Vehicle safety group tests 14 partial automated driving methods, none earn a ‘good’ rating

In temporary: Partial automated automobile methods that may carry out sure capabilities are alleged to make our driving experiences easier and safer, however the outcomes of a new examine contradict automakers’ claims. Out of the 14 methods that have been examined, none was awarded a “good” rating.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), an impartial non-profit based in 1959 that’s devoted to decreasing deaths, accidents, and property harm from motorized vehicle crashes, carried out the examine into partial driving automation options.

The options examined within the examine aren’t superior driver help methods like emergency braking. Instead, they cowl the likes of adaptive cruise management, cooperative steering, lane-keep help, automated lane altering, and methods that generally permit a driver to take their arms off the wheel.

Also learn: Carmakers are sharing driving habits with insurance coverage firms, unbeknownst to house owners

IIHS evaluated the automobiles’ options primarily based on driver monitoring, consideration reminders, emergency procedures and different points of system design, awarding them a rating of excellent, acceptable, marginal, or poor primarily based on their safeguards.

Some examples of what would earn a good safeguard rating embrace monitoring a driver’s gaze and hand place, utilizing a number of varieties of escalating alerts to get a driver’s consideration, and automated lane adjustments being initiated or confirmed by the motive force. Not a single one of many 14 methods was awarded a good rating: Only one was rated as acceptable, two have been classed as marginal, and the remaining have been “poor.”

The solely methods not rated as poor

BMW, Ford, General Motors, Genesis, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Tesla, and Volvo methods have been all examined by IIHS. The Lexus Teammate with Advanced Drive system was the one one rated as acceptable, although one other one of many firm’s methods, the Lexus Dynamic Radar Cruise Control with Lane Tracing Assist, obtained a poor rating. GM’s Super Cruise and Nissan’s ProPilot Assist have been the 2 methods rated as marginal.

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Beta) Version 2023.7.10 had the worst rating total. Its system was rated as poor in six classes and acceptable within the different two. Tesla Autopilot was solely marginally higher, receiving a good rating for lane altering as an alternative of poor.

The “last-minute Halloween costume”

One of the tests concerned protecting the motive force’s face with a cheesecloth to see if a system may very well be activated when a individual’s face was obscured. IIHS additionally coated cameras with felt for an additional evaluation, and connected weights to the steering wheel to simulate a driver’s arms to attempt to trick the methods.

What sort of freakish arms would really feel like ankle weights?

IIHS President David Harkey stated that whereas the outcomes are “worrying,” all of the examined methods did properly in no less than one class, which “means the fixes are available and, in some instances, could also be completed with nothing greater than a easy software program replace.”