Can You Put.airbags on a 5th Wheel Camper?
COMPANY NEWS
COMPANY NEWS; Airbags on the Way As Chrysler Gives In
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May 26, 1988
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The Chrysler Corporation'due south conclusion to install airbags equally standard equipment on several automobile lines this year and all its domestically made cars past 1990 signals the end of a nearly 20-year battle over use of the devices, according to machine manufacture executives and safety advocates.
Airbags, which inflate rapidly to protect motorists when a automobile crashes, have been available every bit standard equipment on only some high-priced European cars and as options on simply a few domestic models. The iii American motorcar companies had long resisted installing the devices, arguing that the engineering was unproved and the expense as well great.
Chrysler, the smallest of Detroit's Large Three automobile makers, decided to put airbags on 6 models this year, with no change in price, for 2 reasons. Federal regulations call for additional passive restraints that require no action past passengers, like buckling a belt. And Chrysler'southward surveys plant that customers preferred airbags over passive seat belts, which automatically wrap effectually people as they sit down in a automobile.
The models affected this year include the Chrysler LeBaron coupe and convertible, the Dodge Daytona and the older, rear-wheel-bulldoze Chrysler Fifth Avenue, Dodge Diplomat and Plymouth Gran Fury. Nader Sees 'Victory'
Experts said information technology was too early to tell whether airbags would ultimately sally every bit the dominant form of passive restraint over passive seat belts. But the Chrysler move makes it probable that the General Motors Corporation, the Ford Motor Company and manufacturers of some popular imported cars volition too offer airbags equally standard equipment, consumer advocates and insurance manufacture officials say.
General Motors and Ford declined to comment on that speculation, but some executives at the two companies said privately that airbag installations would increase.
''We have declared victory; this is a remarkable turnaround,'' said Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate who has been urging the use of airbags since the outset Federal regulations were proposed in 1969. He said the pressure of competition from Chrysler would force other manufacturers to offer airbags, so equally to avoid the impression that they are lagging in new technology.
Insurance industry officials besides hailed Chrysler's decision. ''The Chrysler evolution is meaning considering information technology puts airbags in family unit-priced cars,'' said John Cook, a senior vice president at the Insurance Plant for Highway Rubber.
F. Peter Libassi, a senior vice president of the Travelers Insurance Companies, said, ''We estimate that widespread use of air-bags and seat belts could salvage ten,000 lives a year.'' Travelers operates a armada of cars equipped with air bags.
Ford has made airbags an $815 selection on its Ford Tempo and Mercury Topaz compact cars since 1985 and has sold about 26,000 then far, many to the Federal Government and for corporate fleets.
Ford is expected to denote that its 1989 Lincoln Continental will have airbags as standard equipment on both sides, which would be a first for the domestic industry. Most auto makers that offer airbags, including Chrysler, have them only on the driver'south side in the front end seat. Automotive engineers say information technology is technically more than difficult to design a passenger-side airbag considering of the greater distance involved to the dashboard and the possibility that the passenger could be a small child, who could be injured by a bag designed to restrain an adult. Offered past Porsche
The installation of airbags in Continentals would propose that Ford has decided that the devices volition add to the prototype of these high-priced, high-technology cars. The only other company to offering a rider-side airbag is Porsche. Mercedes-Benz offers driver-side bags as standard equipment on all models sold in the United states of america.
General Motors has been less active in this area, offering an airbag selection on only ane model, the Oldsmobile Delta 88, starting in the current model yr. Even though the $850 price of the airbag has been cut by a $500 rebate, merely 481 airbag-equipped cars have been sold since they were first offered in November, according to a General Motors spokesman. A 2nd car line with an airbag choice will be offered next year, the company has announced.
Federal regulations require that car makers install passive restraints on an increasing proportion of their production over the side by side few model years. The regulations call for a 10 percent installation charge per unit in the 1987 model year, 25 percentage this yr, 40 percent in 1989 models and 100 percent in 1990.
Airbags and passive seat belts are the two technologies that have been developed to run across the regulations. How the Airbag Works
An airbag protects a person by sensing that a crash is taking identify and inflating chop-chop (in virtually ane-25th of a second) to absorber the head and breast from contact with the steering wheel and windshield. After contact, the bag deflates in about 2 seconds.
On the commuter'south side, the folded bag and a chemical gas generator are mounted within the hub of the steering bike. If any of several sensors are jolted difficult enough to shut an electric contact, the chemical charge is ignited and the bag bursts through the cover of the steering wheel, where the horn usually is found. A bag used by Ford is 26 inches in diameter, or slightly wider than the steering wheel, and is about 6 inches deep when fully inflated.
