Reads as a nice commercial for Hyundai when you read the whole article.

On the Hyundai Genesis sedan for instance, which earned Top Safety Pick Plus honors from the IIHS, the highest you can get, O’Brien said “we have a high-pressure die-casting that forms the entire inner fender structure and it’s also bonded to steel with aerospace adhesive.” Lots of work was also done in the cowl and A-post areas. All told this layout forms an extremely rigid structure that protects occupants in even the most severe collisions.

 

Heat is generated in a crash, or as your four disc brakes slow the vehicle down. It's just physics.



It does.

They did large lux cars but not mundane cars such as Chargers and 300s.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/v/class-summary/large-luxury-cars

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/ratings-info/frontal-crash-tests

 

At first glance it looks like the Genesis didn't fair well at all but the door and A pillar are largely undisturbed

 

".....in terms of managing how you turn the crash energy into heat and therefore keep the crash event (away) from the occupant cabin......"

I'm pretty sure this is the LAST thing you would want to do.

The safety structure of a car is turning that "crash energy" into deforming the structure forward of the passenger compartment.

 

I don't understand your comment. Why would "managing" how you turn crash energy in to heat be adverse. Managing means controlling it and if it is controlled it is to established parameters, and as long as those parameters are correct then there is no problem. Keeping the crash event away from the occupant seems important especially things like hot exhaust pipes.

 

Tesla does not even have an engine in the front.... Nor has Porsche.

 

Maybe big block engines need to make a comeback for safety reasons

 

Maybe big block engines need to make a comeback for safety reasons

Mr-Burns : A giant SUV T-boned a Ford Focus, it has nothing to do with FWD or RWD.l

LOL fun is officially banned sweet sounding everlasting big blocks v 3 cylinder A4 sized 1.0 Ecoboost engine weight 75lbs.
According to some on this thread think 75 lb 1.0L Ecoboost A4 paper sized engine in a Fiesta with crap brakes will save their lives, will do better in a crash when its hit by Big Beamer or Merc, a RWD Bus or a RWD/AWD big truck LOL, l think they might be in for a nasty surprise, might end up in a wooden box.

Mr Burns taken out of context "No two accidents are ever the same". In the real world where folk live they have a standard tall crash wall, cars have different ride height & different masses when they collide, this is why these tests carry very little validity. At least NCAP state the truth with the statement.

EURO NCAP States Comparable cars:
Euro NCAP’s frontal impact test simulates a car crashing into another of similar mass and structure. In "real" life, when two cars collide the vehicle with the higher mass has an advantage over the lighter one. Generally speaking, vehicles with higher structures tend to fare better in accidents than those with lower structures. Therefore, ratings are comparable only between cars of similar mass and with broadly similar structures. Euro NCAP groups cars into the following structural categories: passenger car, MPV, off-roader, roadster and pickup. Within each of those categories, cars which are within 150kg of one another are considered comparable.

This statement is very honest and refreshing. Most FWD car low height ave a low body mass, are the most vulnerable the biggest death traps on the road, in the real world.

You are right sorry, poor SUV gets hit by out of control idiot in Focus, poor ole Pathfinder in that accident that is used on the road 99% in RWD most of the time, a T-Bone accident is not permitted in crash testing?

FWD Ford Focus T-Bone accident crash protection 0/10 rated the car falls apart in a crash.

FWD is a compromise.

 

To answer the implied question the thread does not ask: RWD large cars are not down for the schtruggle for the same reason all other class cars flunked this baby when they were first subjected to it: Nobody designed to the test.

Now they do or soon they will. The results will change then. Just as they have for the other smaller classes of vehicles who first got they assiz toe up bad in the small offset front crash. :fall:

Our Army PT test used to consist of pushups, situps, and a two-mile run. PU and SU had a two minute limit. If one fine day they added chinups, guess what, there would be a 95% failure rate. This is not rocket science, people.

 

This is the biggest load of crap I've ever read :fall:

The engine doesn't act as a shield if anything it usually tries to force it's way into the passenger compartment

 

In the real world in a head-on height & weight matters when two cars collide a higher sitting tend to ride up the lower sitting car like a typical small low sitting FWD car, even two of the same types of car at different ride heights can mean the difference between ending up paraplegic one loaded heavy with four passengers and the other with just the driver.

