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Automotive Testing
5
Things You Didn't Know About Automotive Testing
BY AKLELI PARKER
Each
year, car enthusiasts salivate at the prospect of seeing what bleeding-edge
designs automakers will unveil on the car show circuit.
Those
same enthusiasts are often disappointed when the amazing concepts still haven't
made it to the auto dealer's showroom floor several years later.
But
before any new car model can ever go on sale to the public, it must first
undergo a battery of testing to make sure it'll be safe, reliable and
reasonably in tune with the demands of the motoring public.
The
government demands some of this testing, while other major components of it are
devised by the car companies themselves in an effort to ensure they meet
specific standards for performance, fuel economy, comfort and other measures.
The
popular conception of car testing is pretty narrow -- sure, most of us are
familiar with the slow-motion crash-test videos that companies run in
commercials to advertise their cars' safety.
And
if you're a performance car fan, you're no doubt familiar with scenes of sleek
muscle machines gobbling asphalt on winding road-course tracks in Germany or
Japan.
But
car testing is much more. There are aspects of it that you might find
surprising, quirky or even downright bizarre.
It's
with these not-so-well-known areas of car testing in mind that we offer you
these 5 things you didn't know about car testing.
These
factoids not only make great cocktail party conversation, but you'll also gain
a much greater appreciation for the untold numbers of cars that gave their
lives, so that you could drive your vehicle.
How do those crash ratings actually
work, anyway?
Car commercials, if they can legitimately make the
claim, like to brag about things like getting a "five-star" safety
rating.
For
a large segment of the driving public, knowing that one's family is
well-protected in case of a crash is a top buying consideration.
But
besides being a great marketing hook, what does that bit of safety info really
mean?
To
help answer that, you should know that it's actually two bodies that conduct
crash testing to determine a car's safety rating.
One
is the federal government -- specifically, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA).
The
NHTSA has been responsible for mandating many of the safety features that we
often take for granted -- things like seat belts and padded dashboards.
The
other major testing body is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS),
an organization supported by the major car insurance firms.
The
two testing bodies actually use two different ratings criteria (as well as
having somewhat different crash test procedures).
The
NHTSA uses the star system we're all aware of from car commercials.
The
frontal crash ratings, for instance, go from poorest, which is one star (46
percent or higher chance of serious injury in a collision), to the best, which
is five stars (chances of being seriously injured in a collision are just 10
percent or less).
The
IIHS simply ranks vehicles as Poor, Marginal, Acceptable or Good.
Those
ratings are conferred after literally a battery of crash tests that include
frontal collisions -- up to 40 miles per hour (64.4 kilometers per hour), side
collisions and rollover tests [source: Greco].
Car
testers cover a lot of ground, from ride and handling to interior rattling to
how well the heating and air work.
Automakers
generally work really hard at eliminating noise, so it might come as a surprise
to learn that there's a certain type of vehicle they actually want to make some
noise.
Tests to Cease Electric Cars' Silent
Running
You know how electric cars are barely audible when
they're puttering around at low speed?
And
you know how you sometimes rely on the sound of a car or truck to determine how
close it is or what direction it's coming from?
Well,
the fact that electric vehicles are so quiet has many people worried about
potential carnage in the streets as the vehicles gain in popularity.
They're
worried about a wave of pedestrian injuries and perhaps fatalities, because the
quiet of electrics makes them harder to recognize as hazards.
For
that reason, testing is taking place for artificial sounds that can be added to
electric vehicles -- simply to make them louder. Of course one of the things that
make electric vehicles special is the fact they don't have the sound of
internal combustion vehicles. No matter how refined, the internal combustion
engine is merely a series of controlled explosions. Electrics, however, are a
completely different technology and almost demand their own signature sound.
Researchers
at Warwick University in England are experimenting with an electric van
specially equipped to emit a number of fake but plausible noises for electrics.
Part
of the testing includes driving the van around the Warwick campus and asking
the opinion of people in the vicinity.
At
the time of this writing, you could even take an online immersive survey (complete
with 3-D animation and van sounds).
