Driver assistance systems, such as autonomous pre-crash braking systems can reduce the impact velocity (particularly the impact energy) or can even avoid the crash completely. Thus, by reducing the impact speed in order to decrease the number of serious accidents, the subsequent repair costs of the crashed vehicle can also be lowered. However, the testing and assessment of new cars still involves using tests which do not take into account the significant additional potential of integrated safety measures.

In order to investigate the differences during crashes as a consequence of altered kinetic energy at the vehicle front, KTI teamed up with DEKRA and BMW to carry out joint crash tests with the latest BMW 5 series vehicles. The vehicles involved braked automatically from 64 km/h initial test velocity down to different impact speeds.

The paper will describe and discuss some relevant details and results of the crash tests regarding passenger safety and repair costs.