Press Releases

On March 17th, 2016, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announced a commitment by automakers, representing more than 99 percent of U.S. automobile sales volume, to make automatic emergency braking (AEB) technology a standard feature on all new cars by 2022 and on all new trucks by 2025.

Automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems detect an impending forward crash with another vehicle in time to avoid or mitigate a crash. These systems first alert the driver to take corrective action before taking measures if the driver’s response is not sufficient.

While some questioned how serious manufacturers would take this pledge, the early returns seem promising. Standard AEB sales have increased by 33-percentage points after only two model years (6% standard in 2016 MY vs. 39% in 2018 MY). Standard fitment rate continues to rise with the 2019 MY as 49% of vehicles sold, as of March 2019, have AEB technology as a standard feature.

• Genesis, Tesla, and Volvo are the clear leaders of automatic emergency braking, equipping their entire vehicle line-up with AEB as standard. AEB has been a standard feature on Volvo since 2015 MY, on Tesla since 2016, and Genesis since the brand debuted in 2017.
• From 2016 to 2018 MY, the largest gains in terms of standard fitment rate have been made by Toyota. AEB technology was standard on 93% of all Toyota vehicles sold throughout the 2018 MY, an 88-percentage point increase when compared to 2016. Following Toyota are Lexus, Mazda, Nissan, Audi, and Land Rover, all of which increased at least 74-percentage points during the same period.
• Five brands did not sell any vehicles during the 2018 model year with AEB as a standard feature: Dodge, Fiat, MINI, Porsche, and Ram.

Even though 100% standard fitment for autonomous emergency braking is the ultimate goal, it’s important to also look at the total availability (standard plus optional availability). It’s true there are costs when a manufacturer chooses to make an optional feature standard, however it is more costly to add new technology to a vehicle, especially mid-generation.

• During the 2018 model year, vehicles that offered AEB contributed to at least 80% of sales for 17 brands, including two brands that do not offer autonomous emergency braking as a standard feature, MINI and Porsche.
• The brand with the furthest to go before reaching the pledge is Ram. The brand did not offer autonomous emergency braking technology as a feature in 2018 MY. That said, Ram has not ignored their pledge as AEB technology is currently being offered as an option on select 2019 Ram 1500s.