US Automakers Lobby Against Stringent AEB Rules

TapTechNews On June 27, it was reported that recently, the major lobbying group of the US automotive industry has sent a request to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and members of Congress, asking to reconsider its recently introduced Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) rule. The group said that the current technology is difficult to meet the high standards set by the government.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation (Alliance for Automotive Innovation), representing most major automakers, pointed out in a letter to NHTSA and members of Congress that these rules finalized earlier this year are almost impossible to achieve with the current technology. The alliance said that the suggestions of the automotive industry were rejected during the rule-making process and asked the regulatory agency to re-consider several key aspects so that this goal can be more easily achieved by the target date of 2029.

Regrettably, I have come to such a conclusion, John Bozzella, president and chief executive officer of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, wrote in a letter to Congress, Driving a vehicle equipped with AEB according to NHTSA's new standards will become unpredictable and chaotic, which will make drivers feel confused or frustrated.

TapTechNews noted that in April last year, the US Department of Transportation finally determined this regulation, requiring all automakers to equip their produced sedans, SUVs, and pickup trucks with automatic emergency braking systems by 2029. According to this regulation, the regulation requires that the on-board AEB function can stop all vehicles at a speed of 62 miles per hour (about 100 kilometers per hour) to avoid collisions; when there is a high-speed rear-end collision, the AEB must automatically start within a speed of 90 miles per hour (about 145 kilometers per hour); when detecting a pedestrian, the AEB must automatically start within a speed of 45 miles per hour (about 72 kilometers per hour). Vehicles must also be able to detect pedestrians both during the day and at night.

However, Bozzella pointed out that currently, almost no car on the road can meet these standards. He mentioned that NHTSA's own test data showed that only one car met the braking distance requirement in this rule.

If this rule takes effect, the vehicle that detects an object on the road will automatically brake far ahead of the expectations of the typical driver and others on the road, which may increase the possibility of a rear-end collision. Moreover, the vehicle will become more expensive because it needs to install necessary and expensive hardware and software.

In fact, the current AEB systems have been proved to be ineffective in preventing collisions. The American Automobile Association (AAA) has been testing AEB systems for many years and found that these braking technologies completely failed to achieve the advertised effect in many common situations. T-bone collisions and left-turn collisions account for about 40% of fatal accidents, but AEB can hardly prevent such accidents from happening. Similarly, many AEB systems perform poorly in preventing vehicles from running over children and are almost useless at night.