Passive Vehicle Safety as Cars Grow Smaller

The increasing importance of fuel economy causes cars to become smaller while passenger size requires certain minimum interior dimensions, especially to meet the requirements of passive safety. This has become an extreme challenge to automotive engineering. Providing the highest amount of interior space out of given weight limits while using conventional, cheap and easy to-handle materials stimulates new design philosophies.

Various possibilities of increasing the passive safety of passenger cars by optimizing the structure and restraint systems while retaining the vehicle size, or, while maintaining the same degree of passenger protection, reducing the vehicle size will be described.