CRASHING CARS: HOW MANUFACTURERS ARE MAKING CARS SAFER

Witnessing 2 live crash tests of the flagship Chery Tiggo 9 PHEV

- By MANNY N. DELOS REYES

You know that a company really wants to get a message across when they spend over P6 million for two events that, combined, last for less than 10 seconds. They spent that amount because they crashed and wrecked three brand new large SUVs in the name of a safety demonstration.

I am talking about Chery Auto. I was at Chery's Longshan Testing Centre in Wuhu, Anhui Province in China last month, two days after we visited the Shanghai Auto Show. We were at the Testing Centre to see how Chery tests its cars, from driving through knee-high water, to seeing how seven cars stacked on top of each other would hold up (not a dent or dimple on the bottommost car; its pillars and windows all intact and four doors and tailgate opening smoothly).

Of course, the highlight of the day was the two crash tests: a full-frontal crash at 56 km/h between two identical Chery Tiggo 9 plug-in hybrid vehicles—the new flagship of the Chery Tiggo SUV lineup that's yet to arrive in the Philippines—and a rollover test with another Tiggo 9 PHEV doing 68 km/h.

The 56 km/h speed is the standard frontal crash test speed in the global New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) while 68 km/h is the standard for rollover crash tests.

We were allowed to climb up the overhead walkways to get a good view of the "accident." The assemblage of over 300 media and dealer guests waited with bated breath as the safety sirens sounded, signifying an imminent crash test occurring. Then the sound of two cars accelerating from opposite directions headed towards each other.

The sight and sound of the impact was spectacular as the rear ends of the two large and heavy vehicles lifted in the air from the momentum. Then an eerie silence in the aftermath.