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-   -   XUV500: Severe crash, but not a single airbag deployed (driver injured) (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/200186-xuv500-severe-crash-but-not-single-airbag-deployed-driver-injured-11.html)

No offence Sir. I am just fed up. Where I go they want to listen and want all details. No help.
It doesn't discourage me at all. I am committed. I cannot die with the guilt that I could not get justice to my son and to anyone who was caught in the same circumstances. That's my burning desire.

Wishing a speedy recovery to your son. I have tweeted Anand Mahindra with a link to this thread.

The onus I believe is on the manufacturer to do a proper crash investigation analysis using some credible independent agent and come out with a report.

While it is true that the Indian Govt. does not mandate crash tests or related certification for vehicles sold in India, if a manufacturer has designed and equipped its vehicles with safety features that they are confident will meet existing international norms, how much would it cost for them to test their vehicles at such facilities and publish those results. If these vehicles actually meet such standards, wouldn't the manufacturers shout from the rooftops?

In the overall cost of development of a new vehicle, such testing and certification amount would actually be peanuts, especially if you consider the return on investment in the form of the reputation you would get for your vehicle.

So the fact none of the Indian manufacturers/most of the international manufacturers have bothered to publish publicly the results of how their vehicles being sold in India did in the crash tests (if they ever got the tests done), means they all fared poorly or the manufacturers were not confident about taking their vehicles for the test. So much for all the great Indian automotive industry and how much they value human lives. Shame on all of them.

Sir no offence. I know that you mean good. I am just exasperated. I apologise

That will be harsh and not valid, there will be enough errors to throw up some indications if Airbags are not working. I don’t have technical details to backup but it’s just so common sense that Airbag failure light should glow if anything is wrong in the circuit. If there is no such indication available then perhaps the guys designing these things need to lookup, my microwave won’t even heat if something is already there, I need to open the door and close and then only it will work.

The only possible reasons of non deployment of front airbags can be non-useage of seatbelts which might be difficult to prove unless there are some visible changes in the same. Maybe OP can post some close up pictures of the seatbelt. I don’t know if the sides bags are dependent on the seatbelts so something definitely is puzzling.

Mahindra should have taken this with more responsibility and by now should have got the vehicle checked thoroughly, there are hundreds of thousand of such on the road and if there is indeed something wrong on 0.1% it definitely needs attention.

Hope this young guy walks out from the hospital well.

You shall be surprised and shocked. I shall, when I have all the information, present a white paper on how we are being taken for a ride. I don't have the luxury of time right now.

Hello Arvind,

First of all, I wish your son recovers fast, goes on to study Automotive Accident Crash Investigation at some famous university, and then prove to the world one day, that you have a point!

I work for a big German OEM, among the Top 3 here in Germany. Let me tell you in brief, how their Airbag deployment logic works. At first, the crash is differentiated into 2 types - soft crash and severe/hard crash (not getting into details here, as I go into IPR then). Parallelly the sensors (which give input to the Control Unit (mostly ECU or in some cases VCU or Airbag Control Unit), to deploy the sensors or hold on), send information to the control unit, which side of the car is it, L, R, Front, Rear, and based on all these combinations (and a lot of other factors based on the OEM's design), the control unit decides if the airbags need to be deployed, and if to be deployed, which one(s) to be deployed!? Mind you, it is necessary, that the decision to deploy Airbags should be redundant and failproof, or else, instead of saving lives, it could take lives.

I do such tests, but in the Lab, as doing such tests on the car is life-threatening. Heck, even the people who do recovery of cars where airbags didn't go off, do it with extreme precaution, as it is very dangerous.

From this pic https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attac...0718wa0031.jpg, I can pretty confidently say that, if the occupants were wearing their seatbelts, the front airbags and the RHS airbags should have been deployed. I'm not sure which airbags this particular car has.

