We crashed an EQE SUV | Because it’s Mercedes-Benz Episode 2

If you're wondering why we look a little stiff today, keep watching. Should we get this car crashed? Let's do it. Three, two, one, go. As much as the automotive industry has changed over the past decades, one thing has remained the same. The worst that can happen is you get into a crash. As you can see here, when it comes to crash testing, Mercedes-Benz does not do things by half measures, except maybe for this. Now, this kind of looks like an EQS, but can you tell us what's going on here? This actually is an EQS. This is our EQS cutaway model, which shows all the different integral safety systems that we have inside this car. Safety is paramount to Mercedes-Benz. It feels like it's been part of its heritage for such a long time. We have a history of 65 years of crash testing and even more of heritage in developing passive safety systems, and all of that knowledge from all the years and all the 55 years of doing excellent research coming together in the technology of our new vehicles and also in this special exhibit here. Let's talk about it, because I'm seeing a lot of different colors. I'm seeing a lot of airbags. Is this showing all of the safety equipment that's inside the cars? Yes. The first thing you notice about the body in white is the different colors. The different colors show the different types of material we have in this car body. The first thing is the silver parts. This is just regular aluminum sheet metal, but we have very special aluminum parts like this huge dorsal here. It's made of extruded aluminum. Then we have pressure cast aluminum in this lighter blue, also here in the front. Then you see a lot of steel. We have high-strength steel, which is the red parts, and ultra-high-strength steel, which is the purple parts. This is a very intelligent and very modern material mix that make a very good safety performance to have deformation zones in exactly the parts where we need them. Now I'm guessing the reason how you know to put the different strengths of materials is because after doing all of the testing, these are the areas which are maybe affected more in crashes? Yes. There are areas which you want to be more strong in crashes and areas which have to absorb energy. For example, the B-pillar is affected in a side impact, and the B-pillar is a really important part of the occupant zone inside the car. So it has to be a very strong part to keep the occupant safe. So Julia, how many airbags are in this car right now? In this car, we have 10 airbags. So we have the frontal airbags, which you see here for the driver in the steering wheel. We have a little cutout here, so you see how it's folded in. Co-driver airbag, we have a knee bag and the center airbag. And then we have the side airbags, which come from the side of the seat, and the window airbags and also side airbags in the back. But wait, let's take a look at the long safety history at how it all started. Crash tests came up in the 1950s when Mercedes-Benz introduced passive safety technologies like the rigid safety passenger cells and crumple zones. These technologies require a lot of testing to make sure they work in various circumstances. So in 1959, the W111 series became Mercedes-Benz' first ever car crashed in a simulated accident in Sindelfingen. Of course, since this was a new testing procedure, the setup was less refined than it is today. Back then, they had the car accelerated by a rail-guided hot water rocket and crashed into fixed objects. As you can see, the testing procedures at Mercedes-Benz have evolved a lot over the last decades, and they're steadily looking for ways to get more precise information about the crashed vehicle. The most recent example is the world's first X-ray crash test they did in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute, generating 1,000 X-ray pictures per second, thus giving engineers deeper insight into the hidden structures and components during a crash. But now, let's get back to the testing sites in Sindelfingen. Hi Marcel! Hi! So there it is, our crash car. EQE SUV, which is one of our full-blooded electric cars. We are in the crash test preparation box right here, and the car is already set up for the crash. Who's inside? The dummy family is already sitting inside the car. Look at the dummies, it's like a whole family. Are those kids in there? Yeah, we have dummies of different sizes, adults, kids, and in this case, we have the whole family in the car. So it's quite cute. And as you can see, there are no suitcases or something like this, but we have lots of measuring equipment right here. There's an internal storage also in the dummies, and all the data that is coming from the dummies and all the other devices has to be collected somewhere, and then we have one big cable where all the data is getting into our control room. Is there a reason why all of the crash test cars are orange? Is that an industry thing or just a Mercedes-Benz thing? It's something that comes from our history. Some decades ago, we had black and white filming, and we found out that orange was the best colour to have a nice contrast in those black and white videos. Oh, there you go. I can see these cameras attached to the side of the car here. Do these actually travel during the crash like this? Yes, they do. These are our on-board cameras, you can see here, but also in the interior, where we can take a closer look to the dummies and how they move during the crash. 