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| A collision safety performance test of Hyundai Motor's IONIQ 5 takes place at Hyundai Motor Group's Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. Courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group |
By Baek Byung-yeul
Hyundai Motor has demonstrated the safety of the IONIQ 5 as the electric vehicle (EV) crashed into a 100-ton installation at 64 kilometers per hour and the passenger seat remained intact in a self-propelled crash test, the carmaker said Sunday.
The company conducted the crash safety test for the media at its Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday.
In the test, about 40 percent of the width of the IONIQ 5 crashed into a wall weighing 100 tons to assess the degree of safety for passengers in the vehicle, which is similar to a moderate overlap frontal test conducted by the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
At the IIHS' moderate overlap frontal test, the 2022 year model of the IONIQ 5 earned "G" (good) rating, which is the highest rating.
"Hyundai Motor Group designs vehicles equally regardless of whether the models are for the domestic market or exports. The automotive group is also doing its best to advance safety technology by conducting more than 100 collision tests," the company said.
Hyundai added that it performs over 3,000 virtual collision simulations per vehicle on average before conducting the actual collision test.
"Using super computers, the virtual collision simulation can create various collision situations to verify the safety performance of each car model without conducting the actual tests. This helps us reduce the development time and costs," the group said.
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| Observers take a look at the damaged IONIQ 5 after the car conducted the crash test at Hyundai Motor Group's Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. Courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group |
When developing a new automobile, the group spends around 10 billion won ($8.08 million) per car model for crash testing. "Numerous rounds of crash tests are carried out for various collision situations that can actually occur," the group said.
Hyundai Motor Group also conducts a safety verification process after the crash tests. The process is divided into immediate checks right after the collision and an analysis process.
Immediately after the crash test, the group focuses on the vehicle's speed and impacted area and checks in detail whether the vehicle meets the safety performance requirements. Examples are deformation of the vehicle's body, oil leakage, fire and safety of restraint devices such as airbags and seat belts.
Thanks to these the efforts, a total of 26 vehicles of Hyundai Motor Group received the TOP SAFETY PICK+, the highest rank, and the TOP SAFETY PICK at last year's IIHS test.
"Based on the philosophy of customer safety first, we are making every effort to develop the best products on the market," Baek Chang-in, head of the integrated safety performance development division at Hyundai Motor, said. "We will continue to do our best to come up with vehicles with higher safety performance."
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