Featured image: Jade Nelson

Tesla is the only U.S. automaker to honor its commitment to equip all of its car models with Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), which was done a few years earlier than required. This, in turn, is additional evidence of the increased safety of Tesla's vehicles, and underlines the company's serious dedication to safety.

The Consumer Reports and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety issued a joint press release detailing the implementation of these commitments by various auto companies. According to their report, 10 automakers have met their voluntary commitment to equip nearly all new passenger cars they produce for the US market with AEB, well ahead of the 2022-23 target.

According to the report, out of 10 automakers to fulfill their obligations ahead of schedule, only one is from the U.S.—Tesla—which also achieved this last year, too. Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo also did this last year. In 2020 they were joined by BMW, Hyundai, Mazda, Subaru, Toyota, and Volkswagen.

“This voluntary effort is succeeding in getting an important crash prevention technology into vehicles quickly,” said IIHS President David Harkey. “It’s great to see AEB become a mainstream safety feature that’s now standard equipment not just on luxury cars and SUVs, but on affordable models as well.”

Manufacturers such as Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Maserati, and Mitsubishi need to work hard to catch up to meet the 2022-23 target for passenger cars. They reportedly equipped less than half of their cars with a voluntary AEB system last year.

“Many automakers have shown ingenuity and agility in making city-speed AEB standard. NHTSA should build on this progress by ensuring that by 2025 all new vehicles come standard with more advanced systems that can also detect pedestrians and work at highway speeds,” said David Friedman, vice president of advocacy for Consumer Reports. “The few automakers lagging far behind on their AEB commitment - and especially Fiat Chrysler - must lay out exactly how they’ll reach and surpass where the industry is today.”

The voluntary commitment is expected to prevent 42,000 crashes and 20,000 injuries by 2025. This estimate is based on IIHS research that found that front crash prevention systems with both forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking recude rear-end crashes by half.

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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter

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