[theshadowknows]

My understanding of the automotive industry is that they cut corners everywhere they can because they know it’ll save more money than a lawsuit or recall will cost. Do they do these things and when someone dies or raises a stink only then do they do the recall.

[sircastor]

Having spent 7 years in automotive, I can tell you definitively this is not the case. Automakers are not interested in dealing with litigation, regardless of the cost-benefit-analysis. It is a mess. Discovery is a mess. The actual court work is a mess. No automaker wants to risk going down this road.

[bumby]

This is largely urban legend from the Corvair debacle when an internal document showed someone comparing costs of lawsuits to a cost of recall. I don’t think it ever made it into some sort of policy, it was just a math wonk running numbers

[theshadowknows]

Actually I was referring to the Ford rollover thing: https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/ford-hid-suv-...

And to the GM ignition thing: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/10/3/18073458/gm-car-r...

[PhantomGremlin]

This is largely urban legend

There are numerous anecdotes about cost/benefit analysis. Not just Corvair.

The Ford Pinto fuel tank is one of the most notorious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Cost%E2%80%93benefi...

[bumby]

I had originally typed the Pinto as the example, but changed it after thinking the memo in question was related to the Nader book. Regardless, the point still stands. From your link:

“The general misunderstanding of the document, as presented by Mother Jones, gave it an operational significance it never had” and that the memo

“explains in part of his Mother Jones article that Ford employees wrote this document as part of an ongoing lobbying effort to influence NHTSA (24, 28). But his readers have relied exclusively on his other claim, that it was the "internal" (20, 24) memo on which Ford based its decision to market the dangerous Pinto and settle the few inevitable lawsuits”

That’s what I meant by it not translating to actual policy.

[jazzyjackson]

I watched “Fight Club” too, good flic.