Volvo Cars Drops New Cars From 30 Meters To Help Save Lives

This is the most extreme crash test and one of the most important Volvo Cars has ever done. Evacuation professionals often use cars wrecked at Volvo Cars Safety Center to hone their life-saving skills.

To ensure that emergency services can prepare for any possible accident scenario and simulate the forces encountered in the most extreme situations, Volvo Cars has taken equally non-standard measures beyond the usual crash tests. For the first time, several new Volvo have been repeatedly thrown off a 30 meter high crane.

This approach helped create enough damage to fully mimic the damage found in the most serious accidents: a single car crash at high speed, a car-truck collision at high speed, or a violent side impact.

In such cases, the people inside the car are most likely in critical condition. Therefore, it is paramount to retrieve them as quickly as possible using the hydraulic rescue tools known in the industry as the "jaws of life" and deliver them to the hospital. Evacuation specialists often talk about the golden hour when it is necessary to release a patient and bring him to the hospital within an hour of the accident.

“We have worked closely with Swedish emergency services for many years,” says Håkan Gustafson, senior investigator in Volvo Cars' Accident Research Group. “We are united by a common goal: to make the roads safer for everyone. We hope that no one will ever face the worst accidents, but not all accidents can be avoided. It is therefore vital that there are methods to help save lives in the event of serious accidents. ”

All data on accidents and results of evacuation work will be collected in an extensive research report. It will be available for free use by rescuers from all regions, allowing them to benefit from research and improve their life-saving skills.

Usually rescuers get their training vehicles from landfills, but these vehicles are often up to two decades old. There is a huge difference between modern cars and those built 15-20 years ago in terms of steel strength, roll cage construction, and overall durability. And the new Volvo is made from the hardest steel found in modern cars.

This makes it imperative that rescuers continually update their knowledge of current vehicle models and revise their workflows to develop new evacuation techniques. In other words, this training can mean the difference between life and death. Therefore, at the request of the emergency services, Volvo Cars decided to go even further.

“Usually we only break cars in the laboratory. This was the first time we dumped them from the crane, says Khokan Gustafson. “We knew that after the test we would see strong deformations, and we did it to give the rescuers a real challenge.”

In total, ten Volvo vehicles of various models have been dropped from the crane several times. Before the fall, Volvo Cars' safety engineers made accurate calculations of how much pressure and force each car would need to be subjected to in order to achieve the appropriate level of damage.

About Volvo Car Group

Volvo has existed since 1927. Today, Volvo is one of the world's most famous and respected car brands. Volvo Cars sells its vehicles in approximately 100 countries, with global sales of 705,452 vehicles in 2019, surpassing 700,000 units for the first time in the company's history. Volvo Cars was part of the Volvo Group (Sweden) until 1999, when it was acquired by the Ford Motor Company (USA). In 2010 Volvo Cars was acquired by Zhejiang Geely Holding (China).

In 2019, Volvo Cars had around 41,500 employees worldwide. Volvo Cars is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with its main product development, marketing and company management units. Volvo Cars' headquarters for development in China is located in Shanghai. The main production facilities of the company are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), South Carolina (USA), Chengdu and Daqing (China). Engines for Volvo cars are manufactured at the plant in Shevde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China), body parts are manufactured at the plant in Olofström (Sweden).
 
In line with its new strategy, Volvo Cars is committed to providing customers with a “Freedom to Move” that meets safety, stability and customer needs. This strategy is reflected in a number of ambitious goals for the company. Thus, by 2025, half of Volvo Cars' total sales will be electric cars, half of all cars will be offered to customers by subscription, and a third of cars will be equipped with autonomous driving technologies.