The U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has conducted an extensive study of automatic emergency braking systems installed on modern cars, aiming to see how they would perform in darkness. Long story short: very poorly.
Only 4 out of 23 car models tested have shown results comparable to those gathered in daylight testing conditions. These were Nissan Pathfinder, Toyota Camry, Toyota Highlander and Ford Mustang Mach-E. Out of these, the Pathfinder was the only one to pass all tests with good results.
The anti-rating of losers included Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Malibu, Honda Pilot and Nissan Altima, which were awarded zero points for safety: none of these cars braked before mannequins and obstacles as they should. Sometimes they just proceeded to run them over, while other times they did brake slightly – but by far not enough.
In daytime testing, 19 out of 23 cars actually showed good-to-excellent results in the same tests, highlighting direct visibility as the main limiting factor for the AEB tech on board.
IIHS decided to conduct the testing when it learned that three out of four collisions with the pedestrians occur in the darker time of day. The Institute commented that it firmly believed there were no technical hurdles automakers couldn’t overcome, as evidenced by the example of the four cars that managed well in all scenarios.