As the head of testing operations for passive safety and vehicle functions, Norbert Schaub is also the overall project manager for the Technology Centre for Vehicle Safety (TFS). The issue of vehicle safety has always been dear to his heart. That is because after his apprenticeship as a mechanic at Daimler AG in Stuttgart, he worked as a paramedic for several years and helped many injured people after traffic accidents. After earning his degree in mechanical engineering, he returned to Daimler in 1986.
Mr Schaub, Mercedes-Benz is celebrating an anniversary in systematic crash testing this autumn. Do you have a general idea of how many crash tests have been conducted since 1959?
Schaub: We did a little bit of research in our archive on the occasion of the milestone anniversary. Between the opening of the first crash test building of Mercedes-Benz in 1973 and September 2019, there were 13,357 crash tests in all. In addition, there were 698 of them in the period from 1959 to 1973 – which adds up to a total of over 14,000 crash tests with complete vehicles. Plus there was a host of component tests and crash tests that we outsourced.
A proud number. However, it is probably not possible to quantify how many Mercedes-Benz drivers owe their lives to this systematic accident simulation, because they happened to be in a traffic accident in a vehicle with above average safety, is it?
No. But our colleagues from Accident Research who analyse real-life accidents show us pictures of serious accidents on a regular basis. Even we safety experts are then impressed how minor the injuries of the occupants of a modern Mercedes-Benz in collisions from high speeds can be. And often we also receive thank-you letters from our customers.
How many crash tests does Mercedes-Benz conduct annually at present?
Our goal for 2019 is to conduct 900 tests with complete vehicles. We opened our new crash test centre in November 2016, the Technology Centre for Vehicle Safety (TFS), and shut down the old crash building in February 2017. We have been ramping up the number of crash tests in the TFS continuously since then. The capacity limit is around 900 to 1000 crash tests a year. We are now also conducting truck crash tests in-house.
What could the old facility not do that has now become possible?
The TFS allows us to tailor crash tests even more closely to reality. Apart from the capacity limitations of the old facility, the simulation of accidents at junctions, car-to-car tests in linear traffic with higher masses and speeds, the influence of PRE-SAFE® and assistance systems in the immediate pre-accident phase as well as the testing of vehicles with alternative powertrains were the major reasons for a new building.
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SOURCE: Daimler
