Team-BHP - Tata Nano Crash Tested on July 10, in Birmingham. Passed ECE-R 12 specification

Quote:

Dr Clive Hickman, Head of Engineering at Tata Motors Limited, stated: "The purpose of the tests that we are undertaking at Mira today is to demonstrate that the vehicle structure is appropriate for European legislation.

These words can answer many questions.

3) It remains to be seen whether this updated Nano comes up before 2012 ( if it does, Tata is indeed concerned about Safety ).

4) The changes helped Nano meet regulations for 48 kmph front impact. This means Nano without changes is not good enough to pass this test at even 48 kmph. I doubt Nano's safety now.

I maintain that IMHO, this was a publicity stunt otherwise these test would never get public. Even to crash this car at 48kmph changes were carried out. Now imagine what is the safety without them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaggoswami (Post 1388080)

First of all a few mistakes from my side.

1) The car was tested at 48 kmph and not 56 kmph.

I would state very clearly that :

1) There is no mention of this test being done ONLY for preparing the car upto 2012 safety norms. Tata has its own crash test facility so they can do it well here also.

2) 18kg with properly installed members can make a difference and there is no doubt in this. If these were ever so slight modifications, why in the first place they are required ? If adding weight was priority why not put in some weight from Gym ? Why only the work was done in the front ?

This makes one thing clear that without modifications the car is not safe enough to pass 2012 norms.
And if this car meets ARAI's current regulations, why this result was released in public ?

The article clearly mentions that this is not the car to hit Europe. So why so much fuss if this test was done to confirm whether this car meets INDIAN 2012 safety norms ? That would be sort of Internal test then why so much fuss around it ?
Clearly this was then a publicity stunt.

If the only reason for this test was to get help in designing a structure for 2012 norms, the following words would not have come up :

These words can answer many questions.

3) It remains to be seen whether this updated Nano comes up before 2012 ( if it does, Tata is indeed concerned about Safety ).

4) The changes helped Nano meet regulations for 48 kmph front impact. This means Nano without changes is not good enough to pass this test at even 48 kmph. I doubt Nano's safety now.

I maintain that IMHO, this was a publicity stunt otherwise these test would never get public. Even to crash this car at 48kmph changes were carried out. Now imagine what is the safety without them.

You may think it is a publicity stunt. If you wish to understand the purpose of these tests please read what Dr Clive Hickman said :

The purpose of the tests that we are undertaking at Mira today is to demonstrate that the vehicle structure is appropriate for European legislation. Concerning the design of the Nano, Hickman explained:

"As part of the initial design brief, our target was to construct a modular body where structure could be added to the base vehicle to enable us to meet the regulated safety legislation for Europe"

In its current avatar the Maruti 800 CAN NOT be modified to meet these safety requirment. They have to redesign the entire body strucutre for that.

So when these requirments become a standard NANO will be easily adapted to them with slight modifications and some cost escalation but cars like M800 will have to be phased out.

Further if it was a publicity stunt as claimed by you, they should have given an official press release. They never did it. It is a forgien website on which the article has been published, then how can you claim it is a publicity stunt?

@ aaggoswami -
No offense but you are indeed suffering from acute Nanophobia.

There are a lot of things that can be quoted from your text and argued here, but you will still miss the point.

Please do not compare an i20 to the Nano. Apples to apples only. If you argue that you compared the i20 to the Vista, it is still not apples to apples. The i20 costs over 1.5 lakhs more than the Vista.

You can't even compare the M800 (no offense to my first car) to the Nano, because the cheapest car then (M800) is twice as expensive as the cheapest car now (Nano).

The 'publicity stunt' remark leaves you in bad taste. Car-agey has already mentioned why. Matter of fact, the news does not appear in Tata's own website.

I rest my case.

@aag, you don't make much sense in serveral of your posts on the thread IMO - esp. the one below.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaggoswami (Post 1387907)

1) Can you please elaborate ? But I would love to see that if Maruti comes in discussion, it is with reference with Nano.

Its nothing to do wrt Nano. Tell me which Maruti or Hyundai model meets Euro NCAP 4star or even 3star and is priced less than 5-6l - compare that to how many don't. Heck even the NHC won't pass anything (more than 2stars) before they threw in the airbags. My Lancer has a 2star rating (and I am guessing it would be with 2 front airbags not present in Indian version).

Quote:

2) They are still not up to date in any standards. Rather than wait till 2012, can Indian government pay EuroNCAP to let them test all cars manufactured in India ?

Dude, you got it seriously mixed up. What Indian govt/ARAI do is their case, not the car manufacturers'. Also, ARAI/govt needs to set realistic/achievable/cost-effective improvement targets, not some target which will force most car models to be stopped, and most indigenous plants to be shut down. Any vehicle sold in India (or for that matter anywhere else in the world), meets the safety norms prescribed in that country at that time. Every country revises up the requirements with time, and India needs to catch up more wrt the developed world - but that is nothing to rough shod the Nano for. Probably, you think the 3-wheeler is a safe contraption, not to mention 4 on a 2-wheeler !!

Quote:

4) Its matter of how and what is installed. Here the front end was worked upon that helped in improving results. Let say that that they put in two 10 kg dumbbells from gym and strap on the roof. Will this improve results. In case of members being reinforced and new members added, then this much weight difference can give misleading results. And if 18kg is not so significant, why even add it to increase kinetic energy ? What was the need to add it ?

You have not a clue about automobile crash testing and how safety aspects are improved on a design, I am afraid.

Quote:

5) Exactly, so how this result or rating is helpful to us. I say it has no meaning for us unless and untill this type of Nano ( with structural modifications ) is sold in India.

This does not deserve an answer and I wanted to be explicit in saying that !

Cheers,

Quote:

Originally Posted by lancer_rit (Post 1393354)

You have not a clue about automobile crash testing and how safety aspects are improved on a design, I am afraid.

Of course, I am not an expert. But as far as my understanding goes reinforcing, adding members to the crash space will improve the rating if they are installed properly.
I was trying to say that 18kg put up in proper manner can be helpful than putting up 20kg dead mass on rear seat or on roof. That is all what I meant. And this is why ( to improve rating ) they added members ( which led to increase in weight ).

I have posted my understanding of monocoque construction in one of my post. You can very well add more and improve my basic understanding. It will also be helpful to others. :thumbs up

At last the fact remains, modifying, etc the front structure improves crash results if done in a proper manner. Its not matter of weight then, hence I was talking that adding dead weight will not help much, but adding members + reinformcing in proper manner can help.

I would love hear more about re-inforcing, monocoque construction, etc. We can take this over to PM also.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anmol2k4 (Post 1387696)

It has been clearly stated that Tata did this test because passing this test will become mandatory norm in India by 2012.

So we will get this car with these modification soon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaggoswami (Post 1387844)

If Tata fails to deliver this Nano in India before 2012, then can we say that just like M800, this nano was never tested for safety ?

Just for my information,
Has this test become mandatory in india?
Those modifications, which were made to the test car to pass the test, are available in the current version of nano?

Quote:

Originally Posted by saket77 (Post 3208141)

The Indian Nano is yet to bring in those modifications of Nano Europa. BTW, there are cars from MS like the Swift which have fared better in NCAP, which is a more stringent test.:)

Saket, The car tested was Indian Tata Nano with some modifications - Not Nano Europa I think. As for whether these modifications (minus airbags) are incorporated, you have mentioned that they were not. Any reliable source that you have confirming this?

As for Euro test V/S NCAP - We cannot say one is better than the other - the requirements are different so not an apple to apple comparison. Suffice it to say that if a vehicle scores above average in either of the tests, we can consider that the vehicle is relatively safe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chennai-indian (Post 3208157)

Hey Chennai Indian, thanks for pouring in your points.

But are not the Euro & NCAP tests the same (The European New Car Assessment Programme)? While you are right that probably it was not the Europa, but it was neither the factory configuration of Indian Nano as well.

The second last para is worth reading. The only takeaway for Indians (or even for the Nano Europa) at this point of time is that probably the platform itself is safer, but still how does an out of factory Nano fares in these tests cannot be speculated (without the mods which were carried out for the test).:)

http://www.atzonline.com/index.php;d...loc=1/id=10083