Is
car testing reserved for the driving elite, those skilled pilots able to
navigate twisting closed courses at breakneck speeds?
Or
need you be a clipboard-wielding technician able to measure every technical
quirk of the car in question? The answer might surprise you.
Regular Folks Are Testers, Too
When vehicle manufacturers have a radically different
car that might make a significant impact on drivers' behavior, they'll recruit
large testing groups from the general public.
Having
a diversity of people makes it more likely to expose the car to the types of
strains and stressed it would receive if it was sold to the public.
These
studies, while large and expensive, help automakers determine the feasibility
of certain cars as well as areas of improvement prior to making them available
for sale in volume.
One
of the better-known of these experiments was with General Motors's EV1, GM's
infamous aborted experiment with electric vehicles.
The
drama was hashed out in the 2006 documentary film "Who Killed the Electric
Car?"
Starting
in 1996, GM needed to know if the cars' performance would hold up to the needs
of everyday car drivers.
Did
it accelerate fast enough to be compatible with driving on the highway? Would
it go far enough not to strand drivers?
Would
drivers be willing to modify their driving to accommodate the limitations of
the car?
And
it all boiled down to the one question, was there a big enough market to make
production worthwhile?
The
many everyday individuals who had won slots to test GM's EV1 electric car (some
for years) were aghast when they were informed that GM was canceling the
program and destroying the cars.
On
a more upbeat note, Nissan benefited from citizen testers' reports in 2009 and
2010, driving the all-electric LEAF.
The
company could provide estimates of how far the LEAF would go on a single
battery charge.
But
only with real-world testing, by many people and under a range of conditions
could the company get accurate numbers for what buyers can actually expect.
For
some reason, most of us just can't avert our gaze from a car crash, whether it
happened moments ago and is now a roadside spectacle, or if we're watching it
as it happens.
Then
we feel bad about it. But there's a way you can watch car crashes guilt-free,
too.
Watch Your Car Get Smashed to Bits
Crash testing is just a sliver of all the testing that
takes place involving the new cars entering the market. But it happens to be
one of the most exciting and dramatic.
And
what could be more dramatic -- and possibly even reassuring -- than seeing the
model of car you own being put through its crash testing paces?
Not
all car models available have videos associated with them, but there is a
fairly good cross-section of mainstream consumer vehicles.
The
tests show crashes at normal speed, in slow motion and slow motion close-ups of
the dummy occupant.
Some
people might find the occupant close-ups a bit disturbing -- you can imagine
the trauma and emotional pain that such collisions might cause a real person,
if you've never experienced it for yourself.
But
the truth is, the sacrifice of those cars and the dummies provides us with a
wealth of knowledge for both making cars safer and for making better-informed
buying decisions based on vehicle safety.
Plastic
dummies give us a rough approximation of what to expect when testing vehicles
for their crashworthiness.
Alas,
as it has been sung, ain't nothing like the real thing.
Crash Test Cadavers
In the commercials, we marvel at the slo-mo camera
work as it captures what happens when a few thousand pounds of glass and steel
meet an immovable barrier at high speed.
The
occupants, which are clearly inanimate dummies, are tossed about like rag dolls
but for their lap and shoulder restraints.
We
see the crumple zones work as advertised, breathe a sigh of relief and perhaps
silently thank the dummies for their service.
What
many people aren't aware of, however, is that real human bodies -- cadavers --
have played a significant role in crash safety testing.
And
they still do, although they're not used nearly as much as they were at one
time.
It
turns out that even dead people aren't immune from the diminished work
prospects brought about by more efficient computers and the general advancement
of the industry.
These
days, crash cadavers are most useful in their ability to let researchers know how
smash-ups affect internal organs.
For
just about everything else that once fell to the human body, computer modeling
has largely taken the place of corpses.
What's
more, while still not perfect, today's car interiors have reached a level of
safety beyond which it will be difficult to make much significant progress.
Researchers
are instead turning much of their focus to technologies that can help prevent
accidents from occurring in the first place.
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