Holistic Approach for Improved Safety Including a Proposal of New Virtual Test Conditions of Small Electric Vehicles

Journal article, 2015

In the next 20 years the share of small electric vehicles (SEVs) will increase especially in urban areas. SEVs show distinctive design differences compared to traditional vehicles. Thus the consequences of impacts of SEVs with vulnerable road users (VRUs) and other vehicles will be different from traditional collisions. No assessment concerning vehicle safety is defined for vehicles within European L7e category currently. Focus of the elaborated methodology is to define appropriate test scenarios for this vehicle category to be used within a virtual tool chain. A virtual tool chain has to be defined for the realization of a guideline of virtual certification. The derivation and development of new test conditions for SEVs are described and are the main focus of this work. As key methodology a prospective methodical analysis under consideration of future aspects like pre-crash safety systems is applied. The studies show that certain collision types will be reduced in numbers and in average collision severity. Based on the evaluation following tests are proposed. Frontal: oblique (30°), test speed 35 km/h, 1,300kg Mobile Progressive Deformable Barrier (MPDB); Side: 90°, Advanced European Mobile Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB), barrier speed 40 km/h; Pedestrian safety: seven pedestrian impact locations, 2 speed ranges, four different percentiles. The proposed virtual testing procedure has to be based on well validated models and tools, which can be assumed to be available in the future. The focus of the presented work is on SEVs in L7e category, for which no specific, urban area relevant safety regulations are available. Overall occupant and VRU safety of future SEVs will increase significantly, if additionally to the standard crash tests the elaborated tests from the European Union (EU) initiative SafeEV are applied for the design of safety measures within L7e vehicle class.