Auto safety group gives most hands-free driving systems ‘poor’ ratings

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announced Tuesday that nearly all partial driver automation systems received a “poor” rating in a new rating program aimed at improving road safety.

IIHS, an automobile safety organization, rThe results have been published Results of the first round of testing with the new evaluation program. Of the 14 systems evaluated, 11 were rated “poor,” two were rated “marginal,” and one was rated “acceptable.” No one received a “good” rating.

“We evaluated partially automated systems from BMW, Ford, General Motors, Genesis, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Tesla, and Volvo. It does not include adequate measures to ensure that people do not lose focus while being present,” IIHS President David Harkey said in announcing the ratings.

The auto safety group evaluated 14 systems, some of which were used by the same automakers.

The Lexus Teammate with the Advanced Drive system received an overall rating of “Acceptable.” However, the IIHS evaluated a second Lexus system, Lexus Dynamic Radar Cruise Control with Lane Tracing Assist, which received a “Poor” rating.

Nissan ProPilot Assist with Navigation Link, which is used in the 2023-24 model year Nissan Ariya, received an overall rating of “slight”, but another Nissan system, Nissan ProPilot Assist 2.0, was rated “poor”. Received evaluation.

General Motors Super Cruise, which is installed in the 2023-24 GMC Sierra, received a “marginal” rating.

Other systems with “poor” ratings include BMW Active Driving Assistant Pro, Ford BlueCruise, Ford Adaptive Cruise Control with Stop & Go and Lane Centering Assist, Genesis Highway Driving Assist 2, Genesis Smart Cruise Control/Lane Following Assist, Mercedes Benz. Active Distance Assist Distronic with Active Steering Assist and Volvo His Pilot Assist.

Tesla Autopilot, Version 2023.7.10, and Tesla Full Self-Driving (Beta), Version 2023.7.10 also received a “Poor” rating, but the IIHS noted that these two systems were I pointed out that it was rated.

The new rating system comes amid growing concerns over the rapid development of partially automated driving systems.

Experts have also expressed concern that the widespread and casual use of the term “self-driving” to refer to the system could lead to increased safety issues. All systems require the driver to keep both hands on the steering wheel and pay attention during use.

“Partial driving automation is a useful feature aimed at making long-distance driving easier. There is no evidence that it makes driving safer and, in fact, it can make drivers more easily distracted and introduce new risks.” may occur,” the rating system states. explanation.

The new IIHS rating system incorporates some of these concerns into the categories in which systems are evaluated.

Evaluation categories include assessing driver monitoring, alerting, emergency procedures, and other aspects of system design.

Mr Harkey said the overall poor results were “concerning” but optimistic that tweaks could be made.

“These results are alarming given how quickly vehicles equipped with these partially automated systems are on the road,” Harkey said. “However, there is a silver lining when looking at the performance of the group as a whole. No single system performed well overall, but at least one system performed well in each category. , fixes are readily available, and in some cases, a simple software update may be all that is needed to complete the fix.”

The Hill contacted all the companies evaluated in the report.