Bumper Guardian

By National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, August 2006

C) Optional Equipment – Use a rule-of thumb for optional equipment already provided on vehicles. If a safety countermeasure is being sold as a stand-alone option on some vehicles in the fleet, our rule-of-thumb estimate is that this optional price divided by 3 will be close to the consumer cost of the system being supplied as standard equipment on a vehicle.

D) Aftermarket Equipment – A level of subjective judgment is used here. Depending upon how sophisticated the part is and how many competitors there are, we may use different estimating methodologies. We could consider the aftermarket part as just a supplier, if we can find a price for high volumes. If the prices are for low volumes, then we might use the rule of thumb and divide by 3 or use the rule-of-thumb plus add in a cost for labor to install the part.

A search on the Internet allowed us to make our own cost estimate for a manufacturer to install these systems, and we increased these costs to represent the costs to the consumer. A single ultrasonic sensor costs approximately $4 each (a set consists of four sensors); the electronic control unit costs about $6, and the LED or audio device for output was about $3. We assume that the process of punching four holes in the bumper, attaching the sensors, and connecting the wires costs about 3 minutes of work at $22/hour. After including a factor of 1.51 to mark up costs from variable costs to the cost to consumers, we estimated the ultrasonic sensor system costs $41 to install. From the FMVSS No. 111 Preliminary Regulatory Evaluation5 regarding rear detection systems on single-unit trucks, a camera system costs $325, plus the factory line time of 2 minutes to install. Thus, we found the camera system costs $326 to install. Although not used in this analysis, we also estimated costs for other devices using prices of aftermarket devices available on the internet, and using the methods described above to estimate consumer costs of $8 to $13 for the Fresnel Lenses, $13 for internal mirrors, and $8 to $19 for external cross-view mirrors. In addition, we expect radar backup sensors to be more complicated than ultrasonic backup sensors and therefore cost more than their sonic counterparts. Thus, we estimate their installation cost would be between $41 and $100.
Below is a chart of these findings.

Table 1 Cost to Install Various Backup Systems On a Per Vehicle Basis ($2006)

Next, we need to find the incremental cost of maintaining the devices over the lifetime of the vehicle. Electronic devices such as these typically outlive the vehicle, but in the case that the vehicle outlives the sensor system, the de-valued nature of the vehicle itself would negate any reason to install a new sensor, so we are assuming no incremental cost associated with that situation. The crash-related costs of any backup system are produced in the set of all 1.08 rear bumper crashes (0.99 low speed crashes and 0.09 high speed crashes) a vehicle is expected to have over its lifetime. Crashes that affect the costs include both low speed and high speed, except for the low speed, backing up crashes that were avoided using the sensors. To find the incremental repair costs associated with the backup system we called a few local dealerships. This produced values for the increased costs  associated with fixing the sensors should the vehicle receive a rear-impact for any reason. A word of caution should be placed on these estimates, as the devices are installed on luxury or expensive vehicles, and in premier-type packages, sometimes integrated into an on-board navigation system with LCD display. It is reasonable to assume that if these devices were installed on all new vehicles, the cost to produce and repair them will decrease. A single sensor costs $136 to replace and a camera costs $658 to replace. The cost to replace all of the sensor system’s rear components averaged $616. All of these prices include labor and paint.