I once spent 30 minutes trying to explain why our cars are safe
Many years ago, a really sweet lady called and wanted to know why our S80 received 4/5 Stars from NHTSA verses a Camaro that achieved 5/5 Stars. In defending what we do, I offered that we don’t prepare for just one type of real world crash. We are similar to a decathlon athlete in that we look for solutions to many different types of impacts and we feel that our methods produce safe cars.
What was behind her question was what the industry finally figured out – safety sells. It seemed that some auto manufacturers were building cars just to pass tests. Here is what the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) President Adrian Lund said, “Most automakers design their vehicles to ace our moderate overlap frontal test…” which meant that cars had been built to pass tests. I think that was clear when many manufacturers showed a lack of roof crush technology prior to tougher IIHS standards being formulated, meaning that the roofs of many cars passed a standard that Volvo felt was not real world enough. Gosh, going back to 1967 with the introduction of our 140 series, we have three reinforcements in our sedan and four in our wagons to help protect passengers in a rollover.
In the last five to eight years more cars have achieved very good test scores and have truly helped the general population of cars protect occupants better than say 15 years ago. Feeling that more could be done by manufacturers, the IIHS toughened up their test criteria: New Crash Test Aims to Drive Improvements in Protecting People in Frontal Crashes.
Below are the highlights of the IIHS Status Report that was circulated to employees from Bruno our Manager of Safety and Regulatory Compliance here in Rockleigh:
Only 3 of 11 midsize luxury and near-luxury cars evaluated earn good or acceptable ratings in the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s new small overlap frontal crash test.
Volvo S60 earn good ratings, while the Infiniti G earns acceptable. The Acura TSX, BMW 3 series, Lincoln MKZ and Volkswagen CC earn marginal ratings. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Lexus IS 250/350, Audi A4 and Lexus ES 350 earn poor.
25 percent of a car’s front end on the driver side strikes a 5-foot-tall rigid barrier at 40 mph. The test is designed to replicate what happens when the front corner of a car collides with another vehicle or an object like a tree or utility pole. Small overlap crashes are a different story. These crashes primarily affect a car’s outer edges, which aren’t well protected by the crush-zone structures. Crash forces go directly into the front wheel, suspension system and firewall.
The test is designed to replicate what happens when the front corner of a vehicle collides with another vehicle or an object like a tree or utility pole.
“These are severe crashes, and our new test reflects that,” Institute President Adrian Lund says. “Most automakers design their vehicles to ace our moderate overlap frontal test and NHTSA’s full-width frontal test, but the problem of small overlap crashes hasn’t been addressed. We hope our new rating program will change that.”
Vehicle test performance varied widely in the three rating categories: structure, restraints and kinematics, and dummy injury measures. Structurally, the Volvo S60 was best. With only a few inches of intrusion, the occupant compartment looked much the same as it did in a moderate overlap test. Reinforcement of the S60’s upper rails and a steel cross member below the instrument panel helped to keep the safety cage intact. Volvo has performed similar small overlap tests as part of its vehicle safety development process since the late 1980s, taking the results into account when designing new models.
The Institute plans to make the top award criteria more stringent by adding the small overlap frontal test to its battery of evaluations. The existing criteria will continue for the 2013 award cycle, but vehicles that excel in the new test will be recognized.
Here is the video showing IIHS’s new type of crash test:
Oh, that sweet lady, how did our conversation end? She wasn’t convinced that the Volvo S80 was safer than a Camaro. I literally gave up, “I’m sorry I can not help you. If you believe a Camaro is safer than a Volvo, go buy it.” She replied that she already bought an S80 and just wanted to know what we had to say in our defense. Sigh.
Bruno was very excited about the IIHS news. Bruno is an engineer, which means to get him excited takes a whole different set of conditions. I’m just wonderfully happy watching Batman, while Bruno bounces out of his seat when he gets crash results like the above. To say we are pleased with the IIHS’s result is an understatement. It is an achievement we are very proud of; and combined with our continued safety research we can meet our Vision 2020 goal of no deaths or serious injuries in a Volvo by the year 2020.
dan
4 Comments
Prior to this new IIHS test, a lot of people including myself figured that based on the results of the existing IIHS/NHTSA/EuroNCAP tests, most other manufacturers had “caught up” to Volvo with regards to safety for the most part. What with this new test coming out though, clearly this isn’t the case, and clearly your marketing around safety is more than just marketing.
So congrats on both performing so well compared to the others in the new test and on proving a lot of us wrong, and please keep on improving and keep up the good work! (Also, I’d love to see you guys start doing more safety-oriented marketing/commercials here in the US that help people realize what exactly sets your cars apart with regards to safety, and not just this new IIHS test. Why/how your structures are superior, etc.)
Looking forward to seeing how you’ll accomplish that 2020 goal also by the way.
Hi Patrick,
Marketing safety wasn’t what we started out doing, more about fun little car from Sweden kind of advertising, then it morphed into durability and snuck in stuff about safety. In the real world of sales, safety became what owners were telling us our car meant to them. That’s when we started with ads about how we built cars, that stacking of seven cars being one. Later we let owners tell their own thoughts about what Volvo means to them, this being one way we did it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34oJmFVAVFY .
In 1976 US DOT bought 24 Volvo’s to use to help establish future safety standards, and they have used our cars, along with IIHS to evaluate systems like ones we have in our Technology Package. We were the first to do many systems that no one else offered, oh some did but it was either part of a very expensive option package or in a car that had limited sales.
What we always do is with each next gen car, which usually has next gen electronics or if current gen car can be fitted properly, we add new safety technology. Most complicated part is getting computer power to keep up with what we’re working on, along with software that can handle tasks in a way we need. Swedes love computers.
It’ has never been about Marketing our stuff and hoping people believe us, it’s about keeping a promise to help protect those in and around our cars. I’ve seen other manufactures drag out their safety marketing programs only to watch it disappear in few months. I guess they can not sustain their efforts internally, while others believe lifestyle, utility, and passion sell their cars.
I asked one of our lead engineers about Vision 2020, what happens if we don’t make it. Basically he came back with that we will have one heck of a safe car by 2020. Here at Volvo we never had a safety goal, never. It’s always been just part of what goes into a car, not just added on to pass tests. Our employees know that what they do every day it to get someone into our car that we know will help them on one of the worst days of their lives…should that ever happen.
You take care.
Kindest regards,
dan
[...] [...]
While the test results were not good for MB, no reason on our part to rub salt into their wound. We, in the industry, have different methodologies for how we build safety. Speaking for us, we’re here to help protect people in the way we know from real world experience. I’m certain MB has the same kind of philosophy. You might ask them their opinion of the test.
kind regards,
dan