Just as more stringent upcoming fuel-economy standards drive substantial changes in engines and transmissions, increased safety concerns and lower costs are leading to the adoption of advanced driver-assistance systems at an unprecedented pace.
This at a time when low fuel prices have prompted a massive consumer shift to light trucks from more fuel-efficient hybrid cars, says WardsAuto’s new U.S. Light-Vehicle Equipment Report that details the significant changes that have taken place in the U.S. auto market in the ’12-’16 model years.
The report notes, for example, in the powertrain arena, the 4-cyl. engine powered more than half, 54.8%, of ’16-model light vehicles compared with 44.6% four years earlier, when even then it dominated the car segment.
However, the rapid rise in popularity of small CUVs is chiefly responsible for the dramatic increase of the “four” in the light-truck field, where it accounted for 40.3% of ’16-model installations compared with 22.3% in ’12.
Increasingly, the smaller engines are being mated to a continuously variable transmission. After languishing following problems with some early variants, the latest generation of CVTs has grown increasing popular, going into 22.1% of ’16 LVs vs. just 7.6% four years prior.
Among conventional automatics, modern 7-, 8-, and 9- speed boxes have all but mothballed 4- and 5-speed units.
On the safety front, perhaps the most startling change has been the adoption of the backup camera. Although the concept is at least 60 years old, it wasn’t until ’02 that the first production vehicle was so equipped. The slow but steady growth that ensued saw them in 22.2% of ’12-model LVs, a figure that exploded to 86.9% in ’16 as the industry gears up to meet a new safety standard that mandates camera installations on vehicles built after May 1, 2018.
The report also points out a trend developing in the adoption of the newest safety systems such as blindspot warning, lane-departure alert, lane-keeping assist and adaptive braking.
Traditionally, such features only would have been made available on luxury vehicles at first, then filtered down through the ranks as costs were reduced in later generations of the technology.
Now, with advanced electronics eliminating much of the cost factor, these and other safety features are appearing across all vehicle classifications nearly simultaneously, helped along by strong public acceptance by a generation of smartphone-using vehicle owners comfortable with the latest technology.
(Learn more about this report.)
