The Car Tech blog

We have no idea what these shiny clone people have to do with safety.

(Credit: Mercedes-Benz)

In an effort to create the world's safest sedan, Mercedes-Benz has equipped its ESF 2009 S400 Hybrid Concept with more airbags than you can shake a stick at.

The Braking Bag slows the vehicle, while lifting the nose to absorb the impact.

(Credit: Mercedes-Benz)

It starts with the Braking Bag, an auxiliary airbag mounted to the bottom in the vehicle floor that inflates when the ESF's systems conclude that an impact is unavoidable (within 0.6 seconds, or faster than a human reaction time). According to Mercedes, the Braking Bag basically adds additional friction to the road, thereby assisting the brakes and tires in slowing the vehicle quickly. As an added bonus, the Braking Bag stabilizes the vehicle while lifting the nose, reducing "brake dive" and allowing the vehicle to better absorb the impact.

PRE-SAFE Pulse helps to keep passengers safe during a side collision by nudging them away from the doors using air chambers in the side bolsters of the seat backs. Meanwhile, the PRE-SAFE Structure fills folded metal structures in the body of the vehicle with inert gas causing them to unfold within the structure of the vehicle, strengthening the passenger compartment and aiding in absorbing impact.

The ESF 2009 Concept features many innovative safety features.

(Credit: Mercedes-Benz)

Other air-filled safety goodies include an adjustable front airbag that detects how far the passenger is and inflates to a safe size, center airbags that keep passengers from knocking heads together, and seat belt airbags that increase the surface area of the belt to better distribute the forces across the passenger's chest.

Noninflatable safety features include intervehicle communications via an ad hoc Wi-Fi network to receive and transmit warnings of bad weather or obstacles in the road, a 360-degree collision detection system, and Spotlight lighting, which uses infrared cameras to detect road hazards (such as deer or children) and aims the headlamps to better illuminate the danger.

The ESF 2009 premieres on June 15, at the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) Conference in Stuttgart. Check out this video and the video below, which does a great job of highlighting the safety features of the concept.

Toyota's rear-seat center airbag deploys from the center console.

(Credit: Toyota Motor Corporation)

Toyota has announced that it has developed the world's first rear-seat center airbag.

In the event of a side-on collision, this new airbag will deploy from a fixed rear-seat console to prevent injury from passengers colliding with each other or the console itself. We're assuming that the inclusion of this center airbag system eliminates the rear-center seating position.

We're all for vehicles protecting their passengers in the event of a crash, but between your standard front airbags, side-curtain airbags, knee airbags, rear-curtain airbags, and now rear-center airbags, how long will it be before the vehicle just fills with a semi-hard safety foam upon impact, like in the film "Demolition Man?"

On second thought, that would be pretty cool...

The rear-window airbag will work with the headrests to protect passengers' heads.

(Credit: Toyota)

Toyota Motor announced Tuesday that it has developed the world's first rear-window curtain shield airbag to protect rear passengers' heads in the event of a rear-end collision. The new airbag was designed for and will be implemented in its upcoming Japanese market iQ microcar. Merely looking at the photo, we weren't really sure what this new airbag does that the headrests don't already do. Digging a bit deeper we learned that the airbags work with the headrests to minimize impact to the head from a colliding vehicle or parts of the hit vehicle, helping to reduce the severity of injuries.

We're all for safer vehicles here at Car Tech, but we can't help but wonder if this new airbag system will actually work to reduce injuries, or is it just another bullet point safety feature for Toyota's spec sheet.

As more people insist on having a TV while they drive, the following scenario is inevitable: A motorist is watching a big game or show in the car, pulls up to the driveway at a crucial point and sits inside for fear of missing anything. Sanyo has apparently anticipated that kind of conundrum with a new dashboard GPS device that doubles as a portable TV.

(Credit: Gizmag)

The "Gorilla" series--we have no idea what inspired the name either, other than maybe Godzilla--is touted as the first device of its kind with a terrestrial digital tuner, making it easy to pick up and carry with you because it has none of the usual wires to disconnect. Sanyo, which has been busy experimenting with in-car entertainment systems of all kinds, has also included a touch-sensitive LCD in the Gorilla, though at 8 inches it isn't exactly ideal for watching football.

In addition to its navigation features, according to Gizmag, it's actually "designed to double as a terrestrial digital television inside the home or elsewhere." As long as it's in Japan, that is, where the Gorilla will be introduced next month for about $1,980. As if Tokyo traffic isn't dangerous enough as it is.