For years, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has been publishing data on how crash-avoidance technology has saved lives. As published on AutoTrader.com on December 22, 2021, “Every major automaker agreed to make automatic emergency braking standard on nearly all of their new cars by September 1, 2022.” While I am all for safety, this tech will come with unintended consequences.
The Brands in Compliance
The following brands have been equipped more than 95% of their new cars with crash avoidance tech.
- Acura
- Audi
- BMW
- Ford
- Genesis
- Honda
- Hyundai
- Lexus
- Lincoln
- Mazda
- Mercedes-Benz
- Subaru
- Tesla
- Toyota
- Volkswagen
- Volvo
The following brands have equipped about 90% of their new cars with crash avoidance tech:
- Nissan
- Infiniti
- Mitsubishi
- Kia
These brands fall way behind and may not make the September 22, 2022 deadline. Fewer than 66% of these new cars have automatic emergency braking.
- General Motors (Including Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, Cadillac, Hummer, and Opel)
- JLR (Includes Jaguar and Land Rover)
- Porsche
- Stellantis (Includes Fiat, Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, and a few other European brands)
The Unintended Consequences of Safety Tech
Safety tech has saved countless lives. When Volvo invested the seat belt, they didn’t patent it. They allowed all competitors to copy the seat belt safety feature to save lives. ABS (Automatic Braking System) was created to stop the car quicker avoiding millions of accidents. Airbags were made standard for all passengers. Traction control and stability control is now standard on even the most basic vehicles. All of this is great, but it has made cars much heavier, more expensive to purchase, and more expensive to repair.
For automakers trying to innovate, creating a new safety feature is a double-edged sword. It may help them gain new customers in the short term, but people will also expect to see the feature as standard or optional in all models offered. As a new safety tech gains traction and popularity, it becomes the new standard. It becomes a legal regulation that all automakers must follow regardless of the costs.
Tech like this requires computer chips. As it stands today, the semi-conductor industry is having trouble keeping up with the demands of automakers, software & hardware companies, and any other product that uses a computer. Peugeot, a French automaker, temporarily went back to analog gauges since they couldn’t get computer chips for their digital gauges.
So about the Manual Transmission
In Autotrader’s post, this sentence sounded the alarm. “The few automakers still offering cars with manual transmissions — Subaru, in particular — are allowed to defer fitting automatic emergency braking as standard equipment until 2024. “ Did they just kill the manual transmission? Does it mean that there will be no more manual transmission vehicles in the U.S. by 2024? When you think about it, automatic emergency braking doesn’t work in manual transmission vehicles. If the car stops by itself in an emergency situation, it will stall the engine and you will lose the ability to control the car. That is why you can get Subaru’s Eye Sight technology with the CVT Subaru WRX, but not the manual WRX.
In order for an automatic emergency braking system to work in a manual transmission car, there would need to be an automated clutch engagement that would not disengage until you physically shift the gear stick into neutral or a lower gear that matches the speed of the car. I believe that automatic collision technology will kill the manual transmission for most automakers, but I expect some (like Porsche and Honda) to figure out an engineered solution to keep the manual alive a little longer.
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