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With the introduction of the General Safety Regulation [1][2], all new vehicles sold and registered for the first time in the European Union after 7 July 2024 must be equipped with an Advanced Driver Distraction Warning system, Intelligent Speed Assist, Autonomous Emergency Braking and solutions that allow monitoring what is happening behind the car, e.g. parking sensors, reversing cameras and a data recorder during a road accident.

Driving assistance systems are no longer just a luxury option, but mandatory solutions that have a real impact on road safety. How much? This is what the Euro NCAP (European New Car Assessment Programme) agency decided to check, which has been conducting consumer safety tests for years, issuing a star rating (5-point scale: from 1 to 5 stars). In 2020, Euro NCAP included driving assistance functions for the first time in its assessment, and in 2024 the methodology was revised, extending the requirements. The assessment is now based on three pillars:

• Assistance competence, i.e. the balance between the level of assistance provided by the vehicle and the extent to which the system helps the driver to remain engaged in the driving task;
• Safety support, measures taken in critical situations to avoid collisions;
• Monitoring the driver’s condition.

In addition, in 2024, the test scenarios were expanded to include interactions with vulnerable road users, i.e. avoiding collisions involving motorcyclists, pedestrians and cyclists.

In October 2024, the Euro NCAP website published the test results of five Level 2 automated driving systems from five different manufacturers:

• Adaptive Cruise Control from BYD in the ATTO 3,
• Pilot Assist from Volvo in the EC40,
• Travel Assist from Volkswagen in the ID.7,
• Active Distance Assist DISTRONIC from Mercedes-Benz in the C-Class,
• Driving Assistant Professional from BMW in the i5.

The driving assistance systems tested under defined conditions “coped” differently depending on the manufacturer. Two vehicles, the BMW i5 and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, were rated “very good” because both systems provided a wide range of speeds at which the lane assistant operates, with Active Distance Assist DISTRONIC, offered by Mercedes, achieving a better result in tests of ACC operation in various driving scenarios. It is worth noting that Mercedes was rated particularly high in the safety category, because in the event of exceeding the operational domain and the driver not reacting, the car pulled over to the side of the road and made a controlled stop.

The Volkswagen ID.7 and Volvo EC40 were rated “good”, while the BYD ATTO 3 with intelligent adaptive cruise control was rated “not recommended” by Euro NCAP because its speed assistance system did not correctly interpret road signs and scored poorly in terms of assistance competence. Furthermore, in the case of response to a violation of the operational domain and the driver not reacting, the Chinese car did not meet the minimum safety standards. In this critical scenario, the system in ATTO 3 deactivates lane keeping, while the speed control remains active. Given that the system leaves the unresponsive driver without support, Euro NCAP does not recommend its use.

The table below compares selected test results for all five vehicles. The individual criteria in the table are rated on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest.