leedogg

now thats much more useful than showing crashes and going ooo look clearly the bigger car did better. Although I didnt like how they used various vehicles of different weights without using a fixed standard for comparison. Sorta like evaluating an accord vs a Ford Explorer, a camry vs an H2 and a mercedes vs a big rig and then saying ooo look the accord does the best vs something larger.

RON430

I think the reason they picked the comparos they did was to make them in the same mfr on the assumption that there might be better performance expected against siblings. As for which ones to pick making a relevant test, that is open to debate. No one in a Smart has any guarantee that that offset front ender will be against a C Class and not an H1. Ihaven't much of a clue how you make it fair or representative of the real world. I think they wanted to get roughly the range of weight that was representative of the majority of vehicles out there, hence the Camry, Accord, and C Class.

Nextourer

Hmm.. the smart had the A-pillars nearly intact (just a slight crease) but the Yaris sedan's A-Pillar is just abolished! Also what's notable is that the smart's roof did not shatter. It's the weber plastic panoramic roof so at least we know it's strong enough if it should roll over.

The smart bounces cause it's so light.

xioix

Well crash tests are done at 35mph at a non moving object, this was done with both traveling at 40mph at each other, outcomes are going to look really different than other crash tests

Stormwind

I am glad you had noticed it. All those small cars had a "possibility" of injury except for one...that one resulted in instant death had it been a real person driving it. Props to Ford for making a safer small car than Toyota.

leedogg

What i'm saying is that I dont care what they put these mini cars up against, as long as it's the same vehicle used in all 3 cases. the result of a smart vs a mercedes tells me nothing in comparison to a fit vs an accord. Whereas if they pit all 3 minicar's against the same larger vehicle, we could draw more scientific conclusions. Otherwise I could arguably say that the mercedes is a brick and doesnt crumple at all and therefor more kinetic energy is transferred to the smart as opposed to the accord which crumples like paper and absorbs most of the damage instead of transferring it to the fit, so therefore these tests can only tell me that the smart is bad vs larger cars with the exact same characteristics of that mercedes.

KILLERGS4

did you see the MB emblem fly off, looks cool...

superchan7

Anyone have any ideas as to why didn't they test hybrids like the Prius and Insight against the Camry and Accord? The hybrids are basically equivalent to economy hatchbacks with a fancier powertrain. The new Prius does weigh a lot more, though.

And why no US brand econocars tested?

KILLERGS4

i feel sorry for people who drives these cars, mainly due to economic reasons... people who drive these cars because they think that they are cute are idiots...

superchan7

I like econo hatches because they're useful while being sporty. I don't want to haul stuff in my metrosexual ES350. Ideally, I'd like a van to haul with and also a pure sports car, but 3 vehicles is beyond my idea of being reasonable.

So I'm not forced to buy small cars out of financial constraint, but I'm also beyond buying a car for looks and enviro-credits. Some of them do look cute, though. It's a bonus.

FKL

Gotta love Fox Noise for interjecting the white house into these results.

But I agree with most of the comments here. The Fit gets marginally worse mileage than it's Civic counterpart. The Smart's mileage figures leave much to be desired. Go get a Prius/Insight/Civic hybrid/Jetta TDI if all you want to see 50mpg on the cluster, but don't try and justify your purchase of a small death trap on MPG!

RON430

I don't think the test was econocars as much as it was for the micro mini size vehicles. Not sure what US vehicle would qualify for the size of a Smart. Don't know if they will start looking at things like Prius v Camry but if you go to their website, they sell the results (vids and such) so you never know what they might get into to generate a few bucks.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

More realistic I would think. Too bad there aren't more tests like with moving objects like this. Represents real world crashes much better.

The G Man

When the hood is only 2 ft long, there is only so much metal that can crumble.

nthach

Note to Toyota engineers: stop listening to Paramore in the crash test cell. I know crushcrushcrush is a catchy song but when a car crushcrushcrushes the wrong way bad things happen.