As we reported yesterday, a group of top automakers has agreed to offer automatic emergency braking (AEB) on almost all of their models by 2022.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) confirmed the voluntary agreement today, meaning virtually all light-duty cars and trucks sold in North America will adopt the safety feature by Sept. 1, 2022.
The group is made up of Audi, BMW, FCA US LLC, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Kia, Maserati, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, Porsche, Subaru, Tesla Motors Inc., Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo Car USA.
“By proactively making emergency braking systems standard equipment on their vehicles, these 20 automakers will help prevent thousands of crashes and save lives,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in a statement.
Imposing mandatory AEB through regulations would have taken an extra three years, the NHTSA estimates, during which time a total of 28,000 preventable crashes (resulting in 12,000 injuries) would occur. The NHTSA and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) worked closely with the automakers to reach the agreement.
The vehicles that must comply by 2022 are cars and trucks with a gross vehicle weight of 8,500 pounds or less. Trucks with a GVW of 8,501 to 10,000 pounds will have to comply by Sept. 1, 2025.
Owning a vehicle with AEB might just save you money above and beyond the collisions the system will help you avoid.
“Deploying AEB on a wide scale will allow us to further evaluate the technology’s effectiveness and its impact on insurance losses, so that more insurers can explore offering discounts or lower premiums to consumers who choose AEB-equipped vehicles,” stated IIHS Board Chairman (and CEO of American Family Insurance) Jack Salzwedel.
Taking full advantage of the announcement, Volvo released a statement today reminding everyone that automatic braking has been standard on its full line of vehicles since 2014. Volvo claims the technology has reduced rear-end collisions by 41 percent and injures to occupants by 47 percent.
[Image: Mark Turnauckas/Flickr]
My biggest gripe against my Hellcat is the lack of forward-collision sensors (and to a greater extent, Adaptive Cruise Control)
Why wouldn’t you offer these features on a car that moves so quickly it’s MORE LIKELY to rear end someone else? Especially when the regular 6.4 SRT offers all those features for far less money?
My Jeep will give a loud warning and start to brake itself if you are about to hit something. This happened to me the other day when I was busy talking to my girlfriend and the guy in front of me suddenly panic braked.
Front ultrasound for front parking sensors, adaptive cruise control and collision warning/avoidance needs to be standard on more cars.
Maybe Chrysler is misled in believing that someone using 707hp is paying attention.
“Front ultrasound for front parking sensors, adaptive cruise control and collision warning/avoidance needs to be standard on more cars.”
Standard, or optional? You’re the one not paying attention, but that doesn’t mean I want to pay for it.
But I don’t want YOU hitting ME.
My cars are too important and beautiful to risk damage to some pathetic econobox import.
My biggest issue with this plan is that it’ll help unskilled, inattentive drivers at the expense of good drivers. There’s no doubt in my mind that episodes in which the brakes of a vehicle are activated when the best course might be steering and accelerating around a problem will be routine.
There will also be phantom emergency breaking episodes. Car and Driver reported one with a Hyundai or Kia while on an Interstate in foggy weather only last year. We’ll be bringing up the bottom while dragging down the top.
It’s a pity that after more than 100 years of motoring in the U.S., we still refuse to demand proficiency on the part of our drivers.
Well, thankfully, just like traction control and so on, you can disable the feature if you believe you are smarter than it.
I would humbly request, however, that you not do so when driving near me.
We are all ‘that idiot’ some time. BTSR himself just admitted that his Jeep had to brake for him because he was distracted by his girlfriend.
Phantom braking might be a problem now, but as manufacturers improve the systems it will be less of a problem. It still will save more lives than not having it.
I am a firm believer that technology is making us stupid and lazy, but I also realize that standing on technology will take us higher that poking at the mud with sticks. There’s a time and place for being a Luddite, and this isn’t it.
Agree, it’s time to stop beating the dead horse of improving driver training. No one knows how to stop drivers from crashing, and I maintain it’s more about attitude and judgment rather than skill.
I’d guess the reason the Hellcat doesn’t have it while the SRT does is that FCA thought the Hellcat would ether sit in storage or be tracked so the feature wasn’t worth much. You driving one in NYC wasn’t what they had in mind.
“Volvo claims the technology has reduced rear-end collisions by 41 percent and injures to occupants by 47 percent.”
How can they know that?
Also, it looks like that Beretta WAS pretty clean. Totaled now.
I would hope it helps in more then 41% !!!
I wonder how many accidents, your basic fender benders types, are purely these kinds of rear-endings due not paying attention, caught off guard (maybe texting) type moments? Based on my daily commute it must over 80%. Almost every traffic accident I’ve seen has been that accordion style, chain reaction, bumper-to-bumper whoops thing. My wife has been a victim 3 times now of people failing to stop in time at speeds under 30 mph. Damage was similar to picture above, bumper pushed in, hood bent, a headlight cracked but no injuries (thankfully).
The worst situation is realizing you’re in the wrong lane in slow traffic, and need to get over, and despite there being a comfortable distance between you and the car in front of you, looking over your shoulder for a split-second too long is all it takes to ruin your day if the traffic ahead comes to a dead stop!! Implemented properly, these systems will help to take some of that “workload” away, similar to an autopilot in an aircraft. My Accord has forward-collision warning, sort of a first step toward auto-brake, and I’ve come closer to being “saved” by that a few times more than I care to admit — the warning always started just as I looked forward (my foot already covering the brake).
Well, Volvo sells in a lot of countries.
I bet a few of them have State insurance monopolies or better mandated reporting of wrecks.
Once you have the data, it’s easy enough to crunch out an estimated effect…
That’s a fair point. I’d be interested to see some real stats on distracted driving incidents in various countries. Somehow, I feel like America will be worse than all others.
“Somehow, I feel like America will be worse than all others.”
Have you even BEEN to any other countries? I’ll grant you we won’t top the list of careful drivers, but we’re not even close to the bottom. A few minutes in traffic in India or even Hungary rivaled the sum total of idiocy I witnessed in 20 years of US driving. In the US people don’t care because they’re distracted; in any number of other countries, not giving a flying f*ck is *the default policy* in *all situations*. There’s a world of difference!
I should have specified distracted driving for -phone/tech- reasons. Not distracted driving because a baby just fell off the top of your Tata’s roof.
For sure Italy is crazy. While on vacation there we witness so many accidents we lost count. Our tour guide explained them all by just saying that a red light in Italy is merely a suggestion! Those little scooters weaving in and out of traffic getting taken down often. Narrow streets never designed for modern traffic or parking mean almost ever car has a broken mirror, scuff, dent or scraped bumper.
Add France to that list. There isn’t a car in Paris that hasn’t traded paint with some other car. I have photos of multi-lane roundabouts where more cars are perpendicular to the lanes than in them. I’ve had the chance to drive in Italy as well – the roads themselves are enough to be a cause of distracted driving.
How do they know that?
IIHS studies: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/51/1/1
Other studies confirm a reduction in rear end collisions, including one using data from Swedish insurers.
https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressreleases/163733/volvo-cars-standard-safety-technology-cuts-accident-claims-by-28-per-cent
They probably know how many extra front bumpers they’ve sold. Not every front bumper replacement is the driver’s fault, but 90% of them might be.
I have a simpler solution that would reduce rear end collisions even further. Install RF shielding in every vehicle that would prevent people from using cellphones/text messaging while driving. Rear end collisions would be reduced by over 90%.
My own personal favorite is the proposal to fit each car with a sensor so that if the car detects a cell phone being used while in motion, a 50,000W Co2 pulse laser mounted on the dash board cuts the driver’s head off.
Not a bad idea, and now that cars can brake themselves, there shouldn’t be any injuries caused by a now-driverless car.
Yeah, and won’t happen.
1) CAn’t really shield glass very well, not any any prices people would pay.
2) Jamming is illegal and impossible to really restrict to “inside the car”.
3) Non-drivers get screwed.
4) Impossible to call for a tow or police assistance or use a hands-free setup.
“For every problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong.”
“Rear end collisions would be reduced by over 90%.”
Show me statistics where rear-end collisions have increased by 1000% since 2000. Surely you have them on hand, having made such a bold claim, right?
Are you saying rear-end crashes increased tenfold in the cell phone era?
So are any brands actually not a part of this? They say virtually all is why I wonder. Minus some high end stuff (Lamborghini, Ferrari, RR), but I assume they’re covered under VW, FCA and BMW.
Any brands absent from that list that anyone can catch?
Aston Martin, but I guess they can buy the same Bosch modules as everyone else.
And just ’cause they’re not on the agreement doesn’t mean they won’t *do it* anyway…
All brands are covered which currently sell new cars in the US (even the lux brands, by their parent), save for one.
You ready?
McLaren
Ah crap forgot AM was independent meow. HH got it.
Let’s not forget Koenigsegg!
Are they still around?
Does Pagani count also?
The big story here is self-regulation. For all industries, not just automotive.
One one hand, it’s good that industry is getting ahead of a problem. On the other hand, no one enforces rules when something goes wrong.
Optional now, mandatory later.
See the comments on the previous chain on how this will make it even more difficult for those people who can’t afford new, can’t afford to fix these expensive unrepairable systems when they fail. After a while you won’t be able to license, insure, or pass a safety inspection unless the auto-brake system is working properly. So more uninsured drivers.
Remember that in most of the US (unlike what a portion of the inhabitants of about 6 large cities on the East and West Coasts believe), a running car is a requirement to be employed.
Although we do have one commenter who believes that consumer-grade electronics built to a cost target will have failure rates low enough that none of this matters. (has anyone had a check engine light, an ABS light, or an airbag light recently?)
I think that these will be way cheaper than 1990s ABS.
As much as it sucked, America didn’t perish because of Grand Ams with failed ABS units (although it was touch-and-go for a while).
Yeah, it’s one more sensor, of a not especially fragile nature, and some software to make it operate the brake controller.
The brake controller already exists as part of the ABS system, and those are … actually pretty reliable, these past 15 years or so?
Well, ABS sensors for my 91 Buick run around $75-100 per side…
So cheap they are not – which is why I haven’t fixed the ABS system…
They are going to be ubiquitous, which will likely make them far easier to repair than, say, one-off random 80s/90s tech gimmicks in many cars that made *those* difficult to repair.
At least these are well-known sensors and the like that will benefit from mass adoption.
The sensors are constantly improving. We should have vast improvements in LIDAR with new solid state lidar due this fall. In the future, we may see technology that can pick out a hidden moving hazard by picking up data from reflective surfaces. Vehicle to vehicle technology should help as well. The technology won’t be perfect, but imperfection is sometimes better than nothing.
“All our cars will break and poor people will never have cars again because of [insert thing here]”
* Hydraulic brakes
* Seat belts
* Rollover protection
* Airbags
* Fuel injection
* Electronic engine control
* Pollution control
* ABS
* Stability control
* Backup cameras
…and now we have another one to add to the list. And yet somehow cars now are many orders of magnitude more reliable than they were before the things on this list became standard, significantly cheaper to buy outright, and VASTLY cheaper to finance.
Don’t forget about automatic spark advance…
Oh, and automatic choke! People complained about that endlessly.
But was any of that stuff you listed affordable and perfectly reliable upon introduction?
I’m sure automatic braking will be a great thing *eventually* but I don’t want to buy the first Malibu off the assembly line equipped with it just to go through 4 TSBs and then have the “first generation” sensors brick on year 6.
Don’t worry about the poor folks, that’s what 20-year old Corollas are for (at least where I live).
You keep making this argument. Why is your argument not “Poor people can only afford basic or used cars that are missing safety features? Why are only the rich deserving of protection”?
I don’t know if you’ve ever been on (or known someone on) fixed income or not, but they aren’t looking at vehicles as an investment. They are looking at them as an expense. To that end, those $129/month lease rates for new cars look mighty appealing. They don’t *care* that the car will need new sensors in five years, because they won’t own that car.
People who can’t even afford those rates are playing the lottery in the hope that nothing else in their car is going to break – they are less concerned that their abs sensor doesn’t work than that their engine isn’t leaking oil or their muffler isn’t falling off or their brakes still work, I assure you.
Poor people already get stiffed on transportation options. Why aren’t we mandating these safety features in all cars so that the poor aren’t excluded from them?
The Nanny State: You can’t take care of yourself so we’ll take care of you.
Thanks for nothing.
maybe if we could stop killing each other on the road (to the tune of 40,000 deaths every year) then there wouldn’t be such a push for this.
so for your s**tty driving skills, thanks for nothing as well.
You didn’t read the article. These are mega corporations making free market decisions on their own.
“I have a god given right to drive smack into the car in front of me in a moment of poor concentration, and I refuse to let anyone take that right from me! FREEDOM!!!”
Honda and Toyota being players legitimizes this for me.
Agreed!
Between Toyota gas pedals that get snagged under floormats, and Honda airbags that spew shrapnel, Honda and Toyota users stand to benefit more than most from this new technology…
OMG.. how could I have forgotten about their plunging sales, bankruptcies and war crimes trials in the aftermath of those epic catastrophes?!
This will help people who don’t pay attention to their driving. Unfortunately, it will encourage them pay even less attention.
What will it do to a driver who recognizes that the best move is to steer around an obstacle rather than try to stop short of it? Nailing the brakes isn’t going to save you when an oncoming car veers into your lane.
Will the system read situations correctly? Car and Driver related an incident on a rural interstate during their test of a Jaguar. C&D was in the left lane rapidly overtaking a slow truck in the right lane. As the truck started into a left hand bend, the car suddenly “saw” the truck in front of it and braked hard to avoid the imminent “collision”.
That C&D incident happened many years ago and involved adaptive cruise control on the Jag. Auto emergency braking kicks in much later than adaptive cruise, only when your car “believes” you’re really going to hit something.
Also the system won’t work for an oncoming vehicle veering across the center line — there isn’t enough reaction time even for a computer.
Example of a recent AEB false alarm in my car — I’m on a 55-mph highway (not a freeway) and a Honda Accord ahead is slowing down sharply to make a right turn into a driveway. I saw what was happening, eased off the throttle, but received the visual “brake” warning and beep from my car for a second or so. I wasn’t closing fast enough for the brakes to be applied. As soon as the Accord left the travel lane, the warning stopped.
I think it’s a nice feature to have just in case. Humans can’t be 100% attentive all the time, as much as we’d like to think.
I’m guessing that just like adaptive cruise, this system can be overridden by jumping on the throttle if need be (to dodge out of the way of an obstacle, for example).
Not throttle, steering inputs. If you attempt an evasive maneuver, the feature will not engage (as implemented by Mazda, anyway).
The only time I ever rear-ended another car was a few years ago, when I was driving the Sonata. I was going a bit too fast for the icy road and was unable to stop completely at the light. I rear-ended an Escape with a towing ball mount. It punched a neat hole in the front bumper of the Sonata—which was replaced—but no other damage was caused. I’m kind of glad the Escape was there, because otherwise I might have continued into the intersection and caused a serious accident.
So I’m curious as to how these systems can intervene in inclement or unfavorable weather conditions.
“So I’m curious as to how these systems can intervene in inclement or unfavorable weather conditions.”
Imperfectly, but better than an inattentive human. If there’s half the usual grip, AEB will see you thump the car ahead at a lower speed than you would have had it not been in effect. That’s not a flaw with the idea of AEB. I’ve been involved in three accidents where AEB would have come into play, once as a driver on black ice; once as a passenger in good weather, and once as the target in good weather. AEB would probably have prevented two of those incidents. That strikes me as pretty low-hanging fruit in terms of relatively inexpensive safety measures we can take.
True. Unless you regularly tailgate people or make inappropriately-close lane changes, AEB sounds like one of those things it’d be better to have than not to have.
“The 2012 Escape. Punches your Sonata in the face, and also saves you money… You’re welcome.”
That’s pretty much how it went. We both got out of our respective cars, and I said, “I wonder what those bits of plastic are on the ground.” The other gentleman shrugged and said, “They’re probably from your car, not mine”…then went on about his merry way. The towing hitch saved us both some money. I paid out of pocket to have a new bumper installed and painted.
Well, I must admit to plenty of front-and rear-end accidents.
1. Me into Accord #1 – ABS and/or auto braking might have saved me.
2. Wife backed into my car in the driveway – auto braking might have helped.
3. Me into old Nissan truck – auto braking might have helped.
4. Misc car into my tail – auto braking might have helped.
5. Me into Accord #2 (head-on) – auto braking would have helped.
In spite of my concerns about assigning liability in an actual accident, autonomous braking could really help prevent a lot of them.
So if the Volvo system has been in place since the 2014 models, how much have their insurance rates dropped? Among the B&B who own cars with AEB (if it’s an option), how much of a discount did you get over the non-AEB equipped car?
With AEB, our Durango is about $200 a year cheaper than the non-AEB Durango – the AEB pays for itself alone in 6 years.
Thanks!
if you know that a tailgater behind you has auto-braking and the road is dry…potential for hilarity (and/or road rage).
I am of the opinion that AEB systems should, rather than beeping loudly just before an inevitable impact, yell, “OH, SH*T!”
Anyone know whether this technology will prevent tailgaters from ….well….tailgating?
I was thinking about that too. I wonder if a tailgater might choose to hang back just a little bit after the system activates a couple of times. Kind of hard to intimidate other drivers if your car won’t let you get close enough to do so.
If there’s one thing cars need, it’s more beeping and blinking lights to alarm people in emergency situations.
Before you know it, cars will be auto-braking when they see the light turn yellow. Hope the car behind you can auto-brake as well!
It doesn’t beep to warn you to back off, it beeps to warn you something is happening so you don’t think the car just zombie-braked for no reason. The person driving is about to be startled anyway, but they are far less likely to rear-end whatever is in front of them as well, which is the point.
Brucie once told me that not everyone likes to be rear ended. He likes to rear end.
It doesn’t bother me that they’ll be implementing this. It’s not like there’s much cost involved, and this will be a good feature for those who tend to drive into things. Just like stability control or traction control, I will permanently disable it if it ever interferes with my driving.
The thing that will bother me is that some manufacturers will make it practically impossible to disable the system, and some governments will likely require that it be active.
Modern technology would be a beautiful thing if we were allowed control of it.
This will more than likely go the Takata route, everyone will source from the cheapest third world source, drivers will tailgate and crash, and we’ll have a massive recall.
Why not just drive better?
Don’t worry, I’m sure the savings will passed on to you. That’s why OEMs are still charging $1,000+ for built in navigation units with less functionality than a $100 Garmin.
I am just waiting for the unintended consequences. While an undoubtedly good idea, now well does is it going to work in practice ??
I know my 2015 Accord is constantly warning me to brake when I am passing cars or changing lanes or even closing on someone in a rapid manner. What is going to happen when I do this with one of these system active? What happens when every 3rd or 4th car has these systems and they all suddenly (and unpredictably) brake ?
I can smell the lawyer commercials already.
Those systems are not these systems.