Supplier says restraints must play big role in small cars
By HARRY STOPPER
Automotive News
The tiny Smart car could be a * sign of things to come - not be*cause of its size or looks, but for the way it is engineered to protect occupants in crashes.
That's the prediction of Madan Gopal, senior development engi*neer for safety systems integration at Delphi Corp. Delphi supplies the restraint system for the Smart ForTwo. U.S. sales of the car began in January.
"The airbags and seat belts are doing much more work" when a Smart crashes than do restraints in a larger vehicle, Gopal said. Gopal spoke in Palm Coast, Fla., in March at a meeting of restraints suppliers.
The 2008 ForTwo's structure is designed to compensate for the lack of crush space in front of occupants, Gopal said. It helps that the engine is behind the occupants, he added.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued its first safety ratings for the ForTwo. Out of five stars, the car got four for driver front impact, three for passenger front impact, three for rollover resistance and five for driver-side impact.
The scores generally are at the upper end of the rating system. But increasingly, all vehicles are record*ing four or five stars in most cate*gories, prompting the federal government to overhaul the testing program.
Airbag and seat belt suppliers are looking at the two-door Smart as an example of how to protect occupants better in vehicles being developed to use less fuel. The issue is important in part because a new federal law requires fuel economy to rise about 40 percent over the 2011-20 model years.
The law, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush last year, instructs regulators to design rules so automakers don't rely chiefly on making vehicles smaller to improve fuel economy. By setting different economy targets for vehicles of different sizes, the rules are ex*pected to force manufacturers to make all cars and trucks consume less.
"The only thing that is going to drive downsizing is consumer demand, not the regulatory frame*work," said Ron Medford, NHTSA's senior associate administrator. NHTSA is responsible for fuel economy rules. In an era of sharply higher fuel prices, consumers
increasingly will demand more small vehicles, safety experts told suppliers of restraints at their annual meeting. But the experts think the industry can make vehi*cles fuel-efficient and safe.
"Both can be done," said Joseph Kanianthra, NHTSA's associate administrator for vehicle safety research.
For restraints, Kanianthra called for more automatic tensioning of belts when likely crashes are de*tected. He also proposed more tailoring of airbag deployments to different kinds of crashes and occupants and for integration of seat belts into seats.
Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said making smaller vehicles safer in crashes with bigger vehi*cles only addresses part of the problem. Smaller cars and trucks also are less safe in single-vehicle crashes, said Lund, whose institute does research for auto insurers.
Lund said fuel economy regu*lations should be designed to force cuts in horsepower. The trend toward higher horsepower not only has increased fuel use but also has led to higher speeds and more serious crashes, Lund said.
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