Driver Assistance Systems Continue Their Strong Advance
People buying new cars today in Germany and Europe are placing more and more value on having electronic assistants on board.
"There is a clear trend: it will soon be just as natural to have cars fitted with driver assistance systems as it is with a radio and ESP," said Bosch board of management member Dr. Dirk Hoheisel, referring to the results of a Bosch analysis carried out on the basis of new registration statistics for 2016.
According to these statistics, parking and lane assist systems, as well as emergency braking systems are becoming increasingly popular. For example, 62% of new passenger cars registered in Germany in 2016 were equipped with some kind of parking assistance system "“ ranging from parking beepers to automatic parking assistants. Second place in the popularity scale was taken by automatic emergency braking systems that warn drivers or bring the car to a halt in an emergency. More than one in every three new cars registered in 2016 (38%) is able to help drivers to avoid accidents in this way.
For more than a quarter of these vehicles, an emergency braking system is even part of the car's standard fittings. Just behind in third place was driver drowsiness detection "“ fitted in 37% of all new passenger cars in 2016. However, the largest growth was recorded for lane assist systems. Compared with the previous year, there were twice as many of these on board new cars in 2016. Another interesting development was in relation to adaptive cruise control (ACC). Although barely fitted in 4% of newly registered cars in Germany in 2013, in 2016, this function was installed in nearly one in five new cars (19%).
Driver assistance systems are increasingly fitted as standard equipment
Parking assistance systems, emergency braking systems, and lane assist systems are also the most popular driver assistance systems in the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium, and France "“ in that exact order. Parking assistance systems are even more widespread in France than they are in Germany: 67% of the new passenger cars registered there in 2016 provide their drivers with support while they park.
Parking assistance systems are now included in the standard equipment of a vast majority of vehicles: at 63% of new cars, France has the highest proportion. In Germany, this figure is 42%. In Belgium and the Netherlands, 39% of new cars have an automatic emergency braking system "“ the highest proportion in Europe. Italy and Russia, which, alongside France, were included in the Bosch analysis for the first time, still have room to improve when it comes to driver assistance systems when compared with the other countries that were analysed.
However, 18% of new passenger cars registered in Italy in 2016 still had a lane assist system on board "“ and in Russia, they are getting the ball rolling with an installation rate of 6%. This is also true of automatic emergency braking systems, which also achieved a proportion of 6% in new passenger cars.
