Australasia’s independent vehicle safety authority has revealed the results of its first side-by-side comparison of autonomous emergency braking technology across Australia’s top ten selling vehicles.
ANCAP SAFETY introduced testing on autonomous emergency braking (AEB) technology as part of its routine safety rating assessment process in January 2018.
Each of Australia’s top ten selling vehicle models carry an existing 5-star ANCAP safety rating, with five of these models rated against the common 2018-2019 criteria and their AEB pedestrian performance known. The remaining five models – released into the market in earlier years and rated by ANCAP at that time to earlier protocols – pre-date the introduction of AEB performance testing.
ANCAP undertook a series of tests to determine their effectiveness in scenarios including pedestrians crossing and walking along the road.
The results obtained through the top ten comparison show a broad difference in effectiveness of AEB systems across models, with five providing Advanced levels of performance – Toyota Hilux, Toyota Corolla, Mazda CX-5, Mazda 3 and Toyota RAV4. The performance of systems fitted to the tested models of Hyundai i30, Mitsubishi Triton and Mitsubishi ASX however were not as effective in detecting and avoiding collisions with pedestrians – particularly at night – and provide basic functionality.
“Technology is improving rapidly, and the differences in performance observed in our testing were to be expected given the staggered introduction of new models and maturation levels of the AEB technology fitted,” said ANCAP Director – Communications and Advocacy, Rhianne Robson.
“Vehicle safety technology continues to advance at a rapid rate with more sophisticated systems entering the market through new market entrants and model facelifts, and as these vehicles are updated, we expect their performance to improve.”
A summary of results can be viewed here.
