International   

Differing regulations worldwide

DEARBORN (Michigan): It seems like an easy solution: Americans are looking for more fuel-efficient vehicles, so Ford Motor Co. is bringing over some of the small, gas-sipping cars it has been selling to Europeans for years.

But introducing the cars to the U.S. market isn’t as simple as changing the speedometer from kilometres to miles. Ford has to reconcile American and European safety regulations — everything from the colour of rear turn signals to the positioning of crash test dummies — that will keep the cars from hitting U.S. highways anytime soon. Competing interests among automakers, governments and the insurance industry are hampering efforts to standardise safety requirements worldwide. That means extra engineering to make different versions of vehicles for different markets.

“Each party negotiating this has their own views about their own standards being better,” said Ronald Medford, senior associate administrator of vehicle safety at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which sets U.S. standards. “But as long as we can show we’re not lowering safety and we’re lowering cost, we’re all interested in that.”

Some differences are significant, like the U.S. rule that requires protection for passengers not wearing seat belts, which has no European equivalent. Others are small, like the U.S. requirement that vehicles have side lights, which are optional in Europe. Ford isn’t the only automaker facing this issue. The ultra-compact Smart car was sold overseas for nine years, but before Daimler AG could bring it to the U.S., it had to make the car longer to meet U.S. crash standards, said a spokesman.

But Ford’s promise to bring six small, fuel-efficient vehicles from Europe and start building them in North America in 2010 puts a new focus on the challenge of satisfying governments’ varying requirements.

These global models are the cornerstone of Ford’s plan to return to profitability after losing $8.7 billion last quarter. The Dearborn-based automaker says its small European vehicles sell well and are superior to those in the U.S. Ford also plans to save billions from designing products for global sales, boosting profits on small cars, which don’t generate the revenue of trucks and SUVs.

Automakers know how to retrofit their vehicles but question the time and expense involved when the changes may not make those vehicles safer, said a Ford’s official.

“It may involve changes to the structure, it may involve changes to material, but they result in not so many differences in the safety levels of the vehicles.” It doesn’t stop with government standards. Automakers also have to contend with the Arlington, Virginia-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which is funded by the insurance industry and runs its own closely watched set of crash tests.

Tests may look similar at the outset but contain crucial differences. The European frontal crash test uses a deformable barrier — made to mimic another car — that slams into 40 per cent of the front of the vehicle. That challenges engineers to spread the energy from the crash across the rest of the car. The fixed barrier in the U.S. test absorbs no energy, causing a severe crash that evaluates the vehicle’s overall strength. Adding to the complexity of the frontal test is that the U.S. and Europe put their crash test dummies in different seating positions, which can affect how the air bags should deploy, said IIHS President Adrian Lund. — AP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Military action put off in Bajaur, Swat
Prachanda: we believe in democracy
“Mother of all storms” batters Cuba, heads to U.S. Gulf coast
LTTE hindering safe passage to civilians: Colombo
Plan to extend shuttle life
Differing regulations worldwide

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu