But no story can be good news. Auto industry officials say meeting the 2029 target will be very difficult indeed. “This is virtually impossible with the technology available,” John Bozella, president and CEO of the auto industry lobbying group Alliance for Automotive Innovation, wrote in a letter to Congress earlier this year. The government estimates that installing more advanced AEB systems on its cars would cost an additional $350 per vehicle. An auto lobbying group estimates the costs could be as high as $4,200 per car, and has filed a petition requesting changes to the final federal rules.
In response to WIRED’s questions, an NHTSA spokesperson said more advanced AEB systems would “significantly reduce injury or property damage and the costs associated with these crashes.” A spokesman said the agency was “working expeditiously” to respond to the group’s request.
Auto safety experts say that if automakers (and the suppliers who make their technology) adopt more advanced automatic emergency brakes, they’ll have to walk a tough path: developing technology that can prevent crashes without ballooning costs. Saves. They also have to avoid false positives or “phantom braking,” which falsely identifies non-threats as threats and brakes for no apparent reason. These can frustrate and annoy drivers—and at high speeds, they can cause serious cases of whiplash.
“That’s a really big concern: As you increase the number of situations in which the system has to operate,” says David Kidd, a senior research scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). You get more of these false alerts.” ), an insurance-industry-funded scientific and educational organization.
Otherwise the drivers will go crazy. “Mainstream manufacturers have to be a little careful because they don’t want to create consumer dissatisfaction by making the system too complicated,” says Brannon at AAA. For example, Tesla drivers have proven very tolerant of “beta testing” and quirks. Your average driver, probably less.
Based on its own research, the IIHS has urged automakers to install high-speed AEB systems on their cars. Kidd says IIHS research shows there are no systemic, industry-wide problems with safety and automatic emergency braking. Fewer and fewer drivers seem to be turning off their AEB systems in annoyance. (The new rules make it so drivers can’t turn them off.) But U.S. regulators have investigated a handful of automakers, including General Motors and Honda, for problems with automatic emergency braking that allegedly But more than 100 people have been injured, even though the car makers allegedly fixed the problem.
New complications
Experts say several tech advances will be needed to make cars brake at high speeds. AEB works by fetching data from sensors. That information is then fed into automakers’ custom-tuned classification systems, which are trained to recognize certain conditions and road users.That is a car parked in the middle of the road ahead. or There is a man walking across the street.– and intervene.
So for AEB to work in high-speed conditions, the tech has to “see” further down the road. Most of today’s new cars are loaded with sensors, including cameras and radar, that can collect important data. But the auto industry trade group argues that the feds have reduced the amount of new hardware — including, potentially, more expensive leader units — that will have to be added to cars.
