By now just about everyone who drives in north America and Europe drives a car or truck that has a safety airbag positioned at least in the steering wheel. However; on many newer cars and you may the owner of one, safety airbags are positioned in other strategic locations around the interior of the vehicle.
Fewer Deaths and Injuries In Spite of More Crashes
Front & back side panels and even in the ceilings. What this and other types of similar automotive safety technologies have accomplished, is making vehicles incredibly safer to drive. In fact the figures speak for themselves. Fact: In spite of total crash figures steadily rising each decade, serious injuries and deaths have continued to decline.
Automotive Airbag Technology Yesterday Today & Tom arrow
So what took automakers so long to install the first air bags and then what took them so long to get them into the side panels and roofs of automobiles. Also what about other types of airbags that can be used in other vehicles? Motorcycles for instance? These are good legitimate questions and by the way, a motorcycle airbag suit is currently in development and prototypes that encase a person in a soft bubble on impact have been and still are undergoing testing.
Incredible Technology That Took Years To Develop
The idea for automotive safety airbags came about years before they were finally developed and installed and the reason is simple. That is that the incredible technology was years in the making. You see, an airbag deployment is in reality a controlled explosion that happens just inches from a persons head during a vehicle accident.
All In the Time It Takes You To Snap Your Fingers
The holy grail of airbag development, was devising a way to launch the level of energy required to inflate an airbag in (50 one-thousandths of a second) or roughly “one quarter of a hummingbirds wing beat”. Then almost just as quickly, dissipate that energy so it doesn’t cause an injury. You see in the time it takes you to snap your finger the crash has to be detected, the message sent to the bag, the bag deploy, a body hit it & then the bag deflate. An absolutely “incredible” feat of engineering.
An Amazing “Zero” Manufacturing Failure Rate
Now if that isn’t amazing enough consider this. With “hundreds of millions” of automotive airbags being manufactured each year there can be only a (zero failure rate). All must work and not one can not work! Think about that for a moment. Try to imagine any consumer item that you have dealt with in your life that maintains a 0.000000 failure rate. It’s truly amazing and most people simply take them for granted.
Whats coming At You In Tomorrows Automotive Airbags
So now that you can hop in a car that has you completely protected on your front & top and both sides by air bags, whats the next development in the works? Perhaps some super air bag or series of air bags that completely engulf and fill all space of the interior of a vehicle upon impact? Sound incredible? Well considering what they have accomplished up to now it really isn’t.
By: Chriss Tyrrell
Archive for October, 2009
Today & Tomorrows Full Featured Automotive Air Bags
October 27th, 2009Kelley Blue Book Lists Vehicles With Best Interior Styling
October 21st, 2009Today, unlike before, consumers are keener on the appearance of the vehicles they buy. The style and gadgetry that a vehicle offer now play an important part as much as what’s under the hood, such that car parts like Honda car accessories are now receiving more attention from both consumers and automakers.
Just recently influential auto resource Kelley Blue Book and its marketing research team have listed the brands with the best interior styling according to the results of its consumer automotive perceptions study. Results showed that Toyota brands have topped the rankings for four vehicle segments, with two of America’s Big Three taking a top spot as well as one German.
For the luxury sedan category Lexus took the top spot, while Toyota took out the best non-luxury sedan, non-luxury SUV and minivan categories. The remaining spots were taken by Mercedes-Benz for best convertible or sports car, GMC for best truck interior, and finally Cadillac, with the best luxury-SUV cabins.
Here is the list of the top three brands in each segment as rated by Kelley Blue Book:
Kelley Blue Book Brand Watch Study: Interior Styling
Convertibles/Sports Cars
Mercedes-Benz
Porsche
Lexus
Trucks
GMC
Chevrolet
Cadillac
Mini Vans
Toyota
Honda
Dodge
Luxury SUVs
Cadillac
Lexus
BMW
Non-Luxury SUVs
Toyota
Chevrolet
Ford
Luxury Sedan
Lexus
Mercedes-Benz
Infiniti
Non-Luxury Sedan
Toyota
Volkswagen
Honda
A similar study was also run by automotive industry publication Wards Auto, which polled thousands of readers including more than 1400 professionals to find the individual cars with the best interiors. Of the 34 cars, which were picked from 11 different categories, four came from the Big Three and two were from Honda.
The cars were judged based on comfort, safety, and design harmony, and the model that beat out every car on the market was the Lexus LS 460L, which took home the ‘Best Overall Comfort’ award.
By: Evander Klum
Automotive Auto Body Franchises Have a Lot of Potential!
October 21st, 2009Choosing to invest in a franchise is a great choice if you wish to be a business owner. Franchises have a better chance of success than independently started businesses. Once you have made the decision to become a franchisee, you need to figure out what type of franchise you would like to open. With the economy not doing so great you need to choose wisely. You want to choose a franchise business that has a good shot at success from the start. Automotive auto body franchises have a lot of potential; find out why.
Let’s start by looking at a few facts! There were 220 million vehicles on U.S. roads in 2003, and that has been growing steadily at approximately 5% per year. So, by using that information we can project that there will be more than 275 million vehicles on the road in 2008. With increasing number of vehicles on the road there will be an increase of vehicles needing repairs as well, which is great for automotive auto body franchise owners. Just to let you get an idea, every 17 seconds a reported rear end collision occurs, and every 8.5 seconds an unreported rear end collision occurs. The most frequent accident on the road is the rear end collision, at almost 29.7%, and 3/4 of these accidents occur at very low speed. That means that almost 30% of drivers on the road will need bumper repair, which is a great service offered by automotive auto body franchises. Not to mention that Nearly 26 Million auto reconditioning repairs are performed annually in the US and Canada! That is a lot of auto body repairs and a lot of profit for auto body repair shops!
Auto reconditioning repairs include body and paint repair, replacement of “bolt” on parts, and glass and interior repairs. Typical damage includes scratches, dents, chips and gouges. Auto reconditioning shops usually offer a wide variety of services such as paintless dent removal, bumper repair, windshield repair, auto body repair, window tinting, wheel rim repair, auto detailing, 3M clear bra installation, lease return inspections, headlight restoration and paint touch up. Some automotive auto body franchises even offer a mobile service, where they will come to you to complete the repairs. Also since auto body repair is affordable many people choose to have it done versus replacement which can be much more costly. With such a wide variety of repairs and services you are sure to have customer bringing their vehicles in for your great auto body services.
So, as you can see with the increasing amount of vehicles on the road an automotive auto body franchise has increasing chances for success. Each year the amount of vehicles on the road is only growing, which means you business will have many opportunities to grow as well.
Start looking today for an automotive auto body shop to invest in. You will definitely have a lot of room to grow as a franchise and become a successful franchise business owner!
By: Samantha McCartney