Height of you car can be catastrophic in a typical low sitting small FWD car or RWD sports car like a MX-5, even in the same car height matters. Most RWD are higher sitting on average to there lower average small FWD car.

Rear passengers in FWD cars like the Mini sit just just a inches from the rear bumper in a real world test with lots of other cars involved the transverse engine would ensure that that all occupant would get crushed to a pulp, it acts as a brick wall when the hit up the rear with other cars in front of it. So the transverse engine would be a killer in a rear impact. FWD Fiat v RWD Mercedes Benz in a real world multiple pile up, not a lab test. FWD Fiat rear cabin is 'pulped up to transverse engine a flat wall.

This is a 40 MPH test, FWD ST Focus driver don't drive around at 40 MPH in the "real world" Here is the real world speed crash boy racer.

Speed kills, stay safe guys.

Cant beat a nice RWD Lincoln with rear facing seats that would be the only one l would want to be a passenger in (with seat belts on of course).

Ford's Ranger pick-up is 5 star NCAP rated has highest marks for a large vehicle a high sitting heavy mass, it's gotta be the most biggest safest car in Europe NCAP have ever tested, Ford really are built tough. At the end of the day nobody wants to have an accident, safety does sell sells these days, you can't put a price on a member of your families life thats priceless. Give me a RWD/AWD Ranger pick-up 1st pick, over a million pound RWD Ferrari or cheap n' cheerful FWD Fiat every time. Speed kills, stay safe guys.

 

Rear passengers in FWD cars like the Mini sit just just a inches from the rear bumper in a real world test with lots of other cars involved the transverse engine would ensure that that all occupant would get crushed to a pulp, it acts as a brick wall when the hit up the rear with other cars in front of it. So the transverse engine would be a killer in a rear impact. FWD Fiat v RWD Mercedes Benz in a real world multiple pile up, not a lab test. FWD Fiat rear cabin is 'pulped up to transverse engine a flat wall.

Did you know that NCAP institutes all over the world test on all sorts of collisions at the front, sideways, rollover, except for.... rear impacts! The German ADAC once did a survey and concluded that smaller hatchbacks as well as MPV's with 3rd row seating are death traps for the rear passengers.

 

Actually I have never touched a vehicle's crumpled parts immediately following a major collision. I doubt many people here have done so.

And I make it a practice to use my brakes minimally. I don't run up to lights and climb on the binders. It's a waste of energy.

In a crash, the energy of the body in motion that comes to a sudden stop is converted. Bending metal creates heat.

Since these are inelastic collisions, the kinetic energy is not conserved, but total energy is always conserved, so the kinetic energy "lost" in the collision has to convert into some other form - heat, sound, etc.

http://physics.about.com/od/energyworkpower/f/energyforcediff.htm


I presume there are folks here with a solid grounding in physics who can explain the conversion of energy better than I can.

 

And I make it a practice to use my brakes minimally. I don't run up to lights and climb on the binders. It's a waste of energy.

Just keep you distance from the car in front that can mean the difference between life and death thats always served me well over time, Don't worry to much about a cars 0-60 MPH times when buying a car, worry more a it's stopping distance 60-0 MPH braking times are important which are normally make all the difference between life and death at that 100 ft away wall, or when that 100ft away child not looking runs into the road to retrieve that ball.

Top of the Stops 60-0 MPH
Best braking chart that won't hit that wall or child 100 ft away.

93ft
RWD Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Carbon Edition
RWD Ferrari 430 Scuderia


94ft
RWD Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Centennial Edition
RWD Lexus LFA
RWD Porsche 911 GT3
RWD Ferrari 430 Scuderia
RWD Ferrari 16m Scuderia Spyder

96ft
AWD Audi R8

97ft
RWD Chevrolet Corvette ZR1
RWD Dodge Viper ACR
RWD Dodge Viper SRT10

98ft
RWD Porsche 911 GT3 RS
AWD Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SuperVeloce
RWD Porsche 911 GT2

99ft
RWD Nissan GT-R
RWD Ferrari 458 Italia
RWD Porsche 911 Turbo
RWD Porsche Boxster S

LINK

100ft
Ooops just hit the wall & killed the child.

106 ft
AWD 2015 Subaru WRX
AWD Mitsubishi Evo MR

112 ft
FWD Ford Focust ST

Can't beat a nice RWD Corvette it would stop before that 100 ft away wall or young child chasing a ball into the road. A FWD Focus driver would hit the wall and kill the child.

In the real world nobody drive at 40 MPG on a German autobahn or US highway, good brakes matter.

Stay safe guys don't break speed limits, and keep your distance from the car in front.

 

Its amazing how folk survived this, How did anyone get out of this 70 MPH crash alive?

LINK to story.

FWD Focus definitely come of worse in this real world accident with a oncoming Nissan Pathfinder with a longitudinal engine.
Nissan Pathfinder occupants walked away with just minor bruising, l bet they are glad they never brought a FWD Focus.

No car two accidents are ever the same.

United States & European Union are pushing to unify crash test standards.
LINK

EURO NCAP States Comparable cars:
Euro NCAP’s frontal impact test simulates a car crashing into another of similar mass and structure. In "real" life, when two cars collide the vehicle with the higher mass has an advantage over the lighter one. Generally speaking, vehicles with higher structures tend to fare better in accidents than those with lower structures. Therefore, ratings are comparable only between cars of similar mass and with broadly similar structures. Euro NCAP groups cars into the following structural categories: passenger car, MPV, off-roader, roadster and pickup. Within each of those categories, cars which are within 150kg of one another are considered comparable. LINK

NCAP telling us what we already knew low sitting lighter small FWD cars are total crap in real world crashes when they hit a heavy Nissan Pathfinder higher wall, US crash lab walls don't vary in height, car ride heights in the real world do. Low sitting small FWD cars tend to bury themselves go under higher sitting vehicles that ride up, causing more injury to the occupants of the lower FWD cars.

 

A giant SUV T-boned a Ford Focus, it has nothing to do with FWD or RWD.

 

I hate to rain on your parade with those stopping distances but with ABS what stops you from steering around the child whilst braking?

 

Here come the excuses excuses excuses. 361 days a year RWD is the No1 drive, for the other 4 days of snow AWD is the better No1 drive where l live.

Oh no the the FWD car has killed that poor child with understeer, sorry l meant penguin.

 

Some if it bleeds it leads hyperbole. She has a point, as far as she goes. But she doesn't go very far.

Like most "news media" today, she left out the most important 90% of the story: How resistant to high speed rear impacts are the current cop cars that are NOT Crown Vics?

They are deadly. They are dangerous. But they are cheap. Ford stopped making the Crown Victoria back in 2011. But that didn’t stop one North Texas police department from stocking up on the troubled patrol car.
The Fort Worth Police Department lost one of its officers back in 2006. A drunk driver hit the officer’s Crown Victoria and it burst into flames. Just a few months ago we saw another officer in a similar accident narrowly escape the same fate.
Yet the CBS 11 I-Team uncovered the City of Fort Worth spent nearly $8 million in 2010 to stock up on the defective car.
The problems with the Ford Crown Victoria caught national headlines more than ten years ago. The chance the car could catch on fire after being rear-ended drove a lot of departments to get rid of the cars. And eventually Ford decided to just stop making them.
But new documents the I-Team uncovered show the City of Fort Worth saw this as a buying opportunity; snapping up more than ten times as many cars as they usually buy over the course of a year.
Dwayne Freeto was a father of two, a husband, son and dedicated police officer. He was killed back in 2006 when he stopped to help a stranded motorist.

UPDATE:
On February 7, 2014 this story was updated to reflect the below statement from Ford Motor Company.
“The Crown Victoria Police Interceptor was designed and tested to the highest rear-impact crash standards in the industry. The Crown Victoria Police Interceptor was the only vehicle marketed to meet a 75 mph rear impact crash test. Also, the CVPI earned NHTSA’s front and side 5-Star crash ratings, its highest possible crashworthiness ratings, as well as 5-Star rollover ratings.“ – Kelli Felker, Safety Communications Manager for Ford Motor Company
(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/02/03/02032104/

 

CaptainDan is basically right on the physics question.

