MONTVALE, New Jersey -- Mercedes-Benz has been on a relentless quest to achieve hyper-safe accident-free driving since 1959, when it introduced the first car to feature energy-absorbing crumple zones. At long last, it's getting pretty close to reaching its goal.
The Experimental Safety Vehicle concept car essentially turns the entire vehicle into an airbag using novel metal panels that inflate moments before impact. The company's first all-out attempt at building a perfectly safe car since the original ESF in 1974 is packed with technology designed to save us from ourselves. Mercedes recently opened the doors to its North American headquarters to tell us more about the car.
Mercedes isn't alone on its quest. Volvo, to name one example, wants to offer an almost injury-proof car by 2020, and Sweden's head of traffic safety says it will be the biggest revolution in the auto industry since the seatbelt. Automakers are pouring colossal amounts of money into the campaign to increase safety, something Mercedes says is imperative.
"This is a comprehensive embodiment of our safety philosophy," Dr. Ing. Rodolfo Schöneburg, head of safety development at Mercedes, said in a statement. "The primary aim is to prevent accidents in the first place. Where this is not possible, the aim is to mitigate their effects"
The goal, he said, is not to remove the driver from the equation or absolve them of responsibility, but to aid them in maximizing safety.
"The car should provide support in the process," he said.
To that end, the "pre-safe" system in the ESF 2009 features a pair of video cameras, a long-range infrared sensor on the front fender and six short-range sensors around the car, all of them working to see accidents before they happen and react to them before we're even aware of the danger. Mercedes calls it "pre-safety." Think Minority Report but without Tom Cruise and that old murderer guy.
The pre-safety routine starts before you've even put the car in gear as the airbags automatically adjust to suit each occupant. But things really get interesting when the car senses a collision is imminent. The "Pre-Safe 360" system monitors the area around the car to a distance of 200 feet, creating an early-warning system. Should it sense an imminent collision, all kinds of cool things happen.
Within milliseconds the car moves the seats inward by as many as 50 millimeters, which Mercedes says reduces by one-third the forces acting on the occupant during a lateral impact. The system also triggers the airbags automatically, rather than waiting for the impact, and -- coolest of all -- inflates key chassis components to absorb the impending impact. Airbags may sound like old-school tech, but Mercedes is redefining them.
Automated sensors control the expansion and tension of the airbag to account for the passenger's size and weight. In other words, a fat guy will be protected by a bag that is larger and firmer than the bag deployed for a petite woman. The ESF also features airbags between the seats that inflate in a crash to protect passengers like eggs in a carton. Passengers in the back seat are protected by airbags mounted in the seatbelts, something Ford plans to offer in the 2011 Explorer.
But the really cool bit is the "braking bag" under the car. It is encased in steel and rubber and mounted at the front of the car. When deployed, it briefly increases the rate of deceleration to 20 meters per second squared and raises the car as much as 8 centimeters to minimize brake dive, which occurs when you stomp on the brake. It also lifts the front bumper to align, as closely as possible, with bumper of the car ahead. As an added bonus, Mercedes says, the force produced by the sudden lifting of the front end pushes passengers back in their seats, increasing the effectiveness of seatbelts and airbags.
Mercedes likens the braking airbag to the parachutes on a dragster and says it effectively increases the size of the crumple zone at the front of the car. Its engineers have calculated that even at 30 mph the additional deceleration provided by the bag has the same effect as lengthening the front end by 7 inches.
But wait. There's more.
When the car senses a side impact or potential rollover, the pre-safety system inflates metallic "pockets" in the body, causing them to pop out (see the diagram) and provide additional impact absorption. If you're about to get whacked from behind, the pre-safety system flashes the brake lights to warn the guy behind you, then applies the brakes to prevent you from hitting the guy ahead of you. It also activates a "neck-pro" system that minimizes the likelihood of whiplash by moving the headrests forward about 1.5 inches and up about 1 inch within milliseconds.
Couple all of these features with more standard fare like blind-spot assist, infrared cameras that highlight hazards ahead and you get a car that is damn near omnipotent in its ability to protect you from whatever trouble you might get into.
Mercedes concedes that all the safety gadgets would undoubtedly increase the cost of their cars, which already start at $33,600 here in the United States. But Mercedes says price isn't the biggest consideration for a company with a reputation for safety innovations -- and customers who tend to demand such innovations.
"When you add more features, the prices goes up,” said Michael Fehring, manager of strategy and concepts Mercedes-Benz’s development headquarters in Germany. “Ultimately, you get what you pay for.”
That said, any discussion of price is academic at this point, because the ESF is just a concept and the safety systems are still in development. Mercedes hopes to bring down the costs and offer them in all of its vehicles. When?
“Soon,” Fehring says.
The tech will most likely roll out in three phases, Fehring says. First we'll see cars with the ability to pre-trigger existing safety tools like the airbags. Next we'll see seat and headrests that adjust before impact to offer optimal protection. Then we'll get the really advanced stuff like the middle airbags, Transformer-style inflating panels and the braking bag.
Looking further down the road, Mercedes sees a day when cars can "talk" to one another using WLAN and other technology. Among other things, cars could relay warnings about bad weather ahead or obstacles in the road. Such technology is still in its infancy, but Mercedes says it is testing it. It's far fetched, but then so is most of the stuff in the ESF. That's the point.
“The ESF just shows what’s possible,” Fehring said. “Hopefully it will eventually make us all safer.”
Photos and diagrams: Mercedes-Benz
The Pre-Safe system uses inflatable metal pockets in the body that work much an air mattress to absorb impact.
The braking bag deploys like an airbag to slow and raise the car before impact.
Pre-Safe Pulse moves passengers toward the center of the car in a side-impact crash, and between-seat airbag offer more protection.
