New Federal Safety Regulation....Automatic Emergency Braking by 2029.

[mmcartalk]

Well, Big Brother is hitting us with another new safety-regulation, just announced today, although I can't really say I disagree with it, and many new vehicles, of course, already have it as either standard or optional.....automatic emergency-braking when an object is detected. This must be implemented, by 2029, for all new vehicles in the American market.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/trans...location=alert

TRANSPORTATION

Advanced automatic braking systems to be standard on new cars by 2029​

New federal car safety rules would require cars to have technology to avoid hitting pedestrians and other vehicles, even at high speeds​

By Ian Duncan

April 29, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. EDT

Federal safety standards issued Monday will require new cars to have automatic emergency brakes that can bring them to a complete stop without crashing or hitting pedestrians even at high speeds, saving hundreds of lives a year.

Automakers will have until the fall of 2029 to comply, but officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said they expect the industry to be able to deploy the systems ahead of the deadline.

“Automatic emergency braking is proven to save lives and reduce serious injuries from frontal crashes, and this technology is now mature enough to require it in all new cars and light trucks,” NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman said in a statement. “In fact, this technology is now so advanced that we’re requiring these systems to be even more effective at higher speeds and to detect pedestrians.”



The rules are one of the most significant changes to car safety standards in years and are being issued in the midst of a road safety crisis that saw 41,000 people killed in 2023. Automakers have been installing a lower-speed version of automatic emergency brakes in almost their entire fleet under a deal struck during the Obama administration. But the new regulations are aimed at ensuring far higher performing systems become the standard, and have faced objections from the industry.

Automatic emergency brakes rely on sensors in the vehicle to detect when a crash is imminent and either take over the job of applying the brakes entirely or help a driver safely come to a stop. The rules call for the systems to be able to bring a vehicle traveling at up to 62 mph to a complete stop without causing a collision. They should also be able to apply the brakes if a pedestrian is detected at speeds of up to 45 mph.

NHTSA estimates the rules will prevent 362 road deaths per year and reduce the severity of 24,321 injuries. The agency has said most vehicles could comply with the standards through updates to their software.



Cathy Chase, the president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said the new rules were a “major victory for all consumers and public safety.”

But the auto industry expressed concerns with key parts of the rule after it was proposed last year, arguing it would be impractical in the short term to require that the systems could avoid crashes altogether.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an association of automakers, urged NHTSA to consider an alternative involving reductions in speed in some cases. “Significant hardware and software changes will be needed to achieve a level of performance that no production vehicle can currently achieve,” the organization said last year.

The final version of the rules gives the industry an additional year to comply compared with NHTSA’s original proposal, but maintains the same performance requirements.

New test results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group, suggest the systems will have to improve in coming years to meet the federal rules. The institute said last week it had tested crash avoidance systems on 10 small SUVs at speeds of up to 43 mph, finding that many failed to stop in time to avoid a crash in the most difficult test scenarios.



Just one vehicle, the Subaru Forester, earned a rating of “good” from the organization because it was able to avoid a car ahead of it and dramatically slow down for a motorcycle. The Honda CR-V, rated “acceptable,” avoided the car but struggled to brake for the motorcycle at the highest speed in the test.

The new braking rules were required as part of the 2021 infrastructure law, which pushed NHTSA to use new technology to tackle road deaths. The agency is also exploring a requirement that vehicles be equipped with technology to block drunken driving. The work is in its early stages, but supporters say alcohol detection technology could save 10,000 lives per year.

NHTSA is also working with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a truck safety agency, to require automatic brakes on heavy-duty vehicles.
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[ES300h]

And cars will continue to become more complex, heavier, and harder & more expensive to repair... I miss the simple old days. My first car didn't even have power steering or brakes. Everything was manual, even the transmission. You had to actually drive it LOL - people born in this day and age will hardly know how to actually drive a car.

 

[Flagship1]

And cars will continue to become more complex, heavier, and harder & more expensive to repair... I miss the simple old days. My first car didn't even have power steering or brakes. Everything was manual, even the transmission. You had to actually drive it LOL - people born in this day and age will hardly know how to actually drive a car.

Depends on the design. Generally if the tech is widely adopted costs decrease (aftermarket steps in, more used parts etc). However if the automaker designs in planned obsolescence or part must be replaced rather then repaired or inspected yes prices will go up relative to not having that product.

These decisions usually are made on planning and dev level of the system, so companies have an idea already of whether costs go up or not, but we as consumers wont know until a few years on.

 

[ssun30]

And cars will continue to become more complex, heavier, and harder & more expensive to repair... I miss the simple old days. My first car didn't even have power steering or brakes. Everything was manual, even the transmission. You had to actually drive it LOL - people born in this day and age will hardly know how to actually drive a car.

Arguments like this were made when seatbelts, crumple zones, ABS, VSC were first invented.

There are good tech trends and bad tech trends in passenger vehicle design. AEB definitely belongs in the good group. Sure cars with AEB will be more expensive and harder to repair, but the whole point is preventing collisions in the first place.

Depends on the design. Generally if the tech is widely adopted costs decrease (aftermarket steps in, more used parts etc). However if the automaker designs in planned obsolescence or part must be replaced rather then repaired or inspected yes prices will go up relative to not having that product.

These decisions usually are made on planning and dev level of the system, so companies have an idea already of whether costs go up or not, but we as consumers wont know until a few years on.

Toyota has TSS standard on every car down to the Yaris so these components have definitely reached enough economies of scale that costs are manageable.

 

[Sulu]

Hardware and software changes may be necessary to increase the resolution and the effective operational distance of the front obstacle sensor (to detect small, quick-moving, objects such as bicycles and pedestrians that may be far away), increase the operational speed (to allow for operation at higher relative closing speeds), and tie all of the functions together.

The fact that the Subaru Forester is the only small SUV able to earn an IIHS Good rating is interesting. Subaru vehicles are, as far as I am aware, the only line-up that use binocular vision sensors (i.e. paired cameras acting as a pair of eyes) for their safety system long-range front obstacle detection; other automakers rely on front radar (with the exception of Tesla, which relies on a single, monocular front vision camera). Depth and distance calculation is easy with binocular vision and radar (and lidar, which is not widely used) but difficult with monocular vision.

Phantom braking will be another problem that has to be handled, in which the vehicle brakes for objects that it believes are obstacles but are really not there. Tesla, which relies on a vision-only system, has had this problem (e.g. dirt in front of the camera lens). Radar has not had this problem but as resolution is increased to detect smaller obstacles, it may become a problem.

 

[Ian Schmidt]

I've had phantom braking happen on the LS in heavy snow conditions, but it's definitely rare. LSS 3 is quite good in general, it's the first time I've actually left the lane-keeping assist turned on.

To the previous point, ABS and VSC are among the most common causes of check engine lights (the wheel speed sensors used by both systems are of necessity in an environment that's not friendly for electrical components), and replacement modules for cars over around 6-7 years old are often not available except as junkyard pulls. So there are valid concerns there. I still like having those systems, but there is a tradeoff, particularly for lower-income second or third owners of cars.