Eurotax: Driving assistance systems are still needed

Eurotax: Driving assistance systems are still needed

Driving assistance systems are intended to make driving safer and support the driver in difficult situations. From 2024, according to current EU regulations, all newly registered cars must be equipped with various driving assistants. Eurotax Austria has analyzed how widespread five of these high-tech systems are already as standard equipment in Austria. It turns out that, with the exception of reversing assistants, electronic helpers have only occasionally found their way into series production.

Eurotax analyzed the following five systems in terms of standard equipment: reversing assistants, intelligent speed sign recognition, emergency braking assistant, active lane keeping assistant, and the fatigue monitoring assistant. Reversing assistants, i.e. systems such as reversing cameras or other (optical or acoustic) parking assistants, are already widespread: 47% of all new car registrations in the first quarter of 2019 were equipped with them as standard. In second place of the analyzed systems is intelligent speed sign recognition and traffic sign recognition, at 16%. The emergency brake assistance system (e.g. “brake assistant”, “pedestrian emergency brake assistant”, “collision warning”) is almost the same at 15%. However, the active lane departure warning system (5%) and fatigue monitoring assistants (3%) were hardly widespread in the series in the first quarter of 2019.

47% of all new registrations in the first quarter of 2019 did not have any of these five systems on board as standard. For small cars, this proportion is as high as 65%. In contrast, 39% of the middle class were not equipped with any of these systems, while in the upper class it was only 21%. In addition to the newly registered vehicles, Eurotax also analyzed what is currently available on the market: For this purpose, the currently available cars (based on national codes) were examined with regard to driving assistants offered as standard. It turns out that 67% of the cars currently available on the Austrian market offer reversing assistants as standard - a significantly higher proportion than for new registrations in the first quarter. 25% have intelligent speed sign recognition, 18% have an emergency braking assistant. The active lane keeping assistant is currently available in 3% of all car types, the drowsiness monitoring assistant in 2%. “The range of driving assistance systems is becoming increasingly broader, but so far only a few electronic helpers have made it into series production,” summarizes Robert Madas, Valuation Insights Manager for Austria and Switzerland. “But there is still a few years to go before these systems are introduced compulsorily.” “The basic rule is that in higher-priced segments the proportion is usually significantly larger than, for example, in small vehicles,” says Robert Madas. In the luxury class, for example, 24% of vehicles registered in the first quarter have an active lane departure warning system on board as standard, compared to 5% on average for all vehicles. When it comes to reversing assistants, the luxury class is also significantly better equipped than the average (47%), with a share of 79%. Compared to the approvals in 2018, there is already an increasing trend for individual driving assistance systems in Q1 2019. “It can be assumed that in the coming years the proportion of vehicles equipped with electronic helpers in series will continue to increase - of course also driven by future legal requirements,” says Robert Madas. "This creates additional costs for manufacturers. The question is who will ultimately bear these costs." “With regard to WLTP, it must be taken into account that driving assistance systems also have an influence on consumption and CO due to additional weight₂-classification," Robert Madas continues to point out. "The bottom line is that this will lead to a further increase in the price of new cars."