Several Automakers Commit to Standard Auto-Braking

Get ready for high-tech accident avoidance technology to become standard in a slew of cars, even entry-level ones. Nine automakers — BMW, Ford, GM, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, Toyota, Volvo and the Volkswagen Group’s Audi and Volkswagen brands — committed today to make forward collision warning systems with automatic braking a standard feature on all the new cars they build.

Related: NHTSA Spotlight Could Hasten Spread of Auto-Braking Systems

The group is still working out exactly when and how it will include the feature, but we should have a time frame “in the coming months,” said a joint press release from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Such systems, to which regulators give the umbrella term automatic emergency braking, use cameras or other sensors to scan the road ahead and warn of stopped or rapidly slowing traffic, or other obstructions. If you don’t do anything, they’ll also hit the brakes. AEB can reduce insurance injury claims by 35 percent, IIHS says. Combined, the nine automakers accounted for 57 percent of U.S. passenger vehicle sales in 2014, officials said.

IIHS and NHTSA said it wants the rest of the industry, which includes major automakers like Honda, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Hyundai-Kia, to “bring automated vehicle technology to all vehicles on U.S. roadways as soon as possible.”