Ford using $10,000 car-sized balloons for crash-testing

[Haltech]

Filed under: Etc., Safety, Tech, Ford, Lincoln

click the image above for a high-resolution gallery of Ford's car balloons

Ford is working hard to continue earning top marks for crash safety. With a platform inherited from Volvo, they might as well keep piling on the goodies, including radar-assisted cruise control that keeps an eye out for impending collisions and charges up the brakes preemptively. How do you develop, test, and tune such a system? "Why, they smashed a lot of cars into each other" you might conclude. That sounds expensive, and if there's one thing all automakers have been trying to do for quite some time now, it's save cash. Instead of running hunks of metal into one another, Ford has been using balloons shaped like cars for target practice.

With a price tag of $10,000, the balloons might seem a waste, but they can be reused multiple times and no cars get damaged in the process. Plus, the air-filled faux-mobiles facilitate a safer experience for test drivers and are guaranteed to provide some comic relief on windy days. Press release after the jump

Gallery: Ford Crashtest Balloons



[Source: Ford]Continue reading Ford using $10,000 car-sized balloons for crash-testing

Ford using $10,000 car-sized balloons for crash-testing originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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