Toyota will offer an automatic emergency braking system on most of its model lineup, including the midsize Tacoma and full-size Tundra, for the 2018 model year. The system is designed to stop the vehicle in the shortest distance possible to prevent or reduce impact in the event of an imminent frontal collision with a person or vehicle.
Called Toyota Safety Sense, this suite of technologies will be available in late 2017 on 2018 models and will include vehicles with both automatic and manual transmissions. However, since the Tacoma is one of the few vehicles in the Toyota stable that offers a manual transmission option, Toyota warned that if the clutch pedal is not depressed when the system is activated, the engine is likely to stall if in gear.
The new safety system joins Toyota's other precollision systems such as lane departure warning and automatic high-beam detection that are based on radar-and-camera technology. This announcement means Toyota will offer this technology four years ahead of a recently brokered agreement between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and 20 big automakers to make the systems standard on all models by 2022.
Toyota has a history of bringing safety systems to market well ahead of governing body requirements as we saw almost seven years ago when it met SAE International's J2807 towing parameters three years ahead of the rest of the big truckmakers.
"High-level driver assist technologies can do more than help protect people in the event of a crash; they can help prevent some crashes from ever happening in the first place. We are proud to help lead this industry in standardizing these systems and bring automated braking to our customers sooner rather than later," said Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor North America, in a statement.
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