The regulations are intended to encourage the installation of airbags by permitting agile belts on the passenger side until 1994 if the driver is protected by an airbag. Companies using passive belts must install them on both sides past 1990. Long Opposed by Iacocca
The announcement by Chrysler, whose chairman, Lee A. Iacocca, has denounced airbags for years, came as a surprise. ''Iacocca was probably the auto industry executive most identified with opposition to airbags,'' said Joan Claybrook, a former caput of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. ''To see him turn effectually and offset pushing them - it really is a new twenty-four hour period.''
Indeed, transcripts of the underground taping system operated by one-time President Nixon disclosed that Mr. Iacocca, who was then president of Ford, and Henry Ford 2d, the company's chairman at the time, met with Mr. Nixon in April 1971 in an evidently successful effort to quash then-pending airbag regulations.
Chrysler's move took some attention away from Ford, which had been the leading, though low-level, producer of airbag-equipped cars in the domestic industry. U.Due south. Regulations a Factor
John D. Withrow, Chrysler's executive vice president for product development, said the Federal regulations were the driving force behind the company's airbag decision. ''Chrysler's position remains that the iii-point belts we take in cars today are the best safety device,'' he said. ''But that is not the police force of the land. We had to run into the 1988 requirements.''
He said the company held marketplace enquiry clinics with potential customers last spring and fall to help make up one's mind whether to employ motorized belts or airbags. ''We establish that people did not similar the belt moving on a rail well-nigh their heads,'' Mr. Withrow said. Equally a result of that testing, Chrysler made what amounted to a marketing decision to use airbags, despite their greater expense.
The cost of airbags has been a affair of controversy during the long wrangle over whether the Government should require their usage. Ford has said the $815 option toll did not fully reflect its costs, but proponents of the devices have said the toll could be driven down to about $300 if the bags were produced in the millions.
The relatively low sales rate of airbags as options has reinforced the claims of some car makers that the public is non willing to pay for safety. Just advocates note that $800 adds almost 10 percent to the price of a meaty car and that dealers have not pushed the sale of the bags very hard. 'Solves the Dealer Problem'
''That's the beauty of the Chrysler conclusion; it solves the dealer problem,'' Ms. Claybrook said. ''Dealers always tend to lag behind the car companies on this sort of thing. By making the airbags standard there is no problem with dealers.''
Mr. Libassi said Travelers decided to become to an all-airbag fleet in 1985, after an order for v,000 cars from the General Services Administration persuaded Ford to equip the Tempo and Topaz models with the choice. He said the devices had saved the lives of dozens of drivers of the company's 3,400-auto fleet.
''It price us $two.v million more than nosotros otherwise would have paid, just we experience that the investment has more paid for itself in fiscal terms solitary,'' he said. Melanie Stephenson, an employee benefits saleswoman in the visitor'due south Westport, Conn., function, survived a head-on collision with a large truck in an airbag-equipped Tempo.
''It was a narrow route and I was coming around a curve when I started hydroplaning on the wet road,'' she said in an interview today. ''I knew I was going to hitting him, then I closed my eyes. We hit, the bag popped and when I opened my optics the bag was there.'' Although the auto was damaged beyond repair, Ms. Stephenson suffered only hobbling knees. COMPANIES Offer AIRBAGS 1988 model cars with standard driver-side airbags. COMPANY: Honda MODEL: Acura Legend LS, iv-door sedan Company: BMW MODEL: Half dozen and Seven serial COMPANY: Mercedes MODEL: All models Visitor: Porsche [ i ] MODEL: Three models standard (944 Turbo, 944 TurboS, 944S); ane model optional (944) COMPANY: Saab MODEL: I model optional (9000 Turbo) Company: Volvo MODEL: Three models standard (780,760, 740 Turbo); one model optional (740 GLE) Visitor: Ford MODEL: Two models optional (Tempo and Mercury Topaz) COMPANY: Thousand.M. MODEL: One Oldsmobile model optional (Delta 88) Visitor: Chrysler [ 2 ] MODEL: Half-dozen models optional (Dodge Daytona, Dodge Diplomat, Chrysler Fifth Artery, Chrysler LeBaron convertible and coupe, and Plymouth Gran Fury) [ one ] Also has passenger-side airbags. [ ii ] In cars produced later May 1988. (Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/26/business/company-news-airbags-on-the-way-as-chrysler-gives-in.html
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