Car brands should make emergency auto braking standard

The data related to the number of cars sold in 2017 that featured automatic emergency braking systems wasn’t especially surprising, but one truth seems to emerge: they are, perhaps obviously, far more common in brands that provide auto braking as standard equipment across the bulk of a model’s trim lineup. If it’s an option, and especially if it’s restricted to a package exclusive to an upper trim level, people will skip it.

Toyota sold the largest number of vehicles with automatic braking – 1.4 million cars out of 2.5 total – which is indicative of the fact that many of its cars and crossovers come standard with it as part of the company’s Toyota Safety Sense package. That number should also go up in 2018 as the new Camry comes standard with Toyota Safety Sense. General Motors was next, selling 551,777 vehicles. This is somewhat of an outlier as safety tech is almost always optional on GM’s volume-selling vehicles, however, it’s also widespread and available throughout most of their models’ trim levels. Read more