USA - Tesla sales in the fourth quarter of 2013 were the highest in company history by a significant margin

Tesla sales in the fourth quarter of 2013 were the highest in company history by a significant margin. With almost 6,900 vehicles sold and delivered, Tesla exceeded prior guidance by approximately 20%. A higher than expected number of cars was manufactured as a result of an excellent effort by the Tesla production team and key suppliers, particularly Panasonic.

The two key drivers of demand were the superlative safety record of the Model S and great performance under extremely cold conditions.

Safety Record

Tesla remains the only manufacturer with a perfect safety record of zero deaths or serious, permanent injuries ever. Including the Roadster, Tesla vehicles have now been on the road for almost six years in 31 countries with almost 200 million miles driven to date. Despite dozens of high speed collisions, the driver and passengers have always been protected. This is Tesla’s proudest achievement.

Independent testing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) awarded the Tesla Model S a 5 star safety rating overall and in every subcategory without exception. Of all vehicles tested, including every major make and model approved for sale in the United States, the Model S set a new record for the lowest likelihood of injury to occupants. While the Model S is a sedan, it also exceeded the safety score of all SUV’s and minivans.

Excellent Cold Weather Performance

Due to the precision of its electric powertrain, the Model S has outstanding traction control relative to the much higher latency and inertia of a gasoline powertrain. As a result, it is able to perform better on snow and ice than many all-wheel drive gasoline cars, as shown in this Tesla produced video:

NHTSA give new Kia Sorento 5 stars in the US.

• 5-Star rating enhances Sorento’s overall value proposition
• Long list of standard safety features allow Sorento to achieve high scores across all categories

Kia Motors America’s (KMA) top-selling CUV, the redesigned 2014 Sorento, has earned the highest possible overall safety rating – five stars – from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The new Sorento was recognized for its outstanding performance in frontal and side impact crash tests, as well as high marks in rollover testing.

 “Built on an all-new platform, the redesigned Sorento utilizes Kia’s advanced safety equipment and technologies to provide a high level of occupant protection for drivers and their families as measured by the U.S. government,” said Orth Hedrick, executive director, product planning, KMA. “Already a compelling entry in the compact CUV category, earning a 5-Star rating from NHTSA makes the Sorento an even stronger contender within its segment while underscoring Kia’s overall commitment to delivering safety and exceptional value to our customers.”

 In addition to NHTSA’s 5-Star rating, the 2014 Sorento has also been named a Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).  It is built at Kia’s manufacturing facility in West Point, Georgia and is available in four trim levels.

About the 2014 Sorento
The 2014 Sorento is no mere mid-cycle refresh.  It rides on an all-new platform and suspension system, and offers a new V6 engine and more passenger room as well as a new top-of-the-line trim level known as the SX Limited.  From a styling perspective, redesigned front and rear fascias incorporate new lighting elements, the 17-inch and 18-inch alloy wheels have been redesigned and a larger 19-inch alloy wheel is offered on the SX as well as the all-new SX Limited.  Inside, the center rack, gear shift, instrument clusters, and soft-touch surfaces all feature a redesigned look.  Other available features now include second row sliding sunshades and heated front seats, panoramic sunroof, a programmable powered lift gate, heated second row seat bottoms, and more.  The 2014 Sorento was the first Kia vehicle to offer the next generation voice-activated telematics system, UVO eServices.

Kia:  One of the World’s Fastest Moving Global Automotive Brands
Kia Motors America is one of only three auto brands to increase U.S. sales in each of the past four years, and in 2012 the company surpassed the 500,000 unit mark for the first time.  With a full line of fun-to-drive cars and CUVs, Kia is advancing value to new levels of sophistication by combining European-influenced styling – under the guidance of chief design officer Peter Schreyer – with cutting-edge technologies, premium amenities, affordable pricing and the lowest cost of ownership in the industry.  Kia recently joined the exclusive ranks of Interbrand’s “Top 100 Best Global Brands,” and is poised to continue its momentum with seven all-new or significantly redesigned vehicles scheduled to arrive in showrooms in 2013.  Over the past decade Kia Motors has invested more than $1.4 billion in the U.S., including the company’s first U.S. assembly plant in West Point, Georgia – Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia – which is responsible for the creation of more than 14,000 plant and supplier jobs.  The success of the U.S.-built* Optima and Sorento in two of the industry’s largest segments has fueled Kia’s rapid growth and is complemented by Kia’s comprehensive lineup which includes the Cadenza flagship sedan, Soul urban passenger vehicle, Sportage compact CUV, Optima Hybrid, the Forte sedan, 5-door and Koup compacts, Rio and Rio 5-door sub-compacts and the Sedona minivan.

Other entry level compacts struggle, especially Toyota - Honda still the best among compacts

Gabe Nelson
Automotive News
August 8, 2013 - 12:01 am ET

The Honda Civic is still the only small car to get the top rating on a new test that simulates a severe front-end crash, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says.

IIHS, which is funded by insurance companies, today released another batch of test results for its "small overlap" crash test, which replicates an accident in which the front corner of a car clips another car, a pole or a tree at 40 mph.

