Four Automakers Add Automatic Braking to 90% of New Vehicles

While 10 automakers reported equipping more than 50% of the vehicles they produced between Sept. 1, 2017 and Aug. 31, 2018 with automatic emergency braking, the top four among these managed to equip 90% or more with the crash avoidance technology.

This is the second update on the progress of 20 manufacturers who made a voluntary commitment to equip every new passenger vehicle with the crash-avoidance technology by Sept. 1, 2022.

Tesla leads the top four with 100% conformance followed by Mercedes-Benz with 96%, Volvo with 93%, and Toyota/Lexus with 90%.

Six additional automakers equipped over half their vehicles. These include Audi with 87%, Nissan/Infiniti with 78%, Volkswagen with 69%, Honda/Acura and Mazda (both with 61%), and Subaru with 57%.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released the new data today and brokered the original commitment with automakers in 2015.  The objective of the initiative is to get the safety technology into the vehicle fleet faster than requiring it via a federal rulemaking. 

Collectively, approximately half of the vehicles produced by the 20 manufacturers in the given time period were equipped with automatic braking — an increase from less than a third for the previous year.

As for the total number of vehicles produced per manufacturer, Toyota leads the way. The automaker equipped 2.2 million of its 2.5 million vehicles. Nissan takes second place, producing 1.1 million (78%) of its 1.4 million vehicles. Honda ranks third with 980,000 (61%) of 1.6 million vehicles produced with the safety technology.

These systems can help make the nation's roadways safer. The institute estimates that the automaker industry commitment will prevent 28,000 crashes and 12,000 injuries by 2025. Systems with both forward collision warning and crash imminent braking reduce rear-end crashes by 50%, while forward collision warning alone reduces them by more than 25%, according to institute research.

A handful of automakers fell short, producing less than 10% of their vehicles with automatic braking during the reporting period. These include Porsche with 8%, Ford/Lincoln and Mitsubishi (each with 6%), and Jaguar Land Rover who did not report any vehicles with automatic braking.