Honda faces investigation over phantom braking report

Last year, NHTSA also began investigating AEB failures in more than 3 million other Honda models

It’s one thing to trust your car to save you from a car accident, but what happens when it starts seeing threats that don’t exist? That’s the question at the center of a new investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is looking into problems with the automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems in more than 290,000 Honda vehicles in the United States. The investigation was launched after a number of reports of crashes and injuries related to the alleged defect.

It all started last March, when NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) began investigating the 2019-2022 Honda Insight and 2019-2023 Honda Passport. The initial preliminary assessment has been upgraded to a full engineering analysis to “further assess the scope, frequency and potential safety-related consequences of the issues.”

READ: NHTSA gets serious about phantom braking problem affecting 3 million Honda vehicles

According to safety agencies, unintentional and unnecessary activation of AEB systems may increase the risk of a collision. Honda is aware that 412 reports may be related to the alleged defect, but claims that some customers may have “inadequate understanding of the AEB system and its limitations.” Several complaints filed with ODI claimed that Honda dealers were unable to reproduce the situation and stated that the erroneous activation was “considered normal AEB operation.”

Clearly, NHTSA believes (and we agree) that activating the AEB system when there are no obstacles in the vehicle’s path is no normal behavior and unnecessarily increases the likelihood of an accident.

Honda’s phantom braking problem grows

The current survey covers 295,125 vehicles, specifically the Insight and Passport. So far, ODI has tracked 106 incidents related to the issue, including eight injuries and three crashes. Some of the incidents even involved fires, but details about how they escalated remain unclear. The agency’s engineering analysis is the final step before forcing Honda to issue a recall.

Interestingly, this is not the first time NHTSA has launched an investigation into Honda models with potential AEB system failures. Last year, the Office of Defects Investigation announced an engineering analysis of nearly 3 million Accord, Accord Hybrid, CR-V and CR-V Hybrid vehicles from the 2017-2022 model years equipped with the AEB system, which may also be used in Start the road without obvious obstacles.