Spike

EDIT - the decision to deploy or not to deploy happens in most cases within 100 ms (OEM specific), in one of the cars I tested, it was 20 ms.

I am not defending Mahindra infact the other way around. Initial part of the post makes it pretty obvious. My point is not whether another car in similar incident would fair same/worse/better, but would any other manufacturer show better social responsibility behavior. Like I said we have seen Hyundai/Maruti cars get "ZERO" stars in crash tests, how many have come and accepted that structural integrity was indeed compromised esp when the same models in europe do better and weigh more etc.

Solution required is systemic which puts checks and balances across the industry which is literally non existent today.

Thanks for the explanation and to add my two cents, there's actually nothing too secretive or any rocket science here. Urge members to read this and page 28 gives a detail of the algorithm. It is fairly standard across chip-makers. The "SQUIB" actually gets triggered in 2ms! When it gets triggered, is a matter of processor latency and the algo: what it had been doing prior to the crash!



https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/reference-manual/ARDRM.pdf


Page 28 (pdf) sections 7.1 to 7.4 detail out what exactly happens and how, based on what external triggers. Hope this clears some myths and misunderstandings.


Sorry to bring in tech here. Arvindji, I am a father of a 13YO and I can understand what you are going through. I wish Madhav a very quick return to normalcy!

Your comments are very informative. Thanks.
I myself do not know which airbags this particular model has. I intend to find out and shall update on this thread.

Excellent. I will take a printout and paste on some XUVs as well. Shame on Mahindra to make such an unsafe car as a XUV. They should stick to making tractors and keep away from passenger vehicles

Sir I appreciate you tech points., they are very informative from a benchmark point. Do we even know that components are tested?
We safely assume everything. For sales in India.Are they really following international standards and testing? For example I still haven't got the airbag testing report from IARI. According to them, they have never tested or cleared airbags on the xuv 500.
We have some great views here but what foxes me is that if I was never riding the horse, why are we discussing his gait.
Is Mahindra following that international standard, are the sensors placed same way, and the same quality, when it went for the ncap test.
Airbags are always contended but this so called airbag, ecm communication. Let's first know the quality of sensors etc Mahindra is using. Are they actually fit to communicate?

Your inputs are great. They must be based on the standards you follow. Logic is also in place. But in India do we have a way to know if they follow an algorithm, component quality, engineering design. Then we can talk about parameters.
I have worked a long time in the Chinese market to know the difference.
Most of the argument here is based upon the presupposition that Indian automakers are following a law and a system.
Are we? You have a Renault kwid, launched in India which got ZERO in Ncap.. Bookings in thousands. Who is allowing them on the road. THINK.

I hope that I can reach out to you if required. Thanks again

Here the occupants had to be pulled out from the belt. His friends belt in fact had to be cut to release her.

Thanks so much for the informative. It's educating. But in many ways it's like Newton. We pre suppose that gravity is there to make the apple fall. Are these guys following the supposition in terms of quality adherence which itself is the basic premise to test

I agree with your points about safety in general with Indian car makers. However, I don't understand how structural integrity of Hyundai and Maruti comes into picture here. They do adhere to Indian standards. I have no cars from either.

The point about this whole thread is why the airbags which are present did not deploy. Is there now a new expectation for airbags that they need not deploy? And is that meeting some kind of new Indian standards ?

I am honestly surprised. What is the expectation when you buy a vehicle, which proclaims it has the most advanced safety features. Consumers want safety not the technical jargon. What is the expectation? Simply that you have invested in a vehicle that promises that it shall save you in an eventuality.
So if the new expectation as you propose. Then they should teach us how to crash. So next time i have to save my life, I should take that split second decision on how my trajectory of collision should be.
This is insane. Yes I think if automakers don't have the facility, the vehicle should be tested before being road worthy.

Periodic inspections happen during service.
But if the components repeatedly fail in between, due to quality issues. Then it's your life at risk. These guys care two hoots

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