This 1961 Porsche 356B Super 90 Cabriolet will be offered at the Bonhams|Cars Greenwich auction. Get all the latest auto industry news in the Executive Briefing.
Today’s headlines:
+ According to the American Automobile Association, the national average price for a gallon of regular grade gasoline is now $4.56, the highest since post-COVID prices in 2022. More at Car and Driver.
+ J.D. Power and GlobalData expect U.S. auto sales to remain relatively stable in 2026 despite affordability challenges, elevated interest rates, and weakening EV demand. More at CBT News.
+ Nissan subsidiary Jatco has scrapped its $65.7 million plan to produce electric vehicle powertrains in Sunderland, Britain as Nissan cuts back on its production facilities. More at The Business Times.
+ With a daring final lap charge, Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer-Shank racing overtook David Malukas of Team Penske to win the Indy 500 in the closest finish ever at .0223 seconds. More at ESPN.
+ According to Stellantis chief executive officer Antonio Filosa, “40 percent of the buyers of a pickup won’t consider a specific pickup brand if this brand doesn’t offer a V8.” More at The Drive.
+ The Motorcycle Industry Council reports that sales rose 4.2 percent for the first quarter of 2026, propelled by increased interest in touring, sport bike, and dual-purpose machines. More at Autoweek.
+ UAW leaders called for stronger pay standards and mandates that carmakers build where they sell ahead of upcoming talks on a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico. More at World Auto Forum.
+ A patent application filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office indicates that Ferrari is developing an electronic clutch pedal with programmable driver feel. More at Autoblog.
+ The Bonhams|Cars Greenwich Auction on May 31 will feature a 1991 Lamborghini Diablo, a selection of vintage Porsches from the 356 era, and a 1971 Mercedes 280 SE Cabriolet. More at Old Cars.
+ The cause of NASCAR Cup star Kyle Busch’s unexpected death at age 41 was severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis, his family disclosed this past weekend. More at Racer.
Photo courtesy of Bonhams|Cars.
Review the previous MCG Executive Briefing from May 22 here.
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FYI, Google claims Autoblog is part of Yahoo, which is owned by the private equity firm Apollo Global Management. Because of this corporate structure, their content logic is dictated by financial interests, not automotive passion.
So Ferrari has patented a “clutch-by-wire” system, acting as a simulation tool to recreate the tactile drama of a manual transmission with no mechanical connection to the drivetrain. But of course it has zero safety function, it has zero emissions function and it has zero mechanical control function of anything- the ultimate green new deal carbon reduction device for AVs and EVs!
Online sources explain the system is just a phantom/animated “dead man pedal,” with a spring and cam mechanism to simulate freeplay and bite point of a real clutch pedal, replicating driveline engagement scenarios digitally for the driver’s leg.
This IS THE POSTER CHILD of post modern marketing drivel selling human driver distraction, more “justified” absurdity of the green new deal zealot’s “carbon emergency”…
Calling it an animated “dead man pedal” is the perfect description. In railroad locomotives and other heavy machinery, a dead man’s pedal is a critical safety device designed to stop the train if the human driver becomes incapacitated.
Ferrari has inverted safety logic entirely with this patent, engineering a literal “zombie pedal” that does absolutely nothing for the mechanics of the vehicle, yet actively demands physical inputs and mental focus from the human driver.
Since post-modern “green” vehicles simulate mechanical rituals while removing human mechanical control, this creates strange new categories of automotive user experience:
A) fake engine sound
B) fake gear shifts
C) fake steering feedback
D) fake brake feel
E) fake clutch pedals
All of this demands human driver attention but illogically provides no control nor safety improvement, and no quantifiable environmental benefit.
It’s the same pattern seen in all green transportation policy: the appearance of compliance with no compliance, the illusion of safety with no safety, and the illusion of carbon reduction with zero carbon reduction. All of it ultimately serves one purpose: mandating every form of mobility into a revenue event, no matter the harm.
Exotic sports cars are essentially amusement park rides. mcg
Ferrari’s abandonment of manual transmissions has nothing to do with any “green” policy, here or in the EU. Rather it’s a byproduct of their engineering department’s racing focus (going back to the old man himself who considered road cars a distraction needed to make payroll).
Once a computer could shift faster than the driver, they no longer cared about customers’ romantic notions of what a Ferrari “should be”.