The group gave "acceptable" ratings to the Dodge Dart, Ford Focus, Hyundai Elantra and 2014 Scion tC, which was enough to earn them Top Safety Pick+ honors.

However, they did not do as well as the two- and four-door Civic, which received "good" ratings earlier this year -- a payoff for Honda engineers in Ohio after they redid the car's front-end architecture to better handle this type of crash.

Automakers generally make greater use of high-strength or hot-formed steel to help cars stand up to small-overlap crashes. The engineering challenge can be daunting because these crashes tend to bypass the structures under the hood that are designed to crumple and absorb the force of a straight-on front-end crash.

Many popular and entry-level small cars struggled with the new test. The Nissan Sentra, Kia Soul and 2014 Kia Forte all received a "poor" rating today while the Chevrolet Cruze, Chevrolet Sonic and Volkswagen Beetle received "marginal" ratings.

"In the worst cases, safety cages collapsed, driver airbags moved sideways with unstable steering columns and the dummy's head hit the instrument panel," IIHS Chief Research Officer David Zuby said in a statement. "Side curtain airbags didn't deploy or didn't provide enough forward coverage to make a difference. All of this adds up to marginal or poor protection in a small-overlap crash."

Starting for model year 2013, the IIHS made an "acceptable" or "good" score on the small-overlap test a prerequisite for Top Safety Pick+ honors, though cars that flunk the test are still eligible for Top Safety Pick plaudits.

The passing grade for the Scion tC coupe is a sign of improvement for Toyota, which drew criticism from IIHS over the past year as top-selling models such as the Camry sedan and RAV4 crossover received low marks on the new test.

IIHS didn't test the 2013 Corolla sedan because it is on the verge of a redesign.

Joe Nolan, the head of the group's testing laboratory, said during a recent interview that Toyota has asked IIHS to test the redesigned 2014 Corolla, Highlander SUV and Prius compact hybrid, as well as the freshened 2014 Camry. He said it was a sign of the automaker's confidence in its efforts to steel those cars against small-overlap crashes.

You can reach Gabe Nelson at gnelson@crain.com.

Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20130808/OEM11/130809868#ixzz2bOtdyedF
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2014 Honda Odyssey shoots for Top Safety Pick Plus

Gabe Nelson | Automotive News
 

The engineers who work on the Honda Odyssey pay close attention to crash-test ratings. Safety sells minivans, and Honda has long taken pains to maintain the vehicle's five-star safety ratings from the government.

So they were determined to prevent the type of steel carnage they saw in late 2011, when the crash testers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety laboratories here sent a 2012 Odyssey zooming into the corner of a concrete barrier at 40 mph.

The impact obliterated the corner of the van and left a gaping hole where the left front tire had been. Behind that, the driver-side foot well and door frame buckled, which would have put a driver at risk of severe leg injuries.

These were the telltale wounds of a "small overlap" crash, in which the front corner of a car strikes an oncoming car, a pole or a tree. Now that the IIHS has made a high rating on its new small-overlap crash test a prerequisite for its stricter Top Safety Pick+ honors, protecting passengers from these crashes has become a pressing challenge for automakers.

And it's a tough one -- not least because of the unique nature of the crash. A small-overlap impact misses the steel beams that crumple to cushion a head-on crash, said Chuck Thomas, Honda's chief engineer for vehicle structure research, during a visit to the safety group's Virginia laboratory to witness the 2014 Odyssey's crash test.

"The structures which are most capable of absorbing that kind of front-end energy just aren't so accessible," he says. "That's what makes these crashes very severe."

Automakers prefer to save complex engineering changes for the redesign of a model, but brands that have built their reputation around safety had to move quickly. Subaru, for example, bolstered the steel frame of the Legacy sedan and Outback wagon as part of a freshening. Volvo reprogrammed the side curtain airbags in the XC60 crossover. All three passed the IIHS test to earn Top Safety Pick+ honors.

Some automakers -- most notably, Toyota -- have struggled. America's best-selling car, the Toyota Camry sedan, received a "poor" rating on the small-overlap test for the 2013 model year. So did the Prius V hybrid and RAV4 crossover.

Joe Nolan, head of the IIHS crash laboratory, said it usually takes five or six years -- one full product cycle -- for all models in a particular brand to ace a new crash test. "The programming of an airbag can change pretty quickly," Nolan said. "But a fundamental change to the architecture of the front end of the vehicle? That's a pretty big deal."

Toyota is racing to catch up. Nolan said the company asked IIHS to test the redesigned Corolla compact, Prius compact hybrid and Highlander SUV -- as well as the Camry, which is getting a freshening for the 2014 model year.

It shows Toyota expects those models to do better on the small-overlap test, he said.

-Honda wasn't surprised by the Odyssey's 2011 test results. The company had been working on a tougher front end for the minivan since 2009, when the IIHS released research on small-overlap crashes, Thomas said. But the redesigned Odyssey was a year from its 2010 launch date at that point, and engineers ran out of time. "It's not practical to tear up everything at the last minute," he said.