The energy in a car collision is principally absorbed by plastic deformation and not friction. The result of kinetic energy dissipated by plastic deformation is a change in shape. The result of kinetic energy dissipated by friction is heat.

Say you took a butter knife and dropped it off of the empire state building lengthwise, i.e., parallel to the building. If it hit the sidewalk it would plastically deform (bend). If someone very quick were to grab it in his fist before it hit the ground, it would heat his skin painfully as it slid to a stop--but maintain its shape.

Plastic deformation and friction are both nonconservative forces, that is, they dissipate mechanical/kinetic energy by changing it into another form of energy. So when this guy says 'turn crash energy into heat' he really means 'turn crash energy into a structural bending force'. Technically false because they are two different forms of nonconservative forces. But the basic idea he is trying to communicate is 'turn crash energy into [a non-threatening, non-kinetic form of energy, effectively dissipating it]'.

 

The new Smart ForTwo and ForFour are typical examples of still not mandatory testing of rear impact vulnerability.

Interestingly enough, Aston Martin can't pass all safety tests anymore in the U.S.
http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/could-new-safety-standards-be-end-of-aston-martin-in-am-1562967781

 

Wow on Aston, I'm surprised they didn't just weld a few extra pounds into the cars to get their weight over the hurdle to be exempt from the rules. Surprised they aren't exempt because they are so small, though were I to buy one I'd be pretty PO'ed knowing in certain respects a $25,000 Malibu is better engineered than my $250,000 wonder car is.

 

Hm, question. If you already have collision avoidance on cars, why not have an airbag deployed at the front of the car in the split second the collision avoidance system signals a high speed frontal impact about to take place? In that way smaller cars like the Smart would be able to further cushion the blow.

Ah, forget it. I can think of an answer. Needs to be pretty massive to be able to soften the deceleration.

 

I think most folks understand that larger and heavier beats smaller and lighter in a collision. That's why linemen weigh 300 lbs. Not rocket science.

The proof of the pudding is in injury and death stats vehicle by vehicle. These can vary more than you'd expect, for many reasons. Some vehicles attract the less careful drivers and will have higher death and injury stats.

I think the small overlap was initiated at least in part because after designing to the test for years, most vehicles do well in the established IIHS crash tests. You change or you become irrelevent, and IIHS--like the March of Dimes--knows that.

Almost everyone initially did poorly in the small overlap because they didn't design to it. Simple.

Many crashes are single-car also, 25% or more IIRC.
When a car hits a telephone pole that's a small piece of real estate impinging on the vehicle structure. You get varying results depending if the vehicle center-punches, small-offsets, or hits it broadside at the B pillar.

I recall a recent thread here where a girl who spent a couple of years in the joint after she wrecked at high speed and a friend died in her GM car is now suing GM--it's not about the money--and asking her conviction be vacated and her record cleansed. "She might want to study nursing" I think the roughly-written article said.

That she impacted a pole on the passenger side B pillar might just have something to do with the passenger's death.

That it was 4 am and she had MJ and ETOH aboard and was going at least twice the 35 MPH limit might be significant.

That said, there is a correlation between crash test ratings and real world survivability. That the makers have been forced to design more survivable structures is nothing but good for all concerned.


Dated but interesting:

http://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/assets/images/2002/Aug-26-2002/SUV-report.pdf



Retro rockets.

http://www.iihs.org/frontend/iihs/documents/masterfiledocs.ashx?id=1887

 

AutoGuide is basically the Consumer Reports of the 2010's. Who cares what they have to say

 

You know what? Just don't crash.

 

Excellent idea. I'll be contacting the head of NHTSA tomorrow regarding some "CRASH FREE ZONE" signs. That should pretty well take care of the problem.
No more air bags, no more seat belts!!

 

Soon they will do front on crash tests for push bikes colliding -maybe even pedestrians holding their phones!