To prevent traffic accidents, an increasing percentage of vehicles are now equipped with active safety systems, such as automatic emergency braking. In addition, the market is growing for external sensors such as cameras. In Japan, where light vehicles account for nearly 40% of new vehicle sales, it is expected that the number of light vehicles equipped with such sensors will increase in line with growing user demand.

With the partial model change, the EVERY and EVERY WAGON are equipped with Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) functionality, such as lane departure warnings, lane sway warnings and lead vehicle start alerts. Additionally, the models are equipped with a collision avoidance braking function that can detect pedestrians at night, the same function that has been adopted by Suzuki for its SOLIO and SOLIO BANDIT models, which also use Hitachi Automotive Systems’ stereo cameras with nighttime pedestrian detection capability. By utilizing Hitachi’s unique machine learning technology, large numbers of images are input as training data into the stereo camera, making it possible to detect pedestrians at night with a level of precision previously impossible.

The new EVERY and EVERY WAGON have been certified as Support Car (Safety Support Car) S Wide*1 by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), a designation the Ministries are supporting to become widely used. Additionally, MLIT has also designated the EVERY WAGON as an Advance Emergency Braking System (AEBS) Certified Vehicle*2.

Hitachi Automotive Systems will continue to support the increased adoption of Safety Driving Support Cars with advanced ADAS technology, contributing to a society with fewer traffic accidents, including accidents involving pedestrians.

*1 Support Car (Safety Support Car) S Wide: Vehicles with a certain driver support function including advanced safety technologies such as damage reduction (automatic) brakes (Safety Driving Support Car: Support Car for short). One of the categories, "Support Car S" are recommended for elderly drivers especially by mounting the acceleration suppression device, etc. when accidentally pressing the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. The "Support Car S Wide" is a car equipped with the damage reduction (automatic) brakes (versus pedestrians), pedal acceleration suppression device while accidentally pressing the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal, lane departure warning and advanced light.

*2 Advance Emergency Braking System (AEBS) Certified Vehicle: Passengers vehicles that have been certified by MLIT to have a certain level of Advanced Emergency Braking System performance for driving or stopping vehicles, to support public awareness of Safety Driving Support Cars.