Interestingly, the Smart (then still called MCC Smart, relating to the jv between Daimler-Benz and the Swatch company that produced the Smart originally) performed slightly better overall than the Ka in the EuroNCAP test. (Hard to tell if in same versions of test.)
Smart
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(3/5 for passengers/crash, 2/4 for pedestrians) It is not clear from this reference why there are only a max of 4 yellow stars for crash performance (maybe old test?), but a glance at the dummy diagram suggests pretty good performance.
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posted this link before.) (Drat the frames; click on Kleinwagen at topand scroll down to MCC Smart.) Ford Ka
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for passengers/crash, 1/4 for pedestrians.)(Click on Superminis on left.) I think that confirms that Smart has a remarkable safety performance for such a small car, but it's not beyond the wit of others to manage something reasonable also. However, I don't doubt it gets disproportionally harder to maintain passenger safety at the small end.
I NEVER argue, merely state the facts as I know them to be true. I only try to correct statements I see posted that I know are incorrect. Remember the vast majority of posts one reads in NG's is merely opinions, hardly factual. Lots of posters choose to argue with everything that is posted by everyone. I could not care less what people that hang in NG's all their life, choose to believe or not. I'm never in a NG for more than a few minutes, certainly never long enough to argue. ;)
It actually veered off at an angle. The airbags took enough of the force to make it surviveable.
Also, this is a worst-case scenario. The big Mercedes was like being hit by a full-size SUV or a small delivery van. Most cars would look like a pile of twisted pancaked metal from that.
The firm that was trying to get it in the U.S. was running into exactly what I said - the government was saying that it could not be modified to pass the tests and would not be allowed to be tested.
Just a summary veto of the process because they deem it as "not modifiable" - reguardless of how it actually may do in an actual test.
I said - go to google and do a search for it and click on the google archive link. That way you can get to it without a password.
I emailed him with the exact same questions. Evidently the sticking point is that the car has no front impact zone/compartment. And, yes, they sumarily decided to refuse to let it be tested.
***NOTE - this is what HE said*** The actual reasons are likely not as he is protraying them.
Now, I suppose if DC directly got involved, it would somehow manage to grease the right wheels. Unfortunately, DC themselves seems to have no incentive to offer a car like this when they have all those crappy Neons they are selling for more money that aren't any better.
Well, yes - at this point, he does rant and do the bitter Newsgroup troll routine. OTOH, he did spend nearly a hundred thousand dollars trying to get them legal to sell in the U.S., and had a very nice site up and running for nearly two years, so being a bit upset is understandable.
Everything was on track and he was working out the details of the actual testing and then they threw this at him. Now, if it was me, I'd have fought back that much harder and asked them for specifics.
Ie: "So, why does this specific part not comply?"(answer given)"Okay - I can fix that to comply. What about this part?"
If you bullzdoze through it and force them to give exact reasons to perfectly reasonable questions, government agencies are pretty easy to deal with. Sure, you may have a list of 50 things that need to be altered, but then you know.
New lights? No biggie. Needs a better side-impact system? Only sell models with side-airbags. Worried about bumper regs(a pathetic
2.5mph now, IIRC) - Do the Porsche 914 routine - slap on a big rubber bumper in the front and rear.
Probably so. He probably doesn't know how to be a (polite)pest with them and get all his answers on paper.
About the testing - something is likely off as well. They even managed to test crazy vehicles like that EcoMobile a while back. Got two of them and enough money - they are more than happy to mash two cardboard boxes on wheels for you and hand you several reams of data.
Yeah, probably so. Shoot - I remember when one enthusiast bought three Porsche 969s(iirc - maybe 959?) - out of like 100 made in the world and had them crash-test two of them just so that he could drive the third in the U.S. Porsche never submitted them themselves as they were supposed to be show/racing type collector vehicles and too small a production run.
Collectors were apalled, but it was his 200K he burnt, not theirs.
Given the 2000lb+ difference in weights, something that the U.S. tests never even test for, the little car was fated to bounce off of as it was an offset crash.
Not just like in aviation currently. Compare the requirements for getting and maintaining a pilots license with getting and maintaining an auto license.
