Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Original title: "domestic cars are busy going out to sea, will it make new cars safer?" "

If you mention a new Model Y car after August this year, you will get an additional new configuration, a remote airbag, which is still rare in China. Also holding this SSR card, there are Weilai ET7, Polar Star 2max 3, Lac 01 (optional).

They have one thing in common: they are all produced at home and are being or are about to be exported to Europe.

Remote airbag (Far-Side Airbag) or medial airbag (Inner-Side Airbag) is a new security configuration, but it is not complicated. It is located between the front passengers and is designed to prevent the bodies of the front passengers from colliding with each other in the event of lateral impact.

Since 2020, distal collision (Far-Side Impact) has been introduced for the first time in the European E-NCAP collision test, from which the remote airbag is named. The specific indicators are quite detailed, including remote offset (Far-Side Excursion) and occupant interaction (Occupant Interaction).

The name sounds like a mouthful, but in fact it is not difficult to understand. The former is to "throw" the vehicle on the platform and simply examine the lateral restraint effect of the seat belt without collision. The latter is to observe whether there is a collision between the two front row passengers when the side collision occurs, which is the MVP time of the distal airbag.

Explaining so much is easy to understand why one is yellow and the other is green. Remote airbags have not been used as a mandatory standard, but in order to get high scores in side impact passive safety, more and more car companies have chosen to "get on (remote airbag) cars" in the past two years. Recently, efforts have been made in this regard for self-owned car companies that have frequently stepped up their efforts at sea, as well as overseas brands that have set up factories at home and are sold to Europe.

Since the beginning of this year, E-NCAP has tested a number of domestic models exported to Europe, such as the ET7, Wei Coffee 01 / Coffee 02 (Mocha / Coffee 02), smart # 1, Euler Funky Cat (good cat), and even domestically located economical cars such as Chery O Munda and BYD ATTO 3 (Yuan PLUS), which are equipped with remote airbags when they come to Europe.

Or take Model Y as an example. Shanghai Super Factory has been exporting to Europe since mid-2021. A note has been added to Tesla's guide for car owners in Germany: vehicles manufactured at the Shanghai factory from June 27, 2022 will be equipped with airbags on both sides of the driver's seat (that is, remote airbags).

Since August 2022, Model Y, which is produced by the Shanghai factory and supplied to the Chinese market, has also added remote airbags as a standard.

In the US market where the mainstream crash test IIHS did not add the remote effect, Model Y did not add the remote airbag. So much so that the addition of remote airbags in Shanghai factories once aroused controversy among American consumers, while at first some people in China thought it was a "Chinese exclusive configuration."

However, the Model Y in North America also has its own unique configuration, and in response to local regulations, the American version of Model Y has always been equipped with front knee airbags, which are not available in European and Chinese versions.

American version of Model Y unique knee airbag so, in fact, there is no absolute sense of "conscience", the main driving factor is the local laws and regulations and collision test standards. There are no good years, but someone offends the car company for you.

Of course, this is a bit absolute, and there are indeed things like Tesla, Lulai, Polar Star, etc., and remote airbags are also standard for the domestic market that does not require relevant tests. However, there are only a few domestic models with this configuration, without exception, they all have the identity of "exporting to Europe". It can be seen that "conscience" and "by the way" all take credit.

The configuration of airbags is only a microcosm of details. The relationship between E-NCAP and domestic cars, which once seemed out of reach, has shifted from the fear of taking exams in the early years to the coming of today. All the domestic models mentioned above have won the E-NCAP five-star rating without exception.

In particular, among the domestic models of independent brands, compared with the two-star three-star show frequently in E-NCAP more than a decade ago, four stars is enough to give special notice and praise. today's independent model is like an Oriental five-Star Legion.

However, today's E-NCAP five stars cannot be compared with the past five stars. In recent years, North American IIHS is famous for its rigour in the field of car crash testing, especially with 25% bias crashes that have stolen a considerable part of the limelight. However, collision testing in Europe has actually been raising standards and bringing forth new ideas.

For example, bias collision, E-NCAP actually introduced the concept of bias collision, but the more frustrating IIHS 25% small bias collision stole the limelight. As a result, E-NCAP upgraded the bias collision standard in 2020 from 40% overlap and 64km / h impact fixed obstacles to 50% overlapping trolleys that can hit 50km / h with 50km / h impact phase.

Although the proportion of offset overlap has increased, the speed of the test vehicle relative to the obstacle has increased from the original 64km / h to 50+50=100km / h, and the test trolley with opposite speed has been hit. The fidelity of this frontal offset collision is not available in other tests in the world.

On the one hand, innovation is shown in the testing of remote effects created by E-NCAP, as mentioned earlier. On the other hand, as a move to keep pace with the times, E-NCAP increased its active safety score from 13 to 16 in the 2020 standard upgrade, and even added night tests to the automatic emergency brake test for pedestrians.

Of course, we know that car companies are fully capable and willing to make different designs, materials and configurations for the same model in different markets. The previous configuration of various airbags in various regions is a good example, not to mention the reduction of unwarranted steel materials and structures.

But in the short term, when independent brands go out to sea, more ingredients are to open new markets and enhance their international image. The initial export sales may be very limited, may not be able to support the imaginary differences in materials, at this time the security of the overseas version can explain some problems.

In the long run, going out to sea has solved the objective problem of ability, then the problem of subjective will, even if it finally remains, will finally be something that consumers have the ability to push to change.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: autocarweekly (ID:autocarweekly), article: Aohu

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.