Advanced driving assistants offered by several brands, including Tesla, Mercedes and Volvo, received poor marks in a study released Tuesday by the IIHS (the American Insurance Institute for Highway Safety).
This organization carries out, in particular, crash tests to evaluate the level of safety of vehicles marketed in the United States, but also carries out studies on different driving assistance technologies, such as the one carried out by Euro-Ncap in Europe.
Battle of numbers
For the IIHS, there is no particular evidence that these advanced driving assistants have concrete effects on improving safety, after having studied the data related to traffic accidents in the files submitted to insurers.
“We have been able to look at vehicles with and without these systems and determine that there is no reduction in insurance reporting with these more advanced systems,” IIHS President David Harkey told Reuters.
In comparison, technologies such as automatic emergency braking reduce the number of front and rear collisions by 50% and impacts with pedestrians by 30%, notes the US press agency.
Tesla, famous for its system called “Autopilot,” often claims that models equipped with this technology have ten times fewer accidents than the American average and five times fewer than a Tesla that does not activate this assistant.
However, federal justice is studying nearly 1,000 cases of accidents in which autopilot was activated. A trial is scheduled to take place next week in California, but the company has always won the case by highlighting misuse by certain users, who do not take into account the vehicle’s warnings to pay attention to the road. Tesla declined to comment on the results of the IIHS study.
Avoid abusive behavior
A study that analyzes fourteen different assistants available in the American market and only one receives a favorable rating: the “Teamate” offered by Lexus in its LS sedans.
GM’s “Super Cruise” and Nissan’s “Pro Pilot” systems receive an acceptable rating. The others, such as those from Mercedes, Tesla, BMW, Ford, Toyota and even Volvo, received a mediocre overall rating, although they were still satisfactory in certain evaluated criteria, the IIHS clarifies.
“This new IIHS test methodology does not evaluate the performance of driver assistance systems, but rather focuses on the means implemented to prevent any abusive use,” Mercedes responded in a press release, recalling to take the results very seriously. of this study.
The study recommends, in particular, using technologies that allow the driver to be monitored, through a camera that films him and can identify signs of fatigue or lack of attention. Technologies that are already offered in certain models and that will be mandatory from 2026 in new models sold in Europe, such as speeding alerts this year.
The IIHS also advises that it will continue to evaluate these systems that may progress through updates. Tesla, for example, has just taken measures to combat the abusive use of its Autopilot in the United States as part of an action by the American Highway Safety Agency (NHTSA).
Source: BFM TV
