In June 2020, during the collision test of China Insurance Research Institute, the A-pillar of Honda's Haoying was bent. This is Honda's fourth model after Civic, Inspire, and Lingpai. It is a model with poor safety performance in crash tests. Therefore, in the minds of consumers, Honda cars have become synonymous with "unsafe". Nowadays, when many people buy a Honda, they have to weigh it in their minds.
1 A car that does not cut corners will use hot-formed steel for the A-pillar and B-pillar
The A-pillar of Haoying is obviously bent. The reason is also very simple, which is the structural strength of the A-pillar. not enough. Generally speaking, the A-pillar of a car should be one of the materials with the highest structural strength in the entire body, which is directly related to the driver's life safety.
Usually, a responsible automobile manufacturer will use ultra-high-strength steel, that is, hot-formed steel, in the A-pillar and B-pillar. This kind of steel is once formed after being heated to a high temperature of more than 950°C, and then cooled at a high speed to increase its strength; the yield strength of this kind of steel is often above 1000Mpa (megapascals), and the tensile strength can be as high as about 1500Mpa. The concept is that per square meter Centimeter can theoretically withstand more than 10 tons of pressure.
In today’s 200,000-class cars, if ultra-high-strength steel is not used in the A-pillar and B-pillar, it can be regarded as cutting corners. Obviously Haoying is one of them.
2 Haoying, CR-V's A-pillar strength is only 780 MPa
Honda Haoying, CR-V, Civic, Lingpai and other models do not use structural strength A lot of steel. Although Guangben has not published the A-pillar structural strength diagram of Haoying, it can be found from Haoying's maintenance data that its A-pillar structural strength is only 780 MPa, which is the same as that of Yingshi Pai, while Dongfeng Honda CR-V The strength of the A-pillar steel is also 780 MPa. The intensity is about half lower than the normal 1500 MPa. It is precisely because of this that Haoying's collision results are so vulnerable.
Therefore, whether it is the GAC Honda Haoying launched for the Chinese market or the global Dongfeng Honda CR-V. Their A-pillar structures are not high. It’s just that China Insurance Research Institute conducted a crash test on Haoying, but did not conduct a crash test on CR-V. If the CR-V were also crash tested, its performance would actually be just as bad.
Honda Acura, CR-V, Civic, Lingpai, and Inspire all use steel with low structural strength. So does Honda perform the same in other countries? Not really. According to the survey, Honda CR-V uses 1500 MPa steel in the A-pillar and B-pillar in overseas markets.
3 The overseas version of CR-V uses 1500 MPa steel in the A-pillar and B-pillar
The information we investigated comes from the body repair manual of the overseas version of CR-V. The new CR-V V structural strength diagram, the A-pillar uses 1500 MPa. Therefore, it can be judged that the overall structural strength of the overseas version is better than that of the domestic version. Therefore, it is a no-brainer that the domestic version of the model cuts corners.
I believe this is the most intolerable problem for Chinese consumers, because the domestically produced Haoying CR-V is not cheap, and is even more expensive than the US market. Considering the per capita GDP in China and the US In terms of net income, Chinese consumers have already spent a lot of money buying Honda cars. They spent more money and bought cars with worse safety. This huge contrast is unacceptable to Chinese consumers.
4. Low structural strength and low safety configuration = low probability of driver survival
In the final photo released by China Insurance Research Institute, we found that the A-pillar of Haoying had been bent, which caused The central control area invades the cockpit to a large extent and rests on the driver's knees. This not only easily causes a backlog on the driver's head and reduces the driver's living space, but also reduces the driver's chance of escape.
Coupled with the lack of front and rear head airbags, the driver's head is almost exposed without any protection, which greatly reduces the driver's survival probability.
Summary:
Although they are both automobile manufacturers from Japan, Toyota and Honda are at two extremes in terms of safety performance in the Chinese market. Toyota's cars have consistently achieved good results in the China Insurance Research Institute's tests in recent years, while Honda's cars have basically all failed. I believe that as the awareness level of Chinese consumers increases, Honda's behavior of cutting corners will eventually be abandoned by consumers.