Inside China’s Most Precise Crash Facility

For a while, videos of Chinese cars being crash tested and crumpling up like cheap suits were pretty much diversionary viewing in the West. But as the Chinese auto industry gets a depth of knowledge, thanks, undoubtedly, to the Western automotive OEMs who have setup joint ventures in that country in order to gain access to the seemingly ever-expanding market, it just may be that the joke will be on the West.

This occurs to us with a description of a crash-test facility that we recently received. The massive operation was produced for the Chongqing Automotive Research Institute (CAERI) by a German company, MESSRING, a firm that has built more than 100 crash-test facilities around the world.

This facility for CAERI has floor space of 269,098-sq ft. The acceleration track is 965-ft long.

There are two electric propulsion systems with a combined power rating of 2.4-mW. Vehicles weighing up to five tons can be accelerated to 74.5 mph before they collide with the impact block. Vehicles weighing up to 25 tons can be crash tested at the facility.

Tolerances are tight. The maximum permitted deviation in speed with the system under full load is ±0.09 mph. The tolerance bandwidth for two test vehicles colliding is ±0.4 in.

Nothing funny about this.