CRASH TEST

It’s easy to gauge the safety of a house. The strength of the doors and windows will indicate that. But what happens inside a four-wheeled vehicle! Mere doors and windows don’t protect the passengers sitting inside the car. There are multiple methods that have been incorporated by the auto companies in order to address this common concern. Seat belts, airbags, ABS, EBD and collapsible steering are all such items that aim to improve the safety index of a passenger car. Now, how does a company or an auto association regulate this index? The answer is crash tests. There are various forms of crash tests that are pressed upon the vehicles and the effects are rated by experts depending on the damage done to the dummy sitting behind the wheels. 

The countries across the world have resorted to various acceptance levels of this rating, largely depending upon the development of the domestic auto industry.

The various forms of crash testing are:-

• Frontal 
•  Frontal off-set
• Side on
• Steering impact
• Seat-belt anchorage
• Rear impact
• Roof strength
• Roll over testing
• Component testing like- a.     Pedestrian; b.      Child safety

The testing methods of some of the above mentioned ones are given below:-

FRONTAL

·         40 % ± 20 mm overlap in 56 km/h. (EU); 30 mph 0^o ± 30^o (USA)

·         Deformable barrier (AL honeycomb).

·          Two Hybrid III dummies in the front seats (injury criteria).

·         No door is allowed to open during test and the front doors may not bejammed.

·         It should be possible to open at least one door per passenger row without tools after crash and the maximum force needed to unbuckle the crash test dummy is 60 N. Further on, the dummy must be removable without adjusting the seats.

·         The fuel leakage may not exceed 30 g/min.

India follows the USA version.

SIDE IMPACT

·         A movable deformable barrier (MBD) weight of 950 ± 20 kg

·         Ground clearance: 300 ± 5 mm

·         Velocity: 50 ± 1 km/h (EU); The barrier strikes the vehicle oblique to simulate a speed of

30 mph for the striking vehicle and 15 mph p g p for the struck vehicle.(USA)

·         EUROSID crash test dummy

India follows the USA version but only the static impact

REAR COLLISION

For this test, a moving barrier of weight 4000 lbs and speed 30 mph is made to hit the car.

COUNTRY – WISE CRASH TESTING REGULATION

India

·         Frontal crash

·         steering impact

·         seat-belt anchorage

Europe

·         Steering Mechanism Impact

·         Seat Belt Anchorage

·         Restraints and Safety Belts

·         Seat Anchorages & Head Restraints

·         Non-incorporated Head Restraints

·         Rear-End Collision

·         Child Restraints in Power Driven Vehicles

·         Frontal Collision Safety

·         Occupant Protection in Lateral Collision

United States of America

·         Interior head impact

·         Interior head impact (Pole)

·         Interior head impact (Upper)

·         Head Impact

·         Head Restraints

·         Steering Control Impact

·         Steering Control Rearward Displacement

·         Seating

·         Occupant Crash Protection

·         Seat Belt Assemblies

·         Anchorages for Seat Belt Assemblies

·         Child Restraint System

·         Protection from Side-Impact

·         Protection from Rear-Impact

·         Anchorage Systems for Child Restraints

KOREA

·         Full-wrap frontal collision test (against a rigid barrier at 56km/h)

·         Offset frontal collision test (against a deformable barrier at 64km/h)

·         Side collision test (against a moving barrier at 55km/h)

·         Pedestrian (head and leg) protection performance test

·         Neck protection test in a rear-end collision

·         Braking performance test

·         Roll over test

CHINA

·         Full-wrap frontal collision test (including AF05 passenger in rear seats)(against a rigid barrier at 50km/h)

·         Offset frontal collision test (including AF05 passenger in rear seats)(against a deformable barrier at 56km/h)

·         Side collision test (against a moving barrier at 50km/h)

·         Installation seatbelt reminder, ISO-FIX anchorage assessment

AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND

·         Offset frontal collision test (against a deformable barrier at 64km/h)

·         Side collision test (optionally pole test)(against a pole at 29km/h)

·         Pedestrian (head and leg) protection performance test

·         Installation of ESC equipment

This clearly shows that cars available in the Indian market are not the safest. ARAI needs to bring in stricter norms for the companies to adhere. Else, the customers will continue to suffer from lack of safety in the cars.

PASSENGER CAR SEGMENTS – INDIA

A 3-million huge industry cannot be devoid of some classical segmentization. India’s passenger car industry is broken down into multiple segments. This is done for ease of understanding and improved competition among manufacturers to get bigger pies of particular segments.

While there are multiple ways of segmenting this industry like based on price and engine size but the most prevalent and the official method is based on dimension. i.e. the length of the vehicle under consideration.

