[Lando]

It may be too little too late for Scion, but the new iA has been a hit in both sales and industry accolades. Together the iM and iA account for the majority of Scion's February sales and have helped catapult Scion's year-to-date sales to a 45% increase over the previous year. That incredible growth also makes Scion the fastest growing automotive brand in the US for the month of February.

The Scion iA specifically has been honored with many awards. Those include: Top Safety Pick + from the IIHS, Best Buy award from Consumer Guide Automotive, and Hottest New Car for 2016 from Forbes. A common theme that can be found in the explanation for each of these awards is the iA's low price at $16,695, and its automatic emergency braking (AEB) feature that comes standard. In fact, the Top Safety Pick + award from IIHS is only given to vehicles that are equipped with AEB.

Historically, as new features are developed they are offered in higher end vehicles first due to cost, and then as technology and economies of scale improve, they are rolled out through entire model lineups.

Even the automakers’ most fervent backers believe it will take seven or eight years for widespread adoption of AEB throughout the industry, NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said at a recent industry event.

The Scion iA clearly shows that cost is not a prohibitive factor in proliferating AEB throughout the industry. The feature may actually reduce costs and make a vehicle more attractive to consumers. A Consumer Reports survey shows that safety is a top concern for buyers when they are considering new cars, and "several insurers have said that they will offer a pricing break for vehicles that have AEB."

And that brings us to the most important part of this subject -- AEB prevents injuries and saves lives.

When comparing vehicles with and without forward-collision warning systems and automatic emergency braking, the combination of FCW and AEB has proved to reduce bodily injury insurance claims by up to 30 percent and reduce rear-end crashes by about 40 percent, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Even when a car has only forward-collision warning, rear-end crashes are cut by 23 percent. Translated, that means fewer people got hurt and the injuries weren’t as severe.

So I question why other automakers have not equipped their lineups, from top to bottom, with AEB. This feature saves lives, makes vehicles less expensive to insure for owners, can attract potential customers, and (with the iA as proof) can be offered standard in a vehicle without having to drastically increase the price.

 

[Moe]

Quite impressive that Toyota has been able to make this all available on an entry-level compact since typically expectations are we won't get a lot of things that higher end vehicles get. And this just being the first year of production has me thinking about what else they could include as the years go on.

 

[Lando]

It was included because Mazda had included it, not Toyota. Regardless of which company is responsible though, it is obviously possible to put it in a vehicle and still make a profit at a lower price point. Just seems like as humans we would have an interest in putting something in vehicles that saves lives especially when it isn't even at a steep price.

 

[Moe]

One thing for sure a motivation for them to do it will be another brand in the process of doing it and making that known and the Koreans seem most likely to do that, they seem to listen more to the audience.

 

[Lando]

Think Mazda will be on the forefront or Toyota?

 

[Lando]

Seems that the auto industry was listening to my musings...

http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a28480/standard-auto-braking-2022/

Automatic braking isn't mandatory like airbags and three-point seat belts yet, but that will change in the not too distant future. 20 automakers have announced that they will equip all their cars with automatic braking by September 2022. The automakers, along with the U.S. government will announced their pledge in a Thursday press conference.

Previously, ten automakers signed gentleman's agreement last September to make automatic braking standard in their U.S. Now, Fiat Chrysler, BMW, Ford, GM, Tesla, Volvo and others have pledged to make automatic braking standard in their U.S. sold cars. The full list is available in a NHTSA press release. A Reuters report says that the companies in agreement are responsible for nearly all light vehicle–meaning passenger car and small truck–sales in the U.S.

 

[Lando]

Toyota to Introduce Automatic Emergency Braking Throughout Lineup By 2017

Toyota has heard our call, and is promising to equip basically every Toyota vehicle with automatic emergency braking by 2017.

Specifically, Lexus and Toyota vehicles will get the Lexus Safety System + or Toyota Safety Sense respectively, as standard equipment on 25 of 30 models by the end of 2017. Both systems include: pre-collision, lane departure alert and automatic high beams.

The vehicles not getting the package as standard equipment by the end of 2017 include the Lexus GX, Toyota Mirai, 4Runner, 86 and Scion iA (soon to be the Toyota Yaris iA). Toyota does point out that the iA and the Mirai both have autonomous emergency braking as standard equipment already.

Kudos for Toyota for spending some money to save a lot of lives before the NHTSA even requires you to in 2022.



http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/...have-automatic-emergency-braking-by-2017.html

 

[Frosty iA]

Toyota has heard our call, and is promising to equip basically every Toyota vehicle with automatic emergency braking by 2017.

Nice!

 

[Lando]

Toyota has heard our call, and is promising to equip basically every Toyota vehicle with automatic emergency braking by 2017.

Nice!

Turns out I'm a pretty persuasive writer