The goal should be to reduce the number of accidents, not reduce the accident-proneness of the vehicle itself. The problem with the auto industry is that they have conned the US government and public into believing that crash proneness and survivability is mainly the responsibility of the automaker, not mainly the responsibility of the driver. In aviation, they correctly do it the other way round.
If the industry and government really wanted to reduce roadkill on the nation's roads, they would be concentrating on making the getting and keeping of a license requiring much better demonstration of driving skills, and in my opinion, they would make it mandatory for a vehicle owner to have a valid license, and institute penalties such as vehicle forfeture in cases where the license is criminally suspended, or accident cases where a death is involved and a civil finding is subsequently made against one of the drivers.
I never said they were claiming scientific results, I said they were claiming scientific methodology. And if you read between the lines of their site you will see this. They also claim the following:
"The firm offers a variety of research products and services designed to help businesses make better decisions."
which as you point out with the Bug example, isn't accurate.
In short, it would have been a waste of money to pay JD Powers because you don't get anything better than what you can figure out for yourself. QED.
How the car LOOKS has nothing to do with it. In fact, if the car "looks like a pile of twisted metal" its more likely to have done its job of absorbing energy and protecting the driver. Whenever a car "bounces" off another, its usually a bad, bad, thing for the occupants.
Sorry, I don't believe that. That simply isn't how it works. If he had PERFORMED the REQUIRED TESTS and presented them satisfactory results, it would have passed. Period.
Well, not entirely. There's a guy in my neighborhood that restores the neat little old 2-cylinder BMW-600s, and a 3-wheeled Messerschmitt is known to be running around town too. Those are interesting, historic, and cute.
OK, the SERIOUS answer is that in the US a Smart would only be useful as a second vehicle. Most US drivers make several trips per year of 4 hours or more (heck, some people commute 2 hours per day) and a Smart just wouldn't be practical, whereas a Neon, Focus, Civic, or even a Prius is a livable compromise between putting around the city and driving across the state. I'd have no hesitation to drive a Neon from Dallas to San Antonio in any weather at any time of day or night, sharing I-35 with all the NAFTA 18-wheelers... but no way in heck would I do that in a Smart.
This points even more strongly to his doing it wrong. It sounds as if he's trying to use the procedures for bringing in a noncompliant car via a Registered Importer. Wrong! That's the procedure for the guy who buys a non-US-spec car *of a make and model also offered in the US* overseas, wants to bring it back, and puts up a bond for the duration of its retrofitment, conversion and certification by an RI. The first step is for the RI to petition NHTSA for a determination that a substantially similar vehicle (same make, model and year) exists in a US certified version *and* that the non-US model is readily capable of being altered to comply (e.g. via the replacement of non-US equipment with US equipment). This determination, in turn, is based on the RI's detailed and documented comparison of the non-US model with its US counterpart, or alternatively of the manufacturer's parts catalogues for the non-US and US versions. If no substantially similar model exists, or if it does but there are structural or other "engineered in" (rather than "bolted on") differences that prevent the non-US version's ready alteration, that's the end of the line for the RI process.
The process for bringing in a car for which no US equivalent exists is completely, utterly different. It's more work and much more expense, but it can be done. I don't think the guy has any right to be bitter; he clearly hasn't even tried to follow the rules.
Yes, but my point is that "pancaked" metal is what helps the occupants survive. You want the passenger compartment to be rigid and not allow intrusion, but you want the rest of the car to collapse as fully as possible to absorb the impact energy.
Let me guess, test engineer rather than design engineer!
I don't disagree, but the current crash tests miss just as much compared to real world crashes as does modeling and simulation, IMO.
Read it again. I advocated doing away with encouraging manufacturers to design a vehicle so it is optimized to pass an arbitrary crash test. Doing away with the tests would be one way to do this, but I think there are better ways. My point is that currently let's say a given model vehicle fails the government crash test, but has the best occupant protection rate of all cars on the road. If I understand the current regulations correctly, the manufacturer would be required to redesign the vehicle so that it would pass the crash test EVEN IF this made it perform more poorly in actual crashes. This is, IMO, insane.
Finally, a site I can look at. The description of its safety featuers sounds pretty standard, to me (though trying to make a virtue out of a short wheelbase is pretty novel).
So, has anybody who has successfully gotten another non-US car certified made a try at it?
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