But no story can be entirely good news. Auto industry executives argue that the 2029 target will be very difficult indeed to meet. “This is practically impossible with the available technology,” John Bozzella, president and CEO of the auto industry lobbying group Alliance for Automotive Innovation, wrote earlier this year. letter to congressThe government estimates that installing more advanced AEB systems on its cars would cost an additional $350 per vehicle. auto lobbying group Estimate Prices can be as high as $4,200 per car, and it has sparked a petition requesting changes to the final federal rules.
In response to WIRED's questions, an NHTSA spokesperson said the more advanced AEB systems “will significantly reduce the injury or property damage and associated costs from these crashes.” The spokesperson said the agency is “working expeditiously” to respond to the group's petition.
Auto safety experts say that if automakers (and the suppliers who produce their technology) phase out more advanced automatic emergency braking, they will have to walk a tight rope: developing technology that can prevent accidents without incurring huge costs. Could survive. They also have to avoid false positives or “phantom braking”, which incorrectly identify non-hazards as threats and apply the brakes for no apparent reason. These can frustrate and irritate drivers – and at high speeds, they can lead to serious injuries.
“This is actually a big concern: As you increase the number of situations in which the system has to operate, you have more false positives,” says David Kidd, a senior research scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). There are more warnings.” ), 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 customer dissatisfaction by making the system too unstable,” says Brannan at AAA. For example, Tesla drivers have proven to be very tolerant of “beta testing” and quirks. Your average driver, maybe even less.
Based on its own research, the IIHS has led automakers to install AEB systems capable of operating at high speeds on their cars. Kidd says IIHS research shows there is no systemic, industry-wide problem with safety and automatic emergency braking. It appears that fewer and fewer drivers are turning off their AEB systems out of irritation. (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 HondaFor automatic emergency braking problems, which have reportedly injured more than 100 people, although the automakers have reportedly fixed the problem.
new complications
Experts say several technological advances will be required to make cars brake faster at even higher speeds. AEB works by fetching data from sensors. That information is then turned into automakers' custom-tuned classification systems that are trained to recognize certain conditions and road users.That's a stopped car in the middle of the road ahead Or there's a person walking up the street-And intervene.
So for AEB to work in high-speed situations, the technology will have to “look” further down the road. Most of today's new cars come loaded with sensors, including cameras and radar, that can collect important data. But the auto industry trade group argues that the Fed has underestimated the amount of new hardware — including potentially more expensive lidar units — that would need to be added to cars.