1000 frames per second right here. I want to learn more about these dummies inside. So let's just go to the dummy lab, and you can learn more about them from Julia. Cool, sounds great. Let's go. Come in, guys. Wow, you weren't joking when you said it was a family. Yes, welcome to the dummy laboratory. How many dummies are there in here? This is the home of 120 crash test dummies. Wow. I feel like they're all different sizes, different ages. Yes, there are several different variations of dummies. You see here, this is the hybrid 3 model, which is a dummy for frontal impacts with a 5% female, 50% male, and 95% male. And then we have newer versions of frontal impact dummies, for example, the 4 right here. And then we also have children's dummies, the 6-year-old and also the 10-year-old over there. I feel like calling them a dummy is almost not doing them justice. There's so much more to them. I'm looking here and you can see all the data collecting electronics. They've got a metal rib cage. These are super expensive, but there's a reason why. They have really a lot of measuring equipment inside them. So like the hybrid 3, they have about 80 measuring points inside of their bodies. So they can measure forces and accelerations that are coming onto the occupant's body. And the newer one, the 4, has up to 150 measuring points. You mentioned 5%, 50%, and 95%. Can you just break that down for us really quick? Let's start with the 5% female. This is the female dummy that we use, and we've been using female dummies for over 20 years now. And the size of the dummy actually means that only 5% of the female population is smaller and lighter than this dummy. Then we have the 50% male, which is here in the middle. 50% of the males in the population are larger and also heavier. And 50% are lighter and smaller. And the 95% male represents the larger part of the population. What's the importance of them wearing clothes? Because I would imagine you could just have the dummies without clothes. Why do you guys clothe them? You can't have them naked. There are several requirements for the dummies. And one requirement is what they're wearing, and of course the shoes. You see, some of them have shoes on. And also the shoes are painted so we can better see what happens to the feet during the impact. Yeah, this one probably needs a new shoe. I think we can make that work. There's a lot of electronics in these dummies. Do you guys have to maintain all that equipment? Yes, therefore we have this dummy laboratory so that we can change parts out, we can change sensors, and we also have to test the dummies every couple of crash tests to make sure that they are still measuring the right forces and accelerations. Sounds great. Shall we see it? Yeah, let's go and see it. Let's go. So now we are on the crash track. And this is basically one of three crash tracks that we have in that huge building. This is cool. What are we about to see here? What kind of crash? Today we're going to see a crash with our EQE SUV, our Mercedes car, against a generic trolley we can see over there. And this is basically a most recent consumer rating test that we're going to show today. How fast is this crash going to be? It's going to be 56 km per hour each, so the car will be 56, and the trolley as well. So we're going to have a relative speed of even 112 kph today. Come on guys, I want to see this. Let's go. Alright, we're in position. We're in a really good vantage point where we can see everything. Should we get this car crashed? Let's do it. Let's go. 3, 2, 1, go. Wait! Are they okay? Should we go down there and check it out? Yeah, let's go see. Okay then. First things first, how are the passengers? How are the kids? Yeah, let's take a look. I think the kids are quite okay. Looks good. It's actually very impressive. I always can't believe how bad it looks, but actually everything is fine inside the car. It seems like the more deformation there is, the safer it is for the people inside. We can see the activated crumple zone here in this case, and we see that so much material was deformed to absorb energy, which is part of the safety system. The doors are still okay, and I would like to invite you to try to open the door. Oh yeah, that's impressive. Oh, you can see on the airbag where the paint has gone on there as well. Yeah, exactly. We use the paint to see if the interaction between the airbags and the occupants is working well. One of the things I noticed about when the car crashed is immediately after, there was a certain smell. What was that? Yeah, very well observed. That was just the gas from the airbag deployment. The windows are lowered to get some fresh air into the interior and to give the chance to the gases to go out of the car. Considering that it was over 100 kph impact speed, the car's not in bad shape. It looks pretty bad up front, but everybody inside seems to be in good shape. Yes. So after crashes like these, how do you clean this all up? Actually, that's part of the job of our visitors, so I think it's up to you. Let me get back to you on that. Well that was an intense day here at the crash testing site at Mercedes-Benz, but one thing we did take away was to be the best, you have to prepare for the worst. And if you enjoyed watching, stay tuned for our next episode. I think you're going to like it.