The latest Automotive World report, which canvassed the opinions of 84 senior automotive industry stakeholders, found that a significant majority of respondents believe that active safety systems offer the greatest potential to improve light vehicle safety during the next ten years, although there are still substantial gains to made through greater market penetration of passive systems.
The report, Technology Roadmap – Light Vehicle Safety, was compiled using an online survey and a series of in-depth interviews with representatives of OEMs, suppliers, consultancy firms, academia, regulatory bodies, road safety organisations, insurance companies and NCAP rating organisations. The questionnaire and interviews covered a range of topics including the relative potential of active versus passive systems; regional variations in safety technology development; how cost should be apportioned; the role of regulations, incentives, education and NCAP ratings; the extent to which driver distraction features in crashes; and the issues facing the deployment of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) connectivity to enhance light vehicle safety.
Active safety
With active safety systems such as anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and electronic stability control (ESC) now approaching market saturation in developed regions through existing or pending regulatory requirements, regulators and OEMs are increasingly focussing on the crash avoidance potential of advanced active systems such as lane-keeping assistance (LKA) and autonomous emergency braking (AEB). However, the situation in the emerging markets is very different. They are forecast to account for most of the growth that will see the global vehicle fleet double during the next ten years. According to David Ward, Secretary General of Global NCAP and Director General of the FIA, a priority is to “try to encourage the highest global uptake of ESC. At the moment, the global market penetration on new light vehicles is around 40% to 48%”.
Emerging markets, emerging safety standards
“Across all of the BRICs the story is quite sinister,” says Ward. “We need to see a rapid improvement in basic crashworthiness and a move to technologies like ESC. Brazil is promoting ABS in 2014 which means that it’ll be practical to go a next step and set a date for ESC on all cars. At the moment, fitment rates in Brazil are incredibly low. ABS is about 33% on new cars, ESC just 1%, so there’s huge potential. It’s a similar story in India, where ABS is at 25% penetration and ESC at just 6%. China is interesting: ABS is 70% in new cars and ESC is 18%, making it a very realistic prospect to have ESC in all cars by 2020.”
When referring to passive safety standards, Ward comments, “To an extent passive safety technology has matured but not its market penetration. Last year there were 60 million new light duty vehicles produced and probably about 20 million of those fell below the minimum crash test standard.” He referred to ECE Regulations 95 and 94 for front and side impact as the “basic crash test standards” that should be applied in emerging markets.
Anil Valsan, Lead Automotive Analyst with consultancy firm, Ernst&Young, concurs. “The emerging markets present a big challenge. Getting regulations consistent and rapidly pushing the adoption of even the most basic safety systems that have already been introduced as standard in developed markets are very critical issues.” Klaus Kompass, Vice President of Vehicle Safety for the BMW Group also agrees but underscores the need to balance progress against cost. “Emerging markets still need to take the first steps that we took many years ago in Europe, the US and Japan. It would be wrong to apply the European standards, for example, in countries like India or China. Doing so could be counterproductive, with systems making cars too expensive to buy, thus negating any real safety benefits.”
Looking beyond passive safety technology
While basic passive safety standards are well established in developed markets, Adrian Lund, President of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in the US, draws attention to the limitations of passive safety technology. “In the US, about 10,000 people still die in frontal crashes, even though most new vehicles earn the highest frontal crash test ratings.” Lund also points out that the Institute has recently developed a crash test programme to investigate occupant protection in small overlap frontal crashes, which is an area that has not previously been a major focus. “Those crashes account for about 20% to 25% of the serious and fatal injuries in frontal crashes, so it’s a big deal.”
Lund took the opportunity to highlight some very pertinent facts that go beyond the interview’s focus on the safety technology available for installation on light vehicles. “If we could get people to obey red lights, we could reduce crashes immediately. Cities that have installed red light cameras have much lower fatality rates at intersections than cities that have not. We know that roundabouts are even better than red light cameras because we get big reductions in fatalities and at the same time we reduce congestion. If we increased safety belt use to closer to 100%, we would immediately save hundreds of lives a year.”
Belt up!
According to the US National Highway Transport Safety Administration (NHTSA), seatbelt usage had increased to 85% in the US by 2010 from only 58% in 1994 but as of 2009, 44% of light vehicle occupants killed in crashes were unrestrained, underscoring Lund’s comments. NHTSA statistics indicate that, in 2010, around 22,500 of the 32,885 people killed in US road crashes were drivers or passengers in light vehicles. The 2009 statistic of 44% suggests that around 9,900 of those were unrestrained. Estimating how many of those might have survived is not possible but it might be even more than Lund’s perhaps cautious “hundreds”.
With seatbelt use is still not a primary enforcement target in all US states, it is perhaps apposite to mention how questionnaire and interview respondents view the role of regulation and enforcement in light vehicle safety – although the issue of seatbelt use was not addressed. Several assert that legislation is necessary to establish market penetration of safety systems with particular attention being directed at the current situation in emerging markets. Michael Thoeny, Global Engineering Director (Electronic Controls) at Delphi says, “Seatbelts and airbags are prime examples of how lifesaving technology can be adopted more quickly with help from legislation and NCAP star ratings.” Jean-Marc Gales, Chief Executive of CLEPA, presents an even stronger opinion, “The continuing high rates of fatalities (1.3 million per year worldwide) and injuries (nearly 50 million per year) and associated societal cost suggest that light vehicle safety must be influenced and enforced. Mature and cost effective solutions must be enforced by legislation as soon as possible.”
Competition, regulation and education
However, others see the regulators’ role as one of setting only minimum standards and express the view that consumer education and technology competition by OEMs will drive growth. Klaus Kompass, Vice President of Vehicle Safety for the BMW Group says, “I don’t think legal enforcement is a good solution because technology advances more quickly than legislation. Take active safety: the technology develops much faster than any regulator can follow, driven by competition. Comparative tests in the media alert the public to new driver assistance systems, praising companies that launch successful new systems. That’s more efficient than any regulation. Ultimately, we will need regulation to prevent ‘feature counting’, but we also need high standards of performance. The real driver of new technology is competition”.
Questions regarding NCAP ratings and regulations also featured in the questionnaire and the interviews. While the majority of respondents believe that NCAP ratings should not be enforced, a greater majority think that OEMs should not be prevented from selling low NCAP-rated vehicles and even more think that they should be able to sell cars of differing standards in different regions. Interestingly, however, when asked for their opinion about what a minimum allowable NCAP rating should be, only 10% stated that there should be no minimum while a further 22% made no specific response. The remaining 68% were, however, prepared to state a minimum NCAP rating with around half of those opting for a 3-star level.
The use of incentives, from insurance companies as well as government, gained overwhelming support while consumer education is also seen as essential. Thomas Broberg, Senior Technical Advisor – Safety at Volvo Cars says, “Regulations may not be the fastest and best way to push safety developments forward. Any enforcement should be performance-driven and not technology-driven, as this may hinder technical development and innovation. Stimulating the market is usually the best way of moving things forward.”
With respect to consumer education, Dr. Ralf Cramer, Member of the Executive Board and President of Chassis & Safety Division at Continental, says, “Equipping light vehicles with safety technology is also a question of explaining the benefits of these technologies to the end customers so that they ask their dealers for them.”
Follow this link to download the report: Technology Roadmap – Light Vehicle Safety
