There are cars out there that carry quite a hefty price tag. When it comes to crash tests, how do manufacturers ensure the safety of those expensive vehicles without losing tons of money?
APEX ONE helped to answer that question by going behind the crash-test scenes of Swedish manufacturer of high-performance sports cars Koenigsegg Automotive AB. Their vehicles can hit million dollar figures.
According to automotive news outlet JALOPNIK, “If a major automaker needs to perform 16 crash tests for their new $25,000 sedan they can crash 16 cars and only lose $400,000 worth of product. For a company like Koenigsegg, 16 cars is a year’s worth of production and a $30 million loss. Imagine if Toyota had to crash 900,000 cars every time they came out with a new generation of Toyota Camry.”
To meet all test parameters, Koenigsegg must crash their high-priced vehicles from every conceivable angle at different speeds, according to Koenigsegg CEO and Co-Founder Von Koenigsegg.
To save money, the company designed their chassis, which uses a carbon fiber monocoque with an aluminum honeycomb core structure, to withstand all the crash tests without being destroyed, JALOPNIK reports. Importantly, it’s the most expensive part of the car, meaning they don’t have to keep creating new ones every time someone strikes it with a hammer or runs it into a wall.
Koenigsegg’s CEO explains that a supercomputer in their basement crash simulates carbon fiber structures, which reduces some risk during the actual physical tests.
To learn more, and watch some expensive cars drive through the gauntlet, click on the video below.