Safety Wars: Nissan to Add Standard Crash-Prevention Feature to Majority of 2018 Models

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

In the 1950s and 60s it was the horsepower war, followed soon after by the fuel economy battles of the 1970s and 80s. Today, the peace of mind that comes from available safety features competes with horsepower, environmental sensitivity and connectivity to win the hearts and minds of new car buyers.

Owning a vehicle that can head off a crash by itself is a tantalizing prospect for many drivers. With the industry already heading in that direction, Nissan has decided to add automatic emergency braking as standard equipment on eight of its 2018 models.

Announced today, AEB will come to the bulk of Nissan’s lineup for the 2018 model year. That includes the Rogue and Rogue Sport, Murano, Altima, Maxima, Leaf, Pathfinder and Sentra — effectively doubling the number of Nissan vehicles with the feature. For those unfamiliar with the technology, AEB uses radar to judge the proximity and speed of the vehicle ahead, applying the brakes if the driver fails to respond

There’s an asterisk next to the Sentra, however. Manual transmission and NISMO models will not come with the feature. As well, select Armada models will offer AEB, but it won’t be standard across the range. Bad news for Versa buyers, not to mention Frontier, Titan, 370Z and GT-R shoppers, but Nissan doesn’t plan to stop the technology’s proliferation.

The automaker is among a group of car companies — representing virtually all light-duty vehicles sold in the U.S. — who agreed last year to install AEB in all models by September 1, 2022. Regulating the safety feature into all vehicles would have taken an extra three years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has stated. The agency believes standard AEB will reduce collision-related insurance injury claims by 35 percent.

“This increased AEB availability is part of our ongoing commitment to help reduce fatalities while realizing our comprehensive vision of Nissan Intelligent Mobility.” said Michael Bunce, vice president of product planning at Nissan North America, in a statement.

[Image: Nissan]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Mriach77 Mriach77 on Jun 08, 2017

    "Bad news for Versa buyers, not to mention Frontier, Titan, 370Z and GT-R shoppers" Is it "bad news" in the case of the Z car, and GTR? Do the buyers of these cars really want that tech in said vehicles?

    • See 4 previous
    • Bikegoesbaa Bikegoesbaa on Jun 09, 2017

      @bikegoesbaa Also, note that airplane pilots are generally neither incompetent nor inattentive and they don't seem to have many objections to a whole suite of automated assistance features to help deal with hazards or even override operator errors. It is more likely that: (A)They are not as skilled as you -or- (B)They have a more realistic understanding of their own limitations

  • Tekdemon Tekdemon on Jun 09, 2017

    Seems like a direct response to Toyota bundling a big package of this stuff with most of their new cars. Hopefully more manufacturers do the same thing so we don't have to buy the highest trim line of a car just to option radar cruise control.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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