Last week in Japan, Car Showroom visited Toyota’s massive Higashi-Fuji technical centre and witnessed a 55km/h offset head-on crash test between a Toyota Yaris and a Toyota Crown.
When asked about the various EuroNCAP and ANCAP barrier test standards, Toyota’s project general manager, Yuichi Kitagawa said: “As well as passing tests to get ratings, Toyota believes it is more important to protect occupants in real-world impacts.” In that context, Toyota crash tests more than 1600 vehicles each year and the in-door facility can test two-car impacts from seven angles (0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 degrees). As well as car-to-car and barrier tests, Toyota also undertakes several different types of rollover tests.
And Toyota leads the world in the development of crash test ‘dummies’ – selling its ‘Thums’ dummies to other vehicle manufacturers and research facilities. We saw the latest ‘Hybrid3’ dummy, the only one in the world and valued at $2.6-million as well as the 25 SIDs (side-impact dummy) – again the only ones in the world), each with 200 sensors to measure impacts (that’s six times the world standard).
Nevertheless, the local ANCAP has announced 12 additions to its list of vehicles which have achieved its maximum five-star safety rating. They are:
• BMW 1 Series
• Citroen C4
• Citroen DS3
• Ford Falcon FG MkII sedan and ute
• Ford Kuga
• Holden Captiva Series 2
• Kia Optima
• Kia Rio
• Mazda BT-50
• Mercedes-Benz M-Class
• Volkswagen Jetta
• Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet
