Breaking down the new braking regulations

You can’t sell a new car in America without complying with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards or FMVSS. Enforced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), these regulations set minimum requirements for steering wheels, safety belts, mirrors, brakes, the viscosity of hydraulic fluid and pretty much every other component of a vehicle that you can think of. A new standard is a big deal. The insurance industry lobbies for safer vehicles to reduce claims; organizations like Consumer Reports lobby on behalf of their members; technology vendors dream about the Government mandating their products; and automakers push back on demands that they consider unreasonable or impractical. 

This April, after almost a year of public comments on the first draft, NHTSA finalized a new rule mandating Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) systems. Starting in 2029, a new car must be able to detect an imminent collision with a pedestrian or vehicle directly in front of it and apply the brakes in time to avoid contact completely at speeds of up to 90 mph, day or night. 

You may be thinking “my car already has AEB” and you are almost certainly right. Automakers have been selling AEB features for more than twenty years, motivated by competition, not regulation. Way back in 2010 NHTSA began testing AEB features in NCAP, the voluntary New Car Assessment Program that awards star ratings for safety. In 2016, automakers representing 99% of the industry volunteered to add AEB features to almost all news cars starting in 2022. According to both NHTSA and the insurance industry, AEB systems have prevented many accidents and reduced the severity of others. (Sadly, the topline number of accidents has been increasing in recent years, due to new factors like texting and driving. But that’s a discussion for another day.) Now AEB will become mandatory in 2029 - almost thirty years after Mercedes-Benz introduced the first forward collision warning system in the US.

The new standard does raise the bar for safety and we commend NHTSA. Previously automakers were not prioritizing pedestrian detection, particularly at night. (Drivers are 3X more likely to strike a pedestrian at night than during the day.) However, some vendors are calling the regulation a “tailwind" for new technologies like LiDAR or “imaging” radar. This is a stretch. NHTSA tested six recent cars and only one meets the new standard today. But it wasn’t some maxed-out luxury vehicle with X-Ray vision; it was a 2023 Toyota Corolla with a single forward-facing camera and a radar in the grille. NHTSA believes that 95% of vehicles currently for sale could meet the new standard with a software upgrade; only 5% will need new hardware. Speaking for the insurance industry, the IIHS welcomed the new regulation but complained that the long delay is unnecessary, because they think the standard is easy to meet. 

Of course not everyone agrees with this, especially the automakers who have to bear the cost. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation says the new standards are "practically impossible with available technology."

In general, NHTSA introduces new regulations slowly, carefully, and based on data. ESC (electronic stability control) was introduced in the US in 1995 and became mandatory on all new vehicles in 2011, sixteen years later. Regulators don’t invent features like safety belts or ESC or AEB; the best automakers do that work, motivated by competition. NHTSA’s vital role is to identify features that truly make a difference and mandate those for all cars, when the benefits are undeniable and the cost is reasonable. Either most cars can meet the standard with a minor upgrade OR the Government has underestimated the difficulty - in which case they will almost certainly lower the requirements.

At Compound Eye, we believe that it is easy to meet the new standard with cameras. In fact we’re working on autonomous vehicles that use only cameras. Our technology can detect arbitrary obstacles, day or night. Contact us if you’d like to learn more.