Some Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) have been available for nearly 30 years, however, they have only become more commonplace in the last several years, like automatic emergency braking and lane keeping assistance. Since these features now come standard on many new vehicles, it is becoming increasingly important for consumers to have a solid understanding of their functionality. However, with the current variety of marketing names and lack of consensus by industry regulatory groups, it has been difficult for consumers to discern what features a vehicle has and how they actually work.

AAA set out to understand the growing prevalence of ADAS technology in new vehicles as well as examine the terminology currently used by regulatory organizations and manufacturers. Previous AAA research found that 40 percent of Americans expect partially automated driving systems with names like Autopilot, ProPILOT or Pilot Assist, to have the ability to drive the car by itself. This research highlights the need for standardization of terms and definitions for ADAS features.

ADAS Prevalence

AAA examined 2018 model year vehicles to identify the percentage of ADAS technology that comes standard and found the following three features are the most prevalent:

Automatic Emergency Braking-30.6 percent
Lane Keeping Assistance-13.9 percent
Adaptive Cruise Control-11.8 percent

At least one ADAS feature is available in 92.7 percent of new vehicle models available in the United States as of last May.

Terminology Review

AAA’s Automotive Engineering team examined 34 vehicle brands sold in the U.S. to identify the number of unique names manufacturers use to market ADAS. AAA found the following regarding the number of terms used to describe a single ADAS feature:

AAA Recommends ADAS Companies to Get on Same Page

AAA is proposing terminology that is intended to be simple, specific and based on system functionality. The group’s proposes the following: