Geely Automobile Safety Technology Strategy Analysis from European Collision

This four-star result is historic for Chinese cars, indicating that Chinese self-owned brands have the ability and strength to sprint to the world's highest level in the field of safety technology. Geely Emgrand has thus become the safest Chinese self-owned brand car. It is understood that previously Chinese self-owned brands only received a maximum of two stars in the Euro NCAP test.

On November 23, Euro New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) announced on its official website that the Chinese self-owned brand Geely Emgrand EC7 (GEELY EMG(微)RAND EC7) achieved a 4-star safety rating. In this regard, Euro NCAP Secretary General Michiel van Ratingen commented, "This result is a milestone for the Chinese automobile industry. It shows that Chinese automobile manufacturers have rapidly increased their development experience and have rapidly increased their investment in vehicle safety. Even if the evaluation requirements continue to increase in the future, a 5-star result will soon be achieved."

On January 6, Geely held the "Geely Safety Technology Analysis Conference" in Beijing to explain Geely's historic breakthrough in safety collision technology.

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

How good is the performance of Emgrand EC7?

As mentioned above, the Emgrand EC7 is the first Chinese self-owned brand model in the history of Euro NCAP to receive a four-star rating. However, if you conduct further analysis and comparison, you will find that the Emgrand EC7's score is far from being just an ordinary four-star. In fact, it is a four-star rating that is very close to five-stars! In the four major test items, the Emgrand EC7 has reached the Euro NCAP five-star standard in three items: child protection, pedestrian protection, and safety assistance. Only the adult protection item scored 27 points, which is only 2 points away from the five-star requirement. Moreover, Euro NCAP began to implement stricter new regulations in 2010. If the EC7's test results were evaluated according to the previous 2009 version of the standards, it would have received a five-star rating. In other words, compared with many models that received Euro NCAP five-stars in the 2009 test, the EC7's results are not inferior at all.

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

Let's compare them in detail to see how good the Emgrand EC7 is. From the results released by Euro NCAP this time, the SAIC MG6, which has "foreign pedigree", also got four stars, but its score is far lower than that of the Emgrand EC7; while the Jaguar XF, Renault Fluence ZE, Fiat Panda and JEEP's Grand Cherokee, which are from "famous families", also got four stars.

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

Going back to 2009, since Euro NCAP adopted the comprehensive scoring mechanism, there are still 30 or 40 models at the same level as Geely Emgrand EC7. Table 3 lists the models with a total score of 70-74%. These models are all rated four stars under the 2010 version of the standard. It can be seen that there are many models from world-renowned brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Citroen, Peugeot, Honda, etc. Under the Euro NCAP standard, our Chinese Emgrand EC7 has the same safety performance as these models!

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

The Emgrand EC7 is full of technology

Speaking of Euro NCAP, it is currently the most influential safety assessment organization in the international automotive industry, and one of the most authoritative evaluations recognized by the majority of automobile manufacturers and consumers. It is especially famous for its independent operating model, open and fair grading standards, and rigorous and scientific testing methods. It is notoriously "strict". According to Zhao Fuquan, vice president of Geely Group, Euro NCAP's test content includes frontal collision, side collision, column side collision and rear impact collision. The evaluation indicators are divided into four categories: adult protection, child protection, pedestrian protection and safety assistance, totaling more than 30 items, involving nearly 1,000 test and examination data. In order to obtain a certain star in the evaluation, in addition to the scores in each category must meet the requirements, the total weighted score must also meet the requirements of the corresponding star, that is, each item must be good, and cannot be "biased". This will test the hard power of each automobile manufacturer more and more. In order to get a high star, every link cannot be ignored. If you use one word to express it, it is "difficult"!

And it is the solid hard work that Geely's R&D team relies on. According to Zhao Fuquan, Geely's engineers have done a lot of meticulous development work to make EC7 meet European design standards. The car not only has good active and passive safety performance, but also meets a series of very difficult European environmental protection requirements such as Euro V emission standards and material recycling regulations. As far as safety development is concerned alone, Geely has invested a lot of manpower and material resources in design and development, CAE simulation and test verification. A total of more than 200 R&D personnel participated in the safety development of EC7, and more than 100 vehicle collision tests, more than 180 slide tests, hundreds of component verification tests and a large number of simulation analyses have been carried out. It is the result of more than 3 years of hard work by Geely's R&D team. The following is an analysis of the various test results and technical content of Emgrand EC7:

1. Adult protection

In terms of adult protection, EC7 fully considers the close relationship between passenger space and surrounding contact parts. Through multiple rounds of optimization of the overall layout, the comfort of the ergonomic layout of the passenger space and the requirements of collision safety layout are comprehensively considered, and the factors affecting the passenger compartment layout space and interior design on passenger protection are reasonably controlled and managed. Compared with the B-class models of the same level, Geely Emgrand EC7 has more sufficient front passenger layout space. The distance from the passenger's chest to the center of the steering wheel is about 330mm, and the distance from the knee joint to the instrument panel is about 175mm. Sufficient passenger layout space plays an extremely important role in the protection of passengers in frontal offset collisions.

The side of the Emgrand EC7 model also has sufficient space for passenger arrangement. Through design optimization, it ensures that during the door intrusion process, the abdomen, hips and other parts of the occupants that are not easily injured fully absorb the collision energy, thereby effectively protecting the parts of the occupants that are easy to lose points (such as the ribs of the occupants), and improving the overall score of the occupants in the side impact and side pole impact tests. The design of the Emgrand EC7 door interior panel corresponding to the abdomen and hips of the occupants is relatively gentle, without excessive protrusions or depressions, with sufficient hip contact area, and a hip pusher is arranged at the corresponding position of the occupant's hip. During the collision, the door interior has a good push effect on the occupant's hip, which is conducive to the protection of the occupants in side impact. The door interior armrest does not interfere with the dummy's ribs, which is conducive to the protection of the dummy's ribs. The dummy's shoulder corresponds to the waistline position of the door interior. During the collision, the dummy's shoulder first contacts the door interior, absorbing part of the collision energy, and at the same time buffering the impact of the door intrusion on the dummy's ribs.

At the same time, the Emgrand EC7 model fully utilizes the pre-tensioned force-limited seat belt technology. Through the continuous optimization of the seat belt pre-tension force and force limit value, and the perfect match with the airbag, it effectively reduces the injury value of the occupant's chest during the collision. Considering that the Euro-NCAP evaluation procedure adopts a 64km/h frontal offset collision test condition, the collision test speed is high and the collision energy is large. Therefore, the Emgrand EC7 model adopts a high-limit force grade seat belt to fully avoid the secondary contact between the occupant and the steering wheel, instrument panel and other restraint system components during the collision, and effectively protects the occupant through the matching optimization effect with the airbag.

It is worth mentioning that the whiplash (whiplash injury to the neck caused by rear impact) score of Geely Emgrand EC7 is as high as 3.7 points, which is only 0.3 points away from the full score. This is also the highest score in the history of Euro NCAP so far. According to Zhao Fuquan, vice president of Geely Group, when Geely learned that Euro NCAP had added the Whiplash test in 2009, it immediately organized a preliminary test, but the score of the preliminary test was zero at that time. Because this technology is an emerging passive safety technology in China, Chinese independent brand car manufacturers have no technical reserves and test experience at all.

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

In order to meet the safety requirements, Geely engineers also proposed cooperation intentions to foreign active headrest suppliers, but the other party's products were far higher than the price positioning of EC7. At that time, there was no supplier in China that could develop this technology. Even the international big-name company Johnson Seat did not have this technology in China, and did not dare to promise even 3 points. With no one to turn to, Geely engineers decided to do their own research. After many simulation analyses, original test data analyses and component test analyses, they finally found out the most important factors affecting whiplash protection. Based on this, the partial design of the seat and the structure of the seat back were optimized, and then each detailed size and structural strength and other details were input to the supplier. After multiple rounds of repeated tests, they finally created the best results in the history of Euro NCAP.

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

2. Child protection

In terms of child protection, not only should we consider how to protect children in accidents, but Euro NCAP also has strict assessments on the convenience of child seat installation, vehicle description information, etc. It can be said that this is not only a technology, but also a delicate job. Especially in the dynamic development process, not only the strength of the child seat should be considered, but also attention should be paid to not causing passive injuries to children due to excessive child restraints, which requires a lot of simulation and test verification.

In addition, since the current domestic regulations on child protection are not strict, the development to meet the European standards is more labor intensive and more challenging. A large number of technical details must be fully considered during the development, including even the readability of the labels - each label must have the language of the corresponding country, etc. Therefore, child protection can be described as "the mannequin is small, but the technical difficulty is not small at all". In the end, EC7 received an 80% evaluation result in this item, which is a good performance.

Child protection is not easy

3. Pedestrian protection

Euro NCAP's requirements for pedestrian protection are also comprehensive and strict. It not only considers the safety of adult pedestrians after being hit, but also pays more attention to the situation of children pedestrians with low self-control ability being hit. In this regard, the Emgrand EC7 is also clear. A detailed analysis of the child head collision results of the Emgrand EC7 shows that the protection of the child's head in the middle area of ​​the engine hood is very good. All areas have received full marks, and the entire child head collision received a high score of 8 points. This is because Geely's engineers have fully optimized the space layout of the EC7 engine compartment and fully considered the key hard points that may affect the head collision (battery, air filter, various fluid storage pots, etc.). These efforts ensure that an effective energy absorption space is formed between these hard points and the outer panel of the engine hood. As a result, the child head collision results of the Emgrand EC7 even surpass those of Japanese models that have always been in the leading position in the field of pedestrian protection technology, such as Honda Civic and JAZZ.

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

Reasonable engine compartment space layout ensures good results in child pedestrian head impact test

In the calf collision test, the Emgrand EC7 scored 5.8 points, achieving the best protection for pedestrians' calves with a score close to the full score (full score is 6 points). Euro NCAP pedestrian protection calf collision is evaluated based on three indicators, namely tibia acceleration, knee shear displacement, and knee bending angle. Each value of the above indicators needs to meet the Euro NCAP standard to obtain the corresponding score, so the difficulty of development can be imagined.

Geely engineers have achieved protection for pedestrians' calves by using a dedicated lower support structure for pedestrian protection and a front crossbeam energy-absorbing plate structure. The application of the lower support ensures that the bending angle of the pedestrian's calf knee is reduced to a minimum, while the front crossbeam energy-absorbing plate can effectively absorb the impact energy during the calf collision, reduce the tibia acceleration and knee shear displacement, and ultimately achieve effective protection for the pedestrian's calf.

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

Analysis of Geely Automobile's safety technology strategy

4. Safety assistance

In terms of safety assistance, Geely Emgrand EC7 has even reached the safety level of luxury cars from the results published in the past. EC7's score in the safety assistance item in Euro NCAP this time is only 1 point away from the full score, and has reached the European 5-star standard. This shows that Geely Auto has continuously made new breakthroughs in passive safety and has also created a new benchmark for its own brand in the development of active safety technology. EC7 is equipped with auxiliary safety systems such as ESC (electronic stability control), ASLD (vehicle safe driving speed limit control), SBR (occupant seat belt use reminder device). Among the 14 models whose results were announced in this issue of Euro NCAP, as shown in the blue box in Figure 2, Emgrand EC7 and several models of Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have the highest score of 86%. In comparison, Jaguar XF, Jeep Grand Cherokee, MG MG6 and others have a score of 71%, while Fiat Panda only gets 43%. It should be noted that Euro NCAP's evaluation of safety assistance items is also very strict. Not only does it require the corresponding configuration, but this configuration must also be tested and proven to meet European standards and be effective.

The Emgrand EC7 participating in Euro NCAP is testing the ESC function

5. Subjective evaluation

In addition to the quantifiable evaluations mentioned above, Euro NCAP also has very strict subjective evaluations. These subjective evaluations often require very experienced engineers to grasp, which is a great challenge for a young team like Geely, and a challenge that has never been experienced before. Whether there is a tear in the floor, whether the brightness of the indicator light is within the visually acceptable range, whether the alarm sound is loud enough, etc., all of these must be tested under the "microscope" of subjective evaluation! However, this is also the authority of Euro NCAP, and for this reason, it is more fully proved that the 4-star result of Emgrand EC7 is genuine.

"Technology Geely" creates Emgrand EC7 Euro NCAP four-star

From Geely's announcement of strategic transformation in 2007 to the proposal and implementation of the "Safety First" R&D strategy; from continuous investment in safety development capabilities and the establishment of a first-class safety laboratory in China, to the effective application of Geely's GTSM (Geely Total Safety Management) all-round safety management system, and becoming the first safe brand of domestic brands; from the mass production of the original BMBS tire blowout monitoring and control technology to the in-depth development of the subsequent all-round collision mitigation system; from Geely Panda and EC7 successively receiving five-star ratings in C-NCAP, to EC7 becoming famous overseas and obtaining the first Euro NCAP four-star score of a domestic brand. It is not difficult to find that the corporate mission of "making the safest car" proposed by Li Shufu is taking root and bearing fruit step by step through Geely's R&D team. "Technical Geely" is becoming a reality, and has actually created the Euro NCAP four-star score of Emgrand EC7! Geely has set an example for domestic brands, and has given hope to the vast number of Chinese people who are full of expectations for domestic brands. In the past five years, Geely has continuously achieved remarkable results in product launch and core technology breakthroughs. From this, we can clearly see that Geely's product development strategy is pragmatic and implemented, and Geely's technology system is powerful and efficient. In today's world where the atmosphere of "empty talk" is everywhere, Geely's solid efforts are even more valuable.