But no story can be all good news. Auto industry officials maintain that reaching that goal by 2029 will be very difficult indeed. “That is virtually impossible with the technology available,” John Bozzella, president and CEO of the auto industry lobby group Alliance for Automotive Innovation, wrote earlier this year in a letter to congress. The government estimated that installing more advanced AEB systems in its cars would cost an additional $350 per vehicle. The automobile lobby group estimates instead, prices could range as high as $4,200 per car, and he has filed a petition requesting changes to the final federal rules.
In response to questions from WIRED, a NHTSA spokesperson said more advanced AEB systems “will significantly reduce injuries or property damage and the associated costs of these accidents.” The spokesperson said the agency “is working quickly” to respond to the group’s request.
Auto safety experts say that if automakers (and the suppliers that build their technology) achieve more advanced automatic emergency braking, they will have to walk a tightrope: developing technology that prevents accidents without increasing costs. They will also need to avoid false positives or “phantom braking,” which incorrectly identifies non-hazards as hazards and slams on the brakes for no apparent reason. These can frustrate and annoy drivers and, at higher speeds, cause serious cases of whiplash.
“That’s a really big concern: that as the number of situations in which the system has to operate increases, more false warnings arise,” says David Kidd, senior research scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ( IIHS). ), a scientific and educational organization funded by the insurance industry.
Otherwise, drivers will get angry. “Major manufacturers have to be a little careful because they don’t want to create customer dissatisfaction by making the system too nervous,” says AAA’s Brannon. Tesla drivers, for example, have proven to be very tolerant of “beta testing” and quirks. Your average driver, maybe less so.
Based on its own research, the IIHS has pushed automakers to install AEB systems capable of operating at faster speeds in their cars. Kidd says IIHS research suggests there haven’t been systemic, industry-wide problems with safety and automatic emergency braking. Fewer and fewer drivers seem to turn off their AEB systems out of annoyance. (The new rules state that drivers cannot turn them off.) But U.S. regulators have investigated a handful of automakers, including general motors and slingfor automatic emergency braking problems that have reportedly injured more than 100 people, although automakers have reportedly fixed the problem.
New complexities
Getting cars to go at even higher speeds will require a series of technological advances, experts say. AEB works by bringing in data from sensors. That information is then delivered to automakers’ custom classification systems, which are trained to recognize certain situations and road users.There is a car stopped in the middle of the road ahead. either there’s a person crossing the street up there—and intervene.
So for AEB to work in higher speed situations, the technology will have to “see” later. Most new cars today come equipped with sensors, including cameras and radars, that can collect vital data. But the auto industry trade group maintains that the feds have underestimated the amount of new hardware (including, possibly, more expensive lidar units) that will have to be added to cars.