Article 109 — Amendments to Regulation (EU) 2019/2144 (EU AI Act)

Article 109 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 — Amendments to Regulation (EU) 2019/2144. Official text, practical interpretation, key obligations and compliance implications.

Official Text Summary

Article 109 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the EU AI Act) amends Regulation (EU) 2019/2144 of the European Parliament and of the Council on type-approval requirements for motor vehicles and their trailers and systems, components and separate technical units intended for such vehicles. The amendment inserts specific references and requirements to align the pre-existing vehicle type-approval framework with the horizontal obligations introduced by the AI Act.

Concretely, Article 109 adds provisions ensuring that AI systems embedded in vehicles — particularly those driving automated or semi-automated functions such as advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), automated emergency braking, lane departure warning and driver monitoring — are subject to requirements consistent with the AI Act's risk-based approach. Where such systems meet the definition of high-risk AI systems under Annex III of Regulation 2024/1689, their deployment in vehicles must satisfy not only the technical performance criteria of Regulation 2019/2144 but also the conformity, transparency, logging and human oversight obligations of the AI Act.

The article reflects the EU legislature's intent to avoid regulatory fragmentation: rather than creating a parallel track, it harmonises existing sectoral legislation with the new horizontal AI framework, making vehicle type-approval authorities and manufacturers jointly responsible for ensuring AI-specific compliance is embedded into the familiar type-approval procedure.

What This Means in Practice

For vehicle manufacturers, system suppliers and type-approval authorities, Article 109 has several concrete implications.

Manufacturers developing or integrating AI-driven components — such as adaptive cruise control, automated parking systems, driver drowsiness detection or emergency steering — must assess whether those systems qualify as high-risk AI systems under the AI Act. If they do, technical documentation requirements (Article 11), automatic logging of system events (Article 12), human oversight measures (Article 14) and accuracy and robustness standards (Article 15) apply in addition to the performance benchmarks already required under Regulation 2019/2144.

Tier-1 suppliers providing AI-enabled components to OEMs are equally in scope. They must furnish the documentation and evidence that OEMs need to complete the integrated type-approval and AI Act conformity process, and must update this information whenever a substantial modification to the AI system occurs.

National type-approval authorities must be equipped to evaluate AI-specific evidence within the type-approval process. This may require upskilling of technical services and updating evaluation protocols to incorporate AI Act conformity checks.

Importers and distributors placing AI-equipped vehicles on the EU market must verify that the type-approval covers the AI Act dimensions and must not make modifications that would invalidate that compliance.

A practical example: a manufacturer seeking type-approval for a new passenger car with an AI-powered automatic emergency braking system must include in its type-approval application both the performance test data required by Regulation 2019/2144 and the technical documentation, risk management records and conformity assessment evidence required under the AI Act for a high-risk system.

Key Obligations

• Integrated conformity assessment: AI systems embedded in vehicles subject to Regulation 2019/2144 type-approval must satisfy the applicable AI Act conformity assessment procedures (Chapter V, Articles 43–51) before a type-approval certificate is granted or renewed.
• Technical documentation: Manufacturers must maintain AI-specific technical documentation as required by Article 11 and Annex IV of the AI Act, covering system design, training data governance, validation processes and known limitations, alongside existing type-approval technical files.
• Automatic logging: AI systems performing automated or semi-automated driving functions must incorporate logging capabilities as specified in Article 12, enabling reconstruction of system behaviour during incidents for investigation by authorities.
• Human oversight by design: Vehicles incorporating high-risk AI functions must implement human oversight measures under Article 14, ensuring drivers can monitor, interrupt or override AI-driven actions under reasonably foreseeable conditions.
• Substantial modification review: Any substantial modification to an AI system already covered by a type-approval triggers a re-assessment obligation, requiring updated documentation and potentially a new or amended type-approval under the combined frameworks.
• Market surveillance coordination: National type-approval authorities and AI Act market surveillance authorities must coordinate to avoid duplicative or conflicting oversight actions, sharing relevant findings about AI system performance in the field.

Relationship to Other Articles

Article 109 sits within Title XIII (Final Provisions) and is one of several amendment articles that stitch the AI Act into pre-existing sectoral legislation. It should be read alongside Article 2 (scope) to understand when the AI Act's rules apply to vehicle-embedded systems, and Annex III (list of high-risk AI systems) where point 4 covers AI systems used in the management and operation of road transport infrastructure and safety-critical vehicle functions.

Articles 11–15 (high-risk AI system obligations on technical documentation, record-keeping, transparency, human oversight, and accuracy) set the substantive standards that Article 109 causes to flow into the type-approval process. Articles 43–51 (conformity assessment procedures) define the procedural route manufacturers must follow.

Article 112, which amends Directive 2006/42/EC on machinery, pursues a parallel logic in the industrial machinery sector and provides useful interpretive context for how the EU legislature approaches embedding AI Act obligations into sectoral approval regimes.

Compliance Timeline

The EU AI Act was published in the Official Journal on 12 July 2024 and entered into force on 1 August 2024. Its application is phased:

• 2 February 2025 — Prohibited AI practices (Title II, Article 5) became applicable.
• 2 August 2025 — Rules on general-purpose AI models (Title VIII, Articles 51–56) and governance provisions became applicable.
• 2 August 2026 — The main body of the AI Act, including high-risk AI system obligations in Title III and the amendment articles in Title XIII, including Article 109, becomes fully applicable. From this date, type-approvals involving AI systems must reflect the amended Regulation 2019/2144 requirements.
• 2 August 2027 — High-risk AI systems covered by Annex I (existing Union harmonisation legislation) benefit from an extended transition; vehicle systems that fall exclusively under that annex may continue under prior rules until this date.

Manufacturers and suppliers are advised to begin conformity gap analyses and integrate AI Act documentation requirements into their type-approval preparation processes well before August 2026 to avoid delays in product launches.