Research: “Almost all semi-autonomous driving assistants are garbage!”

The Insurance Institute for Road Safety – the American EuroNCAP – now also rates cars based on its electronic driving assistants. And almost all of them underperform.

The IIHS initially tested fourteen systems from nine manufacturers. Nobody scored well. One was rated as “acceptable,” two as “marginal,” and the rest as “poor.”

Driving assistants don’t make things safer

The semi-autonomous driving assistants were tested on the race track and on public roads. Lexus was the only one to receive an “acceptable” rating. GM and Nissan were rated “marginal.”

The IIHS also tested systems from BMW, Ford, Genesis, Mercedes, Tesla and Volvo. David Harkey, director of the IIHS, concludes that there is little evidence that these types of driver assistants make a car safer.

Protection against misuse

“Vehicles with semi-autonomous systems cannot drive themselves, even though manufacturers sometimes use names that indicate this,” Harkey said. And that creates new risks.

IIHS research shows that most systems do not provide adequate protection against misuse. You need to keep a closer eye on the driver’s attention and warn clearly.

Tesla performs worst

What is striking is that Tesla performed by far the worst in the IIHS test. The Full Self-Driving Beta, which is not available in Europe, received the worst rating of all systems. The autopilot isn’t doing much better.

Full Self-Driving Beta is simply a Level 2 autonomous system, just like all the others. There is nothing about “fully autonomous driving”. In Germany, BMW and Mercedes already offer Level 3 assistants.

Driving assistants in levels

The level of autonomy of a vehicle is indicated by levels. Level 5 is fully self-driving, Level 0 is a car without autonomous systems. Most modern cars are at level 2.

This means that they can carry out certain actions independently, such as keeping their distance and steering, but the person in the driver’s seat must be ready to intervene at any time.