A1 Segment - Mini – Up to 3400mm (M800, Nano)
A2 Segment - Compact – 3401 to 4000mm (Alto, wagon r, Zen,i10,A-star,Swift,i20,palio,indica etc)
A3 Segment – Midsize – 4001 to 4500mm (Manza, City, Sx4, Dzire, Logan, Accent, Fiesta, Verna etc)
A4 Segment - Executive – 4501 to 4700mm (Corolla, civic, C class, Cruze, Optra, Octavia etc)
A5 Segment - Premium – 4701 to 5000mm (Camry, E class, Accord, Sonata, Laura, Superb etc)
A6 Segment – Luxury – Above 5000mm (Mercedes S class, 5 series etc)
B1 Segment - Van – Omni, Versa, Magic etc
B2 Segment - MUV/MPV – Innova, Tavera, Sumo etc
SUV Segment - CRV, Vitara etc

While its easy for SIAM to segment the vehicles as per dimensions but for consumers, it becomes a tad difficult. This is primarily because of the widely varying / spread out prices of the vehicles.  A 2 segment, as per the above criterion, will range between 3 lakhs to 7 lakhs. And A 3 will be between 4.5 to 9 lakhs. Such wide variation in prices has distorted the image of segments in the minds of consumers. 

Hence, for simplicity purposes, a different segmentation has cropped up. The details are as follows:-

A Segment – Approximately below 3.5 lakhs - Alto, Eon, Nano, Spark, 800
B 1 Segment – Hatchback largely below 6 lakhs – Wagon R, Indica, Beat, Santro, A Star, Micra, Estilo
B 2 Segment – Hatchback majorly below 7.5 lakhs – Swift, I 10, I 20, Ritz, Figo, Polo, Liva, Vista, Jazz, Punto, Brio, Fabia, Pulse, Aveo UVA
C 1 Segment – Sedan below 8 lakhs – Dzire, Indigo, Etios, Sunny, Fiesta Classic, Verito, Accent, Ambassador, Aveo

C 2 Segment – Sedan below 9.5 lakhs – Linea, Manza, Verna, Rapid, Vento, City, SX 4, Verna New, Optra
D 1 Segment - Premium Sedan below 15 lakhs – Corolla, Civic, Cruze, Laura, Jetta, Fluence
D 2 Segment – Luxury Sedan below 25 lakhs– Superb, Passat, Accord, Camry, Sonata, Teana, Kizashi
B1 Segment - Van – Omni, Versa, Magic etc
B2 Segment - MUV/MPV – Innova, Tavera, Sumo etc
SUV Segment - CRV, Vitara etc

Now, lets see how the volumes stack up segment wise.

If we consider the 1^st Quarter of 2012-13, then total vehicle sales has been around 6.32 lakh units.

The hatchback segments has totaled to 56% of the entire passenger car sales in India. This comes to 355857 units. This clearly shows the popularity of smaller cars in the Indian market. Alto continues to be the top selling brand with 17422 in July. It is followed by Swift (11421) and Wagon R (9582) – all Maruti brands. This is an indication of how well the Maruti team has understood the Indian market. i 10, I 20, Nano, Beat, Figo, Santro & Polo are some of the high selling models in these segments and these models continue to clock more than 3000 units monthly. Nano has been a disappointment so far with huge expectations but it is showing some kind of resilience off late. Lets see how Tata Motors team takes this special car ahead!

 

As a segment, the Utility segment is showing the maximum growth. In fact, this segment has outclassed the other popular segments of A, B 1 & B 2.  With 128110 units under its hood in the 1^st quarter, the segment is definitely making some good progress.  Maruti’s Ertiga, Mahindra’s XUV 500 & Bolero has been instrumental in pushing the volumes of this segment. Innova and Omni too are raking in good numbers. What has been disappointing is the performance from the Tata Motors stable. Venture, Safari and Sumo have been showing steady decline in the numbers per se but definitely possess huge potential to challenge the other models.

Among the sedans, Maruti Dzire continues to lead the pack. With 11413 numbers in July, it is way ahead of its next model Verna (5300). The iconic models of City, Linea, SX4 have been showing consistent degrowth and seriously calls for some introspection by their respective manufacturers. Vento & Rapid also showed some slack but given the aggression of VW and Nissan, it wont be long before they start to pull in good numbers. Tata’s Indigo and Manza were on a slightly negative terrain all these months but somehow the trend has been reversed in July. 6816 for these 2 models augurs well for the company and lets hope the reversed trend continues. Frankly speaking, these 2 models are real value for money and pose serious threat to Maruti’s Dzire.