expansion to the campaign that could add seven automakers to the 12 already affected. They are Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Spartan Motors, Suzuki, Tesla, Volvo Trucks, and VW Group. To be clear, there's no recall for any of these automakers, yet. The government is simply asking for a full list of vehicles that each of them have with Takata-supplied inflators containing ammonium nitrate propellant. The agency is concerned this substance could play a roll in the ruptures. "NHTSA is considering not only whether to issue an administrative order that would coordinate the remedy programs associated with the current Takata recalls, but also whether such an order should include expansion of the current recalls," the letters say. All seven can be viewed, here. From a report supplied by Takata, the government already knows that the company supplied 887,055 inflators with ammonium-nitrate propellant to VW and 184,926 of them to Tesla. In an incident during the summer, a side airbag allegedly burst in a 2015 VW Tiguan. In early September, NHTSA put out a revised report that there were 23.4 million inflators to be replaced in 19.2 million vehicles in the US. An earlier accounting from the agency had about 34 million of the parts in 30 million cars. High humidity is still believed to be among the biggest risk factors for the ruptures. Although, if ammonium nitrate also gets the blame, some already recalled models might need to be repaired again. Related Video:

Ecclestone wonders if F1's upcoming turbo V6s should get augmented sound [w/videos]

While every team on the Formula One grid is worried about making a good showing in this year's championship at the same time as they develop a brand-new car for next year's championship, Bernie Ecclestone and F1 circuit promoters have a different concern: how next year's cars will sound. The current cars use 2.4-liter, naturally-aspirated V8s that can reach 18,000 revolutions per minute and employ dual exhaust, next year's engine formula calls for 1.4-liter turbocharged V6s that are capped at 15,000 rpm and are constrained to a single exhaust outlet. Ecclestone and promoters like Ron Walker believe the new engines sound like lawnmowers and that the less thrilling audio will keep people from coming to races. If Walker's Australian Grand Prix really is shelling out almost $57 million to hold the race, every ticket counts. As a fix, according to a report in Autoweek, Ecclestone "suggests that the only way to guarantee [a good sound] may be to artificially adjust the tone of the V6s."
However, neither the manufacturers nor the governing body of F1, the FIA, think there will be a problem. Ecclestone fears that if the manufacturers "don't get it right" they'll simply leave the sport, but the only three carmakers and engine builders left next year, Renault (its 2014 "power unit" is pictured), Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari are so embedded that it would stretch belief to think they'd leave the table over an audio hiccup - if said hiccup even occurs. And frankly, these issues always precede changes to engine formulas, as they did when the formula switched from V10 to V8; fans, though, are probably less focused on the engines and more on the mandated standardization of the sport and the spec-series overtones that have come with it.
No one knows yet what next year's engines will sound like, but we've assembled a few videos below to help us all start guessing. The first is an engine check on an Eighties-era John Player Special Renault with a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, after that is Ayrton Senna qualifying in 1986 in the Lotus 98T that also had a 1.5-liter V6 turbo, then you'll find a short with a manufactured range of potential V6 engine notes, and then the sound of turbocharged V6 Indycars testing last year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Any, or none of them, could be Formula One's future.

Are future vehicular hacks inevitable?

Before the hack of the Uconnect system in a Jeep Cherokee resulted in a 1.4-million vehicle recall, the potential software vulnerabilities in vehicles were already a hot topic with Congressional inquiries and even proposed legislation in the US. As cars' interconnected systems gain the ability to go online, they become open to a host of new threats. Automakers are trying to stop this, but it might be too late to put the genie back into the bottle. Throughout 2015, the issue of software security in vehicles has become increasingly vital. For example, the recent Jeep case wasn't even the biggest hack this year. In February, a major flaw was discovered in the BMW Connected Drive service that allowed researchers to remotely lock and unlock the doors and potentially affected 2.2 million cars. The fix was an over-the-air patch for the problem. Automakers are actively working to fix the issues. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi reportedly are using encrypted connections and firewalls in their vehicles to prevent hacking. "Absolute, 100-percent safety isn't possible," Daimler spokesperson Benjamin Oberkersch said to Automotive News Europe. "But we develop our systems, tested by internal and external experts, so they're up to date." These vulnerabilities seem to be popping up more often. A successful hack took $14 in parts from Radio Shack in one case. There was also a 60 Minutes report earlier in the year about DARPA's ability to hack into OnStar to take control of a Chevrolet Impala. Experts aren't so sure companies can contend with hackers' advancement. "The difficulty for the carmakers at the moment is the question whether they can keep pace with advances in technology, and especially hacking technology," Rainer Scholz, executive director for telematics consultant EY, said to Automotive News Europe. "We seriously doubt they can." At this point, vehicle hacks are coming more from researchers looking for holes than from those with malicious intent. Still, the vulnerabilities are definitely there. It's up to automakers to keep patching the problems before they become dangerous to drivers. Related Video: News Source: Automotive News Europe - sub. req.Image Credit: Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post via Getty Images Audi BMW Jeep Mercedes-Benz Safety Technology Emerging Technologies hacking cyber security