Skoda destroys more than 50 cars of each of its models to ensure that the ones it puts up for sale are safe

Safety is something that every driver pays attention to when buying a car. Skoda boasts that all its cars have obtained 5 stars in the Euro NCAP tests since 2008. To check how the safety of their cars works, we have traveled to the Úhelnice safety test center on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first crash test they did. in its history.

This impact test that I am talking about took place in 1972 and could not be more curious. The chosen model was a Skoda 100 L. The problem they encountered was how to get that model to 48 km/h, which was the speed of the tests at the time. Awesome ‘Simply clever’ solution, as always at Skoda: we fitted a steam rocket to the rear!

It was a tank full of 300 liters of water, which they heated with electricity and, as if it were a pressure cooker, when it reached the appropriate bars, they released it and the Skoda 100 shot out.

The place where this test took place was in Ruzyně in what was then Czechoslovakia, next to the current Václav Havel International Airport, where they paved a road, installed a monorail on which the vehicle would travel and made a concrete wall at the end of the the very one he was supposed to hit. By the way, the monorail ended about five meters before the wall.

The test was carried out by the State Institute for Motor Vehicle Research, following the international standards of the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe)

Evolution of the ‘crash test’ in the Czech Republic

Actually, it should be noted that the first official test was in 1972, which is when they wanted to start selling their cars in other countries (in France, specifically), but the first crash test they carried out was 20 years earlier, in 1952, with tests that they made internally for sales in the national market.

Then it was a Skoda 1000 MB that crashed into a wall at a speed of about 20 km/h. To achieve this, the carburettor was adjusted so that the car reached this speed at idle.

During the visit to the safety center in Úhelnice, which is near Mladá Boleslav, Skoda’s headquarters in the Czech Republic, I found it both curious and interesting to learn how crash tests have evolved in this time:

The testing facility in Ruzyně remained in operation until 1996. However, the State Research Institute for Motor Vehicles opened a new testing facility as early as 1975 on the former premises of the Czech commercial vehicle manufacturer Avia.

And in 1996 is when TUV SUD takes over the studies and opens this center in Úhelnice that I have visited. In the year 2000 it is Skoda that expands these facilities and proceeds to acquire them, finally, in 2011.

From the steam rocket they went on to use an open-air drop tower, with a water tank in which they dropped a dead weight with the necessary weight for the vehicle to be tested to move through a monorail at the appropriate speed.

Then they used a similar system, but by gravitation, and finally an electric motor that accelerates the car from the bottom, with a steel cable that drives it to the block it hits.

To do this, in this ship they used a 50-meter-long track, which in 2019 was increased to 100 meters to accelerate the car at a more constant speed and that the position of the dummies did not vary during said process. And they already took the opportunity to expand the facilities to be able to carry out side and rear impact tests.

I remind you that in Euro NCAP the tests are at 64 km/h, but here they can do them up to 120 km/h for internal analysis.

This is the complete process of a ‘crash test’

Preliminary clay models of the new vehicles are first created, scanned and various points, curves and surfaces are applied to them on the computer, resulting in the first digital vehicle designs.

Once the design is finalized, the entire vehicle is built as a digitized model. Through simulations, all loading conditions can be tested virtually and relevant vehicle characteristics such as stiffness, strength, crash behavior or even durability and acoustics can be optimized.

Some 1,000 computer simulations precede the first real crash test. Around ten actual crash tests are carried out in-house while a vehicle is being developed. Tests are also carried out on individual body parts, such as the hood and front bumper. There are approximately 140 virtual simulations before each component is tested.

The wide range of equipment used to recreate all current accident scenarios includes a measurement wall that records the forces generated on impact, as well as 20 static cameras and 30 high-speed HD cameras on board to document all crash tests.

Pedestrian crash tests

It was also really interesting to discover how they have implemented the impact tests with pedestrians, which were not necessary when the first Euro NCAP tests began in 1997 and which began to be so from the year 2009.

But what I find not curious, but rather incomprehensible is that what is analyzed in the crash tests in relation to people is not standardized. I mean, the same values ​​are not taken into account in Europe as in America, nor are they as strict in India, for example, as in Europe.

This does not depend on Skoda, as is obvious, but on Global NCAP, which should standardize processes and make them equal, because people’s lives are worth the same here as anywhere else. Anyway… I keep going, I’m lost…

In pedestrian impact tests, they use pieces of steel covered with high-density foam to recreate the leg of a human. There are three models: LLEG, PLI, aPLI. All of them weigh about 13.5 kg and simulate what would happen in the event of a run over.

Internally they have parts or tensioners, depending on each model, which appear to be the ligaments of the knee and are analyzed after the impact and thus assess its consequences. The car they use for these tests has hundreds of possible impact points marked for children, adults or cyclists, which they later analyze and modify to minimize the consequences of an accident.

And no less impressive (pun intended) are the spheres they use to represent the impact of a pedestrian’s head against the hood or rear window of the car. They weigh 3.5 or 4.5 kg, depending on whether they are children or adults, and have an accelerometer inside to analyze the hardness of the blow.

The data that they have transmitted to me is impressive, because they carry out more than 2,000 real impact tests with each model and 24,000 accident simulations for pedestrian accident protection.

I have also been told that there is a special protection for the battery in electrified vehicles, which are resistant to shocks and are specially protected against electrical overloads. The battery is embedded in the ground, while the modules themselves are encased in a stable, waterproof case that can withstand even severe collisions.

But what struck me the most by far was knowing what the famous dummies used in crash tests are like, what they cost and the number of cars that are destroyed to make sure that each model is safe.

Here in Úhelnice I have been able to meet four different dummies models in person: Hybrid III, EuroSID2, Thor and WorldSID. Their prices, he is amazed, range from 120,000 to 578,000 euros!!!, which is what the Thor model costs, specifically.

As is logical, they reuse them in many tests, not just once, but every certain number of impacts they have to take them to recalibrate so that the values ​​given by the sensors inside are accurate.

And how many real impacts do you think they make with each model before sending it to Euro NCAP to be sure that it is 100% reliable? If you have been attentive, you have already read it at the beginning. Yes, 50 impact tests with each model.

Although, in all honesty, it must be said that they do not use a car and discard it, but repair it and reuse it for a different type of impact each time: side, rear…

In parallel, they test the different safety assistants (Front assist, rear traffic alert, Lane Assist…) in real tests on a test track, with moving pedestrians, bicycles and motorcycles. All of them robotized, of course.

Once they know that everything withstands the impact as they have calculated, they send 20 units of each model to the Euro NCAP headquarters and there they choose six at random to carry out the different tests.

It is clear that cars are becoming safer, but is it feasible to reach the goal of 0 victims in traffic accidents? That is precisely what I asked Ubek Urbis, head of safety development at Skoda, who told me: “I think that in two decades, with the introduction of autonomous driving, the number of victims will be reduced dramatically.”

They are not going the wrong way. As I was telling you, its 15 models for sale have 5 Euro NCAP stars and two of them (Fabia and Enyaq) are the best in their respective segments.