New Subaru Forester And Other Models Get Emergency Braking Ahead Of Schedule

A new report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) says Subaru, along with nine other automakers, have fulfilled a voluntary commitment to equip nearly all its vehicles they produce for the U.S. market with automatic emergency braking (AEB). The 2021 Subaru Forester, Outback, Ascent, and Legacy all come with automatic emergency braking.

For Subaru and other automakers, it’s well ahead of the 2022-23 target date brokered in 2015 by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Consumer Reports says Subaru and other automakers make city-speed AEB standard equipment on close to 100 percent of their models.

The IIHS report says the ten manufacturers put the technology on more than 95 percent of the vehicles they produced between Sept. 1, 2019, and Aug. 31, 2020. Of the ten automakers that met the commitment ahead of schedule, four, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and Tesla, did so last year. This year, they are joined by BMW, Hyundai, Mazda, Subaru, Toyota, and Volkswagen.

The report says in 2019, Subaru equipped 84 percent of its cars with AEB, and in 2020 the Japanese automaker had 99 percent of its models equipped with standard AEB.

Subaru’s EyeSight driver assistance package that includes AEB is standard on all new vehicles with a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Still, it is not offered on vehicles with a manual transmission. The 2021 Subaru Crosstrek, Impreza, and WRX come with a standard manual transmission and require an extra CVT transmission charge.

Subaru may defer equipping the Crosstrek, Impreza, and WRX with manual transmissions with AEB until the 2024-25 production year under the terms of the voluntary commitment.

The IIHS says the voluntary commitment is expected to prevent 42,000 crashes and 20,000 injuries by 2025. Based on IIHS research, the estimate found that front crash prevention systems with both forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking cut rear-end crashes by half.

Subaru wants to be the global leader in safety and has targeted 2030 for zero fatal accidents. The 2021 Subaru Forester, Outback, Ascent, and Legacy all come with automatic emergency braking. The Crosstrek, Impreza, and WRX will upgrade with AEB on all trims in the next three years.

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Denis Flierl has invested over 30 years in the automotive industry in a consulting role working with every major car brand. He is an accredited member of the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press. Check out Subaru Report where he covers all of the Japanese automaker's models. More stories can be found on the Torque News Subaru page. Follow Denis on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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