To strengthen the freshened Odyssey, Honda added high-strength steel supports, and in places switched to hot-formed steel. Honda also added new side-curtain airbags to keep passengers from being ejected in a crash and switched to an aluminum hood to offset some of the 70-pound weight gain.

At its test here last week, the reworked Odyssey was thrust down a long track before it struck the barrier with a thunderous noise, then pivoted 90 degrees to the right. Inside the passenger cabin, inflated airbags obscured the crash dummy. IIHS is expected to issue its rating in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, from a gallery upstairs, two Toyota engineers looked on, waiting to inspect the wreckage of the rival vehicle.

John Hanson, a spokesman for Toyota, defended the automaker's overall safety record, saying it has the most current models that have earned IIHS's regular Top Safety Pick honors, which exclude the small-overlap results.

"Some manufacturers are able to roll out the changes quicker than others," he said. "We want to be able to conform to those new criteria, and we're going to."

You can reach Gabe Nelson at gnelson@crain.com.

NHTSA confirms new deputy, considers push for automatic braking

I for one am not a fan of the Auto Braking, I am a fan of a Collision Warning System, I think that having a Automated system could cause an accident in a false-positive situation.... (ie:  going around a round a bout with parked cars on the side curb)....

WASHINGTON -- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has confirmed David Friedman, previously a transportation analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, as its new deputy administrator.

Friedman, an engineer by training who has pushed for stricter fuel economy standards and lower oil consumption while working at the advocacy group, replaces Ron Medford, who left NHTSA last year to lead Google Inc.'s self-driving cars project.

NHTSA Administrator David Strickland made the announcement today during a congressional hearing on crash-prevention features and other new technologies that could boost the safety of cars.

During the hearing, Strickland said the agency is getting closer to calling for automatic braking.

Automatic braking systems use a camera or radar system to detect oncoming vehicles and objects and then apply the brakes if the driver fails to do so.

Automakers such as Volvo and Mercedes-Benz have started to offer such features in their high-end cars or as optional equipment, earning praise from groups such as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which says Volvo's "City Safety" system appears to be effective at preventing crashes in stop-and-start traffic.

In a report released last month, the institute said insurance claims are being filed about 16 percent less often for S60 sedans equipped with the feature than for other mid-sized luxury cars and 15 percent less often for the XC60 than for comparable luxury SUVs.

In an effort to hasten the adoption of such technologies, NHTSA ordered automakers to outfit all cars with electronic stability control starting in the 2011 model year.

A similar mandate for automatic braking could be next. Strickland told reporters after the hearing that NHTSA could end up ordering the use of automatic braking or merely recommend it through the federal government's New Car Assessment Program.

The agency also could decide to do more research on the subject.

Strickland said agency staffers "are working through that right now, and they'll be bringing it to me for an agency decision this year."

Source;
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130515/OEM11/130519924/nhtsa-confirms-new-deputy-considers-push-for-automatic-braking#axzz2TSOZRP5V

Honda’s Civic Tops All Safety Ratings

by Philippe Crowe of www.hybridcars.com

The new 2013 Honda Civic Sedan has received the highest possible overall safety ratings from both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

This is good news for a car that is known to be one of the most popular small car among individual buyers

The 2013 Civic Sedan recently received the top 5-Star Overall Vehicle Score in the NHTSA’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), and the highest possible rating of Top Safety Pick+ from the IIHS, including a top score of Good in the new small overlap frontal collision test.

Honda said it leads all automakers with every one of its tested model year 2013 vehicles earning a Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ rating from the IIHS.

The 2013 Honda Civic Sedan and Coupe are the first and only small cars to earn the IIHS’ highest safety rating of Top Safety Pick, and the NCAP 5-Star Overall Vehicle Score for the Civic Sedan further separates Civic from the competition in safety ratings performance.

The 2013 Accord also earned these high safety ratings in the midsize segment.

“Car shoppers cannot find a small car with higher overall safety ratings than the 2013 Honda Civic,” said Art St. Cyr, vice president of product planning and logistics at American Honda. “Safety ratings leadership across product lines is a fundamental part of not only our strategic business plan, but also our philosophy as a company.”

The Civic Sedan, which Honda said was significantly re-engineered for 2013, is equipped with Honda’s next generation Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE) body structure, which contributes to make Civic the first small car to earn a Top Safety Pick+ crash safety rating, and the first to earn the highest rating of GOOD in the IIHS’ new small overlap frontal crash test (sometimes called a ‘narrow offset’ test).

This aggressive test is designed to simulate what happens when the front corner of a vehicle collides with another vehicle or an object such as a tree or utility pole at high speed.

Honda said the reinforced ACE body structure found on the 2013 Civic further enhances frontal crash energy through a wider range of these offset and oblique collision scenarios.

Additional standard safety equipment on all Civic models include Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA) with traction control; an Anti-lock Braking System (ABS); side curtain airbags; dual-stage, multiple-threshold front airbags; and driver and front passenger side airbags.

Source;
http://www.hybridcars.com/hondas-civic-tops-all-safety-ratings/