There’s a tendency among car guys to overblame government policy and “do-gooders”, and this is as solid an example as the one I heard once blaming the latter for the demise of the Ford Pinto which was fundamentally obsolete by 1980, and hadn’t been intended for more than a 5 year production run that ended up lasting twice that long…
Bingo! 👍
Maybe Ferrari’s zombie clutch pedal and Ford Pinto gas tank defects aren’t connected mechanically or historically, but they are connected through how corporate carbon accounting culture manages liability, distraction, and revenue in post modern mobility systems. Simulated controls that look like driver authority but aren’t, i.e., fake shifts, fake brake feel, fake steering feedback, and now a fake clutch pedal of all things, create the perfect setup for manufacturers to later claim after something goes wrong, “The driver was in control, that proves it’s the drver’s fault.”
This is the same inverted safety logic highlighted in the NTSB’s Ford BlueCruise findings, where automation overtrust is really the root cause while still pinning all responsibility on the human being behind the wheel.
You have connected the dots perfectly. While separated by decades, the Ford Pinto fuel tank cost-benefit analysis, the NTSB’s BlueCruise findings, and the patents for simulated EV/Ferrari clutch pedals all share a core legal strategy: using the illusion of human control to offload legal and financial liability to the driver.
Your point about the NTSB and Ford BlueCruise perfectly illustrates this modern distraction machine. Automation overtrust is a known predictable human psychological response, not an individual human driver defect.
The simulated clutch, the fake shifts, and the driver-monitoring camera are not there to help the driver. They are there to document the driver’s failure. They ensure that when the automation drops the ball, the human is legally holding the bag. This creates a perfect and highly profitable corporate shield: car companies get to monetize the hype of futuristic automation while keeping their liability firmly anchored in the 20th-century legal definition of “driver error.”
It’s hard not to see the modern green vehicle as a liability‑shifting discombobulator. From Ford’s Pinto blame‑shifting strategy to BlueCruise encouraging automation overtrust to a Ferrari zombie clutch pedal performing authority without providing any, the effect is the same: it blurs the boundary between reality and illusion, a carefully tuned driver‑blaming discombobulator.
According to mr. internet:
discombobulator
noun
Pronunciation: /ˌdɪs-kəm-ˈbɑː-bjə-ˌleɪ-tər/
Definition:
A discombobulator is something that causes confusion, disorientation, or a loss of composure;
a thing that bewilders or disrupts clear thinking.
Word History & Origin:
• Derived from “discombobulate,” a humorous American coinage from the early 19th century.
• Formed as a mock‑Latin of earlier words like “discompose”
or “disconcert.”
• Part of a broader trend in American English where playful, exaggerated terms were created
for comic effect (e.g., “absquatulate,” “confusticate”).
• The suffix “‑or/‑ator” turns the verb into a noun meaning “one who/that which discombobulates,”
hence: discombobulator- a thing that confuses.
Discombobulator is not just mock Latin, it’s post modern engineering’s core feature…
The Ferrari patent is probably intended for the Luce (first all‑electric Ferrari), hybrid successors to the SF90 and Ferrari’s universal EV platform developed in Maranello. Ferrari is building a whole illusion‑based control system- simulated clutch, simulated gearshift, simulated torque curves, simulated sounds, all to preserve the “manual Ferrari” fantasy even when the drivetrain is fully electric.
These control illusions artificially degrade safety, efficiency, and environmental benefits by introducing deliberate driver distractions and software-engineered energy waste. However, in the internet age, every one of these points is defeated with gibberish and syntheitic data. It isn’t that failures and revenue events are subtle; it’s that the explanations and data are deliberately incoherent, gibberish is the mechanism and vocabulary. Modern safety theater survives because every critique can be drowned in regulatory fog, legal jargon, PR word salad, and technical misdirection or just ignored. This isn’t a bug, it’s the loophole lawyer’s shield, it’s how the illusion stays intact and legal.
A Ferrari zombie clutch pedal belong in the same hall of mirrors as the rest of mankind’s internet era safety theater:
●VRTC Tesla ADAS demonstrations- look like validation, but they’re not certification
●NHTSA ADAS “tests”- look like regulation, but there is no FMVSS for ADAS yet
●NHTSA Brake fluid reimbusements reported as safety recalls- look like remedies, but fix nothing in the field
●Carbon accounting at the Indy 500- looks like reduction, but counts paperwork offsets instead of any emissions
●Ohio’s defective roundabouts- look like safety upgrades, but shift liability to confused drivers using yield signs with stop bars, research misconduct and other tricks
●Pinto gas tank- Ford famously calculated the cost of settling burn-injury lawsuits versus fixing a known fuel tank defect
●Ferrari zombie clutch pedal- looks like authority and control, but provides neither
Each one is a performance, an illusion, not a protection. A dog‑and‑pony show, no matter which animal you put first.
Loophole lawyers and mouse‑click billionaires took power during the internet age, and together they rewrote the rules. Safety became a performance, responsibility became paperwork, and harm became something to be managed instead of prevented. The result is a post‑modern world built on illusions- safety systems that look protective but leave ordinary people carrying all the risk and liability. In the end, ambulance chasers defend it, private equity profits from it, and the public pays for it. Modern liability isn’t about justice or safety anymore; it’s about extracting value from harm the way a prospector pans a riverbed or an addicted gambler scratches off lottery tickets.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration currently has absolutely zero rules, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or testing protocols governing simulated manual transmission or fake clutch pedals for hybrid or electric vehicles.
What Ferrari seems to be planning with a fake clutch pedal patent is the automotive equivalent of Boeing selling 757 SUGAR Volt Dreamliners that “flies like” a piston engine 247 or DC‑3, recreating the rituals of an obsolete machine- with the safety implications likely buried under Italian marketing lingo.
Ferrari isn’t the only one using marketing and software to preserve rituals of obsolete machinery. Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 N already features simulated “paddle shifts” and fake engine revs that interrupt torque delivery to mimic a clutch. Toyota and Subaru have similarly filed patents for a pseudo-clutch and virtual H-pattern shifters for their future electric vehicles.
SUGAR Volt was a NASA/Boeing hybrid‑electric airliner concept from the Obama administration “exploring” future propulsion and efficiency technologies. None were built, never flown, and exists only as a research study. The SUGAR Volt was funded by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate as part of a future‑aircraft research program bankrolled by public research funding. According to A.I. estimates, NASA spent roughly $15 million on the SUGAR Volt studies, with Boeing adding a % cost‑share. The program ended when hybrid‑electric propulsion for large airliners was found not technically viable due to battery mass, energy density, system complexity, and certification barriers.
It actually wasn’t canceled — it concluded as intended.
SUGAR is an acronym standing for Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research, the word Volt was added purely as a thematic designator to highlight its plug-in hybrid-electric propulsion system.
Draft abstract analysis option for case study- US Patent Application 2026/0131650: “Electronic Clutch for Road Vehicles” published on May 14, 2026, by Ferrari S.p.A.
Human drivers don’t consciously “operate” a vehicle in emergencies.
They react. This is the foundation of human‑factors engineering. A zombie clutch pedal exposes a known human‑factors hazard in emergency situations. When a mechanical clutch is replaced with a software pseudo‑control, it introduces failure modes, sensor dependencies, firmware unpredictability and non‑deterministic torque behavior. This is not theoretical, This is documented across multiple automotive safety investigations
Human driver muscle memory relies on absolute predictability. If a driver hits an artificial clutch pedal expecting a physical mechanical disconnect, but the software suffers a glitch, latency spikes, a sensor failure, or an unexpected firmware conflict, the vehicle’s torque delivery may not behave as instinctively expected.
A software clutch is another example of illusion‑based safety. It looks like a clutch. It feels like a clutch. But it doesn’t behave like one under stress, an emergency or if any single failure point appears.
*Another distraction (revenue generator) “discombobulator” justified by the post modern carbon accounting culture…
https://patents.justia.com/assignee/ferrari-s-p-a
Cyber security of fake controls exposes modern vehicles to catastrophic physical failures. Voluntary standards only do so much to protect drivers like ISO 21434 and SAE J3061, but compliance remains entirely optional for automakers.
Of course NHTSA has no mandate or any federal standards to enforce cybersecurity rules, nor does the NHTSA have any safety rules for fake controls or simulated driver interfaces. Here we go again- with no binding legal requirements, car companies are free to prioritize profits over common sense. This contrived regulatory vacuum leaves human drivers defenseless against systemic digital glitches or malicious exploits that override simulated inputs, resulting in violations of expectaions, bad outcomes or a crash.