Automatic emergency braking went from an expensive option to near-universal equipment in about a decade. Almost every new car has it, and almost every listing mentions it.
What the listing does not mention is how well it works, and that varies enormously. Of 524 vehicles with a front crash prevention rating, 117 come back Poor or Marginal.
| Front crash prevention | Vehicles |
|---|---|
| Good | 224 |
| Acceptable | 183 |
| Poor | 69 |
| Marginal | 48 |
The rating is not a check of whether the system exists. Every car in that table has one fitted. It is a measure of whether the system reacted in time.
The test got harder, on purpose
Early versions of this evaluation used another car as the target, in daylight, at low speed. Most systems passed, and the rating stopped telling anyone anything.
The current version adds a pedestrian target, adds darkness, and adds speed. Those three changes are where the failures come from — a camera-based system that reads a car-shaped object at 25 mph in daylight can miss a person at 45 mph with no street lighting.
This is the same pattern as the rear passenger crash test: the vehicles did not get worse, the question got harder, and the answers changed immediately.
Brand results do not follow price
| Brand | Rated | Poor or Marginal |
|---|---|---|
| Jeep | 23 | 14 |
| Chevrolet | 28 | 14 |
| Ford | 34 | 17 |
| Audi | 37 | 13 |
| Nissan | 27 | 9 |
| Volkswagen | 19 | 7 |
Audi sitting in that group is the useful data point. This is not a budget-versus-premium split, and the price of the car is close to irrelevant to how its sensors perform against a pedestrian in the dark.
What does correlate is hardware generation. Systems built around a single forward camera struggle in low light. Systems combining camera and radar do better, and the difference between two model years of the same car can be larger than the difference between two brands.
It is improving, but slowly
| Model year | Rated | Poor or Marginal | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 160 | 41 | 26% |
| 2025 | 182 | 39 | 21% |
| 2026 | 170 | 32 | 19% |
From 26% to 19% in three model years. That is real movement, but far slower than headlights improved over a comparable period, because fixing this needs sensors and software rather than a better lamp.
What to check on a used car
Assume nothing from the feature list. "Automatic emergency braking" on a listing covers everything from a system that stops for a pedestrian at night to one that will not.
Look up the rating for the exact model year, not the model. And treat the system as what it is: a backstop for the driver's attention, not a substitute for it. The cars in the Poor column will still brake for a stationary car in daylight — they just will not do the harder thing.
Frequently asked questions
Does every car with automatic braking perform the same?
No. All 524 vehicles in the rating have a system fitted, yet 117 score Poor or Marginal. The rating measures whether the system reacted in time against a pedestrian, in darkness, at speed — not whether the feature is present.
Do expensive cars have better systems?
Not reliably. Audi appears among the brands with the most Poor and Marginal results, alongside Jeep, Chevrolet and Ford. What matters more is sensor hardware: camera-only systems struggle in low light, camera-and-radar combinations do better.
Is the feature list on a used listing enough to go on?
No. The phrase covers systems that differ enormously in capability, and two model years of the same car can be far apart. Check the front crash prevention rating for the specific model year before assuming the system is current.
Denis Kataev is a serial solopreneur and the founder of ForCar. With 15+ years in software engineering and 10 years in SEO, he builds data-driven products end to end — backed by a sharp eye for design. At ForCar he mines proprietary vehicle datasets, turning raw numbers into buying advice you can actually trust.
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