Behind the scenes of an ANCAP crash test

NEWS FEATURE

The green mile

The scene appears like the automotive equivalent of death row.

motoring.com.au is standing inside a stark long room hidden away in an industrial precinct in Sydney’s sprawling west.

There are purpose-built flood lights, hidden cables, an imposing wall littered with cameras, and an overhead observatory – all the necessary equipment for a swift, premeditated ending.

The prisoner in question today is not a bustling inmate, but a car: a brand-new ZB Holden Commodore, no less.

Inside it is the equivalent of a young Australian family – four dummies covered in sensors and accelerometers to replicate two adult passengers and two children.

“We once had a lady who cried as the car made its way down the runway – she felt bad for the dummies,” reveals James Goodwin, chief executive of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) – the organisation responsible for conducting the crash tests.

Goodwin’s words almost move to reassure the small group of journalists that what we’re witnessing is a very real simulation and occurs every day on public roads.

Then, we are ushered to the upstairs glass-lined observatory. There is a sombre moment of silence as a roller door opens at one end of the corridor to reveal the German-made Holden, finished in Summit White and now attached to a series of strong cables.

At the opposite end of the room, where the Commodore is about to meet its proverbial maker, the imposing wall sits, now heavily illuminated by said lighting.

The Commodore is whisked by cable down the circa 80-metre runway, reaching a pre-determined speed of 64km/h. Then, the laws of physics prevail as its 1672kg mass is wrapped around the jutted out section of wall, prepositioned to make contact with 40 per cent of the car’s front-end (60:40 frontal offset test).

The car recoils with a cacophony of explosions and breakages. Impressively, it maintains much of its original form and shape from the A-pillar back.

By this point the observation deck has fallen eerily silent. Down on ground zero, the Commodore’s horn is now blasting at full steam, its hazard lights are flashing and its airbags are hissing what’s left of their gases.

It is seriously confronting, even though you knew what was going to happen.

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Why crash test cars?

ANCAP has been crash testing cars in Australia since 1993 and recently secured federal government funding to do so for another five years.

In recent years, it has also been conducting what the Commodore has just endured; audit tests aimed at ensuring market-relevant cars are up to ever-improving safety standards – despite already being tested at one of ANCAP’s global affiliates abroad.

It’s no secret that some Australian consumers question ANCAP’s relevance. The independent body, which uses funding from various governments and an amalgam of motoring associations, is often in the gunsights of the public and car-makers, sometimes derided as a waste of tax-payer money.

There is often conjecture over the cars and brands that ANCAP chooses to crash test, too. Close observers will note a dearth of Porsche or BMW crash tests undertaken locally, for example; a virtue of ANCAP’s budget and the popularity of a new vehicle, say stakeholders.

But, in the face of growing road toll figures and increasing injuries on the road, Goodwin is deadly serious about the organisation’s relevance.

“We’ve got different demographics in Australia,” Goodwin explains. “We work with Euro NCAP to ensure there is no doubling up, but if you think about the dual-cab utes that are so prevalent in Australia and the light cars that come from South Korea, those cars are not sold in Europe with the same popularity.

“We test vehicles that are of bulk popularity in Australia and we try not to double up. If we do test the same vehicle that Euro NCAP may have test, what you’ll find is that … it may have different engine sizes or restraint system.

“What we want is global standards and a global car market. The life of someone in Australia, or in Europe or in South East Asia really should be treated the same. Offering the same testing procedure ensures we get the same cars, and hopefully that means the safest possible cars.”

On this particular day, ANCAP is not testing the Commodore because it believes Holden is hiding something – on the contrary, its Euro NCAP report was “a very comprehensive submission”, according to Goodwin – but for the sake of total market transparency.

Back in February, the Commodore was awarded 35.5 points out of a possible 38 based on its Euro NCAP data – good enough for a maximum five-star rating ANCAP rating.

However, that particular ANCAP rating has been based on a Euro NCAP test of a left-hand drive 1.6-litre diesel Opel Insignia liftback, with which Holden’s ZB Commodore is twinned.

Apart from being right-hand drive, Holden’s version is powered by a larger 2.0-litre diesel engine (as well as 3.6-litre petrol V6 and 2.0-litre turbo-petrol engines) and is also available in wagon and crossover forms.

ANCAP cites up to five similar audit examples it has undertaken in the past 18 months, including the latest Hyundai i30 and Suzuki Swift.

To ensure a level of impartiality, and unlike regular crash test, cars involved in audit tests are bought independently by ANCAP, usually at a dealership level. They are not registered for the road or driven, but rather, transferred by tilt tray truck to a crash test facility.

After some delay, ANCAP took delivery of the Summit White RS-V Commodore earlier this year, priced from $46,990 and fitted with a V6 engine.

Shifting the goalposts

While the official result is still out to jury, Goodwin’s initial inspection of the Commodore is promising.

“On face value it performed as it should have, exhibiting a similar performance to what was seen during the Euro NCAP test,” he says while overlooking the wrecked vehicle.

The final result due in coming weeks will contain much more information obtained using a mix of old-school engineering trickery – chalk on the face of the dummies, masking tape to measure dashboard deformation – and data from over 100 different lines of coding and accelerometers.

Detailed photography and slow-motion video of the carnage provide an acute description of the Commodore’s final moments.

ANCAP will await the final results, but planning for more crash tests is well underway.

This year, ANCAP will expand its testing capabilities. It has revised details of its crash test process (there are five different styles of crash tests) and is about to introduce testing of emerging autonomous technology, such as autonomous emergency braking – specifically “to test its performance and how effective it is”.

“Every couple of years we are changing the goalposts. We want to keep manufacturers on their toes and really it’s the customer that wins,” Goodwin explains.

“It’s not enough just to have that automated technology in a car -- it has to work.”

The benefits of the running adjustments are two-fold, helping the tests to become more life-like and encouraging innovation from car-makers.

As such, ANCAP testing will soon incorporate cyclist and passenger safety testing, amid fresh figures which revealed cyclist fatalities grew by 104 per cent last year.

“Manufacturers want to sell cars and consumers want the latest technology,” Goodwin says. “We want the highest level of safety – ultimately, it’s the consumer that wins.”