We were examining pedestrian automatic emergency braking systems for a group of 16 midsize cars.
This included both luxury models as well as nonluxury models.
What we discovered was that the performance varied.
We had some vehicles that performed very well and rated superior and other vehicles that
got no credit.
Our rating scale ranges from superior to advanced to basic to no credit, and the ratings are
assigned based on how well the vehicle either stops or reduces its speed before striking
the pedestrian.
We had six different automakers who had vehicles that achieved a superior rating in this round
of testing, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, Nissan and Subaru.
We run each vehicle through a series of three pedestrian scenarios, an adult who is crossing
the street, a child who is crossing the street and then finally an adult who is standing
alongside the roadway, and we run each of those tests at two different vehicle speeds.
The most challenging test scenario we perform is a child entering the street
from behind a parked vehicle.
This is commonly referred to as a dash- or a dart-out type crash.
The vehicle has less time to react, the sensors on the vehicle are obstructed by the vehicles
that are parked, and therefore there’s less time for the software to detect there’s
a pedestrian there and then be able to stop the vehicle and not strike the pedestrian.
The two vehicles that stood out in our testing this time around include the Nissan Maxima
and the Subaru Outback.
Both of these vehicles are nonluxury vehicles that offer pedestrian AEB as standard equipment,
and they also achieved a superior rating in our test.
The Ford Fusion did not receive any credit in our test.
It had particular difficulty in the child crossing the street scenario, not slowing
down in any of those tests.
The Maxima performed very well in all of our tests, avoiding the pedestrian in every single
test that we ran.
We encourage consumers to shop for vehicles that have pedestrian AEB systems.
They should also check the ratings on our website to understand which vehicles have
the latest technologies available.