500 meets Q7

[Tino]

.. in a head-on collision ... ouch

[Tino]

... and this is the result ...

[Paul]

Looks nasty, but it appears that the safety cell (for want of a better name) is pretty much intact.

[charliestyr]

Do you know what speed this was at? doesn't look to bad, but if it was at 10mph each, then it would be very different.

[Portti]

Here is a direct link to the story related to the crash test (in German):

Crash Q7 Fiat 500

Here is a video of the crash test:

Q7_Fiat500

The speed on the crash was 56 km/h and the 500 did suffer quite a bit of damage. Here is a summary of the injury risks on the 500 (the table on the bottom summarizes the results):

Ergebnisse im Detail: Fiat 500

...and here is the summary for the Q7:

Ergebnisse im Detail: Audi Q7

[jastulewis]

Shocking stuff. I have translated using Google translate - first the 500 write up:

The Fiat 500 has a very stable and homogeneous front structure, comprising several related aspiration. There are two cross beams on each side in the front area, each supported by side (both in the bottom picture with red colour) to the rear of the calculations. This results in a collision with another vehicle a large impact surface. This in turn ensures that the structures of the accident vehicles to catch themselves together and able. This ensures that as much crash energy in both vehicles can be reduced.

The Fiat has through its middle and lower energy on the front side of the Audi Q7 can reduce, but unfortunately were not the appropriate structures within the Q7, which were stable enough to also reduce energy. The stable network of cross-winner at Fiat, which is still widely expected to fail, but could still play a vital role in that there is no greater burden on inmates has come. By the very low support area on the Audi Q7 remained the major structural deformation on the side Fiat largely unexplored and was directly on the occupants. Since the side of the Fiat and Audis vorbeigeglitten together, the Audi was also no energy by his side dismantled. This spießt the right side Audi formally to the Fiat. The lance-looking like a side of the Audi Q7 tears then a football large hole in the Fußraum of Fiat. The side of the Q7 penetrates far in the small Italian Fußraum, adding an extremely high risk of injury to the driver. Abzulesen at the tiefroten color of the driver in the graphic.

And Q7:
The Audi Q7 has two side, over a cross beams are connected and the main burden of an impact record. At the top of the front are also two side, but shortened, and in this experiment does not include deformation energy. Since the left and right side relatively close together, they could not even with the front structure of the Fiat 500 to catch. The side (bottom photo with red colour) is hardly deformed and has virtually no energy. The very stable side of the Q7 is for this reason a football large hole in the torn Fußraum of Fiat and the other was the passenger compartment in the front right roof pillar (A-pillar), extremely deformed and overstrained.

The Fiat can therefore only at the front of the Q7 this abstützen and push it in the foot radius of Audis. The small support of the front axle is the Q7 also lead to a distortion in the bottom of the roof pillar. This is a major barrier to open the door and thus hindered thus the salvage of the occupants.

The Q7 is equipped with frameworks, which is also used for support for lower vehicles could be used. Unfortunately, this possibility but not by Audi designers. With such additional deformation zone for smaller cars would be the aggressiveness of the Q7-heavyweight in collisions with small cars and low sports cars to reduce significantly. In this form, the front structure of the Audi as a whole, however, be very aggressive.

My comment: It appears from the Q7 write up of the crash that the structure of the Q7 is at fault for the damage to the 500, as it is poorly designed to protect smaller cars and sports cars (ref last para). Not only do these lathiathons looks overly massive on the road, they are also dangerous for occupants of other smaller cars. 4x4's have been known to be bad for pedestrians, but now we find they are bad for other drivers. Tax them off the streets I say! J

[wreckmaster]

My biggest concern is that the drivers airbag on the 500 ruptured. Which will reduce the effect of the airbag and give the driver a bigger risk of serious injury than neccesary!

Other than this I think the test went rather good for the Fiat. The Audi weighs 2,7 tons while the 500 weighs less than 900kg. No mather how safe the 500 is, it has not got a cance against a car that weighs nearly 2000kg more than itself! Almost all other cars with similar or even bigger size than the 500 would have done the test worse than it. A small car will never be as safe as a large car.

[Paul]

This is a very good point (the weight), and I would have thought more obvious than the headlines I've seen accompanying this story all over the place.

When they do the regular crash tests, they're testing the cars against a hard object (wall, post etc), not other cars. It's pretty obvious that when a HUGE thing hits a small thing, the small thing should come of worse (all else being equal). Just because when those two things hit a wall they come out in a similar fashion, doesn't change the laws of physics (jim).