Crumple zones are part of the tough safety shell of our cars, helping to protect you and your passengers in the event of an accident. Our cars are designed and engineered with a range of safety features1 to help protect you and your passengers in any eventuality. All our cars are built with a tough safety shell. We 'test-drive' our designs through accurate, computer-simulated accidents to make sure the safety shell stays intact when you need it to. To further enhance your safety, we include crumple zones at the front and rear of the shell. Crumple zones are designed to absorb impact energy during a collision so that most of the energy is dissipated across these zones, and not in your passenger compartment. The strong outer shell comes with front and rear crumple zones that help to absorb the impact of a crash, increasing the safety of occupants. The occupant cell is the space in your car containing the driver and passengers. It forms a rigid safety cage and in contrast to the crumple zones of the car body, it is not easily deformed. It is designed to protect the survival space of occupants in accidents up to a certain severity of impact. We use measures such as crash tests to continually improve the safety of our occupant cells. In the event of an accident, the driver's feet and lower legs can be at risk of injury, depending on the type and severity of the collision. In order to reduce that risk we make carefully calculated use of deformation elements for the pedals and foot rest. The deformation of the front bulkhead in the EuroNCAP offset crash test, for example, leads to deliberate free movement of the pedals above a defined force level. This disconnects the pedals from the intrusion, so they remain mobile and exercise very little force, reducing the risk of foot and lower leg injuries. Our active roll-over protection system is situated behind the rear head restraints. It works with the reinforced windscreen frame to provide extra crash protection for all the occupants. At the heart of the system are sensors that constantly monitor the car's progress. Should they detect the risk of a rollover or impact, a dual-lever release system automatically turns the rear head restraints into a pair of robust rollover bars. These bars are housed in special cassettes bolted to the luggage compartment wall behind the rear seats. Once activated, they shoot upwards and are securely locked into place within 250 milliseconds. Impact absorption or deformation zones are designed to help protect you and your passengers in the event of an accident. We include impact absorption or deformation zones at the front and rear of the body shell. They are designed to absorb impact energy during a crash so that most of the energy is dissipated across these zones, and not in your passenger compartment. They do this by collapsing in a controlled fashion. We design our cars so the engine and boot function as rugged, but ultimately deformable, impact absorption or deformation zones.Occupant cell
Footprotection
Roll-over bar system
Deformation zones
FAQs
Are crumple zones effective? ›
Modern vehicles utilizing crumple zones provide far superior protection for their occupants in severe tests against other vehicles with crumple zones and solid static objects than older car models or SUVs that use a separate chassis frame and have no crumple zones.
What is the main reason for crumple zones in a car? ›In a crash, crumple zones help transfer some of the car's kinetic energy into controlled deformation, or crumpling, at impact. This may create more vehicle damage, but the severity of personal injury likely will be reduced.
Where are these crumple zones in cars currently? ›To further enhance your safety, we include crumple zones at the front and rear of the shell. Crumple zones are designed to absorb impact energy during a collision so that most of the energy is dissipated across these zones, and not in your passenger compartment.
Do crumple zones increase stopping distance? ›Crumple zones in vehicles are designed to increase the stopping time or stopping distance during a head - on collision.
What are the disadvantages of crumple zones? ›ADVANTAGES. The main disadvantage of crumple design in cars is that they greatly increase the cost of repairs after collision. Because the crumple design is so effective, even after a minor impact, the car will often be un-drivable and must be repaired.
How many lives do crumple zones save? ›In addition to other car safety features such as seat belts and airbags, crumple zones are likely responsible for hundreds of thousands of lives saved over the years.
Are crumple zones mandatory in the US? ›Crumple zones. All new vehicles are required to have crumple zones for passenger protection. Crumple zones work to absorb crash energy within the outer parts of a vehicle, instead of transferring the crash energy to passengers. The car will ultimately act as a safety shell for passengers.
Are cars designed to crumple? ›Your Car is Meant to Crumple
The safety features in modern cars have come a long way. They are designed to absorb as much of the damage – or force – as possible during a car accident.
Crumple zones reduce and redistribute the initial force of the crash. The entire car, however, cannot serve as a crumple zone—they still need to have a strong, rigid frame that keeps passengers from crumpling with the vehicles. Also, there are parts of the vehicle that can't have crumple zone areas, such as the engine.
Do older cars have crumple zones? ›Features like air bags, seat belts, crumple zones, and a bevy of automated safety technologies have dramatically improved passenger safety — features that may be absent from a classic car, depending on how old it is.
Do electric cars have crumple zones? ›
Frontal Crumple Zones: Traditional vehicles need to accommodate large engines in the front, which can impact the effectiveness of the crumple zone in a frontal collision. EVs often have an advantage here, with a “frunk” (front trunk) providing an added buffer.
Do SUVs have crumple zones? ›Designed with crumple zones to absorb impacts, though the effectiveness can vary depending on the SUV's design and size. Feature crumple zones engineered for impact absorption, potentially more optimized due to the vehicle's uniform shape and design.
Is it better to bounce or crumple? ›In the previous chapter we learned that bounce was bad when it comes to minimizing the force on the body during a collision. The purpose of crumple zones is to ensure that very little of the kinetic energy remains after the collision by making them very inelastic.
What would happen without crumple zones? ›Not built with an efficient crumple zone, which generally may lead to tend to two different problems during a crash scenario: Excessive deceleration on the occupants; The cabin could detach from the frame and cause injuries due to vehicle intrusions into occupant space.
How effective are crumple zones? ›Presently, a car with a well-designed crumple zone can absorb about 25% of the impact from either the front or rear.
Do crumple zones reduce impulse? ›Crumple zones are sections in cars that are designed to crumple up when the car encounters a collision. Crumple zones minimize the effect of the force in an automobile collision in two ways. By crumpling, the car is less likely to rebound upon impact, thus minimizing the momentum change and the impulse.
What would happen if we didn't have crumple zones? ›Crumple zones are interesting scientific innovations. On the one hand, the car needs to crumple in, to absorb impact in an accident. But the car can't entirely just crush in, otherwise it would not only intrude on the passengers inside, but could also end up damaging vital—and flammable—parts of the car.