New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) Notice-Delay of Program Updates

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0077]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) Notice—Delay of Program Updates</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of postponement of the implementation of program updates for the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> On November 25, 2024, and December 3, 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> two final decision notices announcing changes to the Agency's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and stated that these changes would be implemented beginning with model year 2026 vehicles. This notice announces that implementation of the changes discussed in the November 2024 and December 2024 notices are postponed for one model year. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Crashworthiness pedestrian protection assessments, as discussed in NCAP's November 25, 2024 notice, as well as planned changes to the ADAS technologies included in NCAP, as described in NCAP's December 3, 2024 notice, will be implemented for model year 2027 vehicles. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For further information, you may contact Ms. Taryn E. Rockwell, New Car Assessment Program, Office of Crashworthiness Standards (Telephone: (202) 366-1810). You may send mail to this official at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Washington, DC 20590-0001. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> On November 25, 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a final decision notice that established a new crashworthiness pedestrian program as part of the Agency's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Subsequently, on December 3, 2024, NHTSA published a final decision notice that added four new advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technologies to NCAP—blind spot warning (BSW), blind spot intervention (BSI), lane keeping assist (LKA), and pedestrian automatic emergency braking (PAEB)—and updated existing requirements for automatic emergency braking (AEB). <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> These program updates were to be implemented beginning with model year 2026 vehicles. This notice announces that implementation of the changes discussed in the November 2024 and December 2024 notices are postponed for one model year to model year 2027 vehicles. The Agency will continue to recommend the existing ADAS technologies—forward collision warning (FCW), crash imminent braking (CIB), dynamic braking support (DBS), and lane departure warning (LDW)—for the 2026 model year. For the reasons explained elsewhere in this notice, NHTSA will, however, also assign credit to any vehicle models for which the respective vehicle manufacturer has provided an attestation of passing performance for one or more of the new ADAS technologies in their response to NCAP's annual vehicle information request for model year 2026 vehicles. Credit for vehicles exhibiting passing performance for the adopted crashworthiness pedestrian protection requirements will not be issued for the 2026 model year. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  89 FR 93000. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  89 FR 95916. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> NHTSA established the NCAP program in 1978 in response to Title II of the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act of 1972. The program began with frontal impact testing in 1979 and has expanded over the years to include side impact barrier testing in 1996, rollover assessments in 2000 and 2003, side impact pole testing in 2011, and assessments for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) beginning with model year 2011 vehicles. Adopted ADAS technologies have included electronic stability control (ESC), forward collision warning (FCW), and lane departure warning (LDW), added in 2011; rear visibility systems, adopted in 2013; and more recently, crash imminent braking (CIB) and dynamic braking support (DBS), known collectively as automatic emergency braking (AEB), added in 2015 for model year 2018 vehicles. While NHTSA assigns star ratings on its website for the original program elements ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> frontal impact, side impact, and rollover assessments), it uses checkmarks to recommend to consumers those ADAS technologies that meet NCAP's performance requirements. On December 3, 2024, NHTSA published a final decision notice  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> announcing its plan to update NCAP's ADAS program to include several new technologies—blind spot warning (BSW), blind spot intervention (BSI), lane keeping assist (LKA), and pedestrian automatic emergency braking (PAEB)—as well as to increase the stringency for the existing performance requirements related to AEB. Around the same time, in a final decision notice published on November 24, 2024, <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> the Agency also announced the addition of a crashworthiness pedestrian protection program to NCAP. NHTSA stated that changes adopted for both notices would be implemented beginning with model year 2026 vehicles. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  89 FR 95916. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  89 FR 93000. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Rationale for Postponing NCAP Enhancements for One Model Year</HD> NHTSA has decided to postpone implementation of adding crashworthiness pedestrian protection information and adding recommendations for the four new ADAS technologies to NCAP for one model year. These program changes will now be effective beginning with model year 2027 vehicles. The Agency believes delaying the planned updates is appropriate to address concerns expressed by the automotive industry and to provide the Agency with sufficient time to implement the planned changes in a manner that ensures the integrity of the NCAP program is upheld. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Concerns Expressed by Auto Innovators</HD> On April 25, 2025, NHTSA received a letter from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (Auto Innovators) submitted in response to the Agency's November 25, 2024 and December 3, 2024 final decision notices on adding to NCAP a pedestrian protection program and four new ADAS technologies, respectively. In its letter, Auto Innovators, a consortium of vehicle manufacturers and suppliers, requested that NHTSA delay the planned program changes for NCAP by at least one year, citing (1) NHTSA's failure to publish test procedures for evaluating crashworthiness pedestrian protection, (2) outstanding technical questions surrounding the Agency's final decisions for both the new ADAS technologies and the crashworthiness pedestrian protection program, (3) an implementation timeline that limits manufacturer participation by imposing unnecessary barriers, and (4) a lack of comparative ratings to allow consumers to differentiate between the safety performance of vehicles. Regarding a lack of published test procedures for crashworthiness pedestrian protection assessments, Auto Innovators added, while it appreciates NHTSA's attempt to align with the corresponding European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) test protocols, that a delay in finalizing and publishing official test procedures for the U.S. NCAP's crashworthiness pedestrian protection assessments “is creating unnecessary uncertainty [and undue burden] for manufacturers, is preventing manufacturers from fully evaluating their current and future fleet, and is limiting their ability to identify any specific changes that may be needed in order to meet the new pedestrian protection crashworthiness ratings.” With respect to outstanding technical questions surrounding NHTSA's final decisions for both program updates, Auto Innovators expressed that validation testing in process may introduce questions or issues that would have to be addressed quickly to ensure manufacturers continue to participate in the NCAP program. Adding to this, the group asserted that there is a significant cost associated with vehicle testing, and manufacturers will be cautious to complete testing proactively due to concern of having to repeat testing to account for differences in test procedures. As mentioned, the organization also conveyed concerns regarding time and resource constraints given NHTSA's decision to invoke program changes with less than a year's notice. Auto Innovators contended that the adopted implementation schedule did not allow sufficient time for manufacturers to implement vehicle design changes to meet the new NCAP performance requirements, and as such, proceeding on the current timetable would be a disservice to not just vehicle manufacturers, but also consumers and NHTSA, because manufacturers would be able to attest to passing performance only for a limited number of vehicle models. The group explained that there are “practical constraints and logistical challenges that limit how quickly manufacturers can respond,” because manufacturers must not only redesign vehicle models to meet the new requirements, but must also procure new test equipment, make upgrades to test facilities, and adjust test schedules to accommodate the new testing. Auto Innovators also commented on NHTSA's decision to establish a binary pass/fail performance criterion (with passing performance conveyed in the form of a checkmark on NHTSA's website) in lieu of a comparative rating system for the two program changes. The organization stated that this type of information is of limited use to consumers, as they will be unable to differentiate between vehicles offering different levels of performanc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. 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