It's not easy coming up with new car technology these days, but Hyundai has somehow found a way—and it's nothing you've seen before.
In fact, this new airbag technology is the first mass production from Hyundai that is ahead of its competitors.
No one wants to think of that worst-case scenario—a car accident. However, things happen on the road, and Hyundai wants to make sure you're protected in every way possible.
While airbag technology has significantly improved within the last decade, there is one weakness that a lot of cars on the market today have—sunroofs.
The team at Hyundai Mobis, which is the parts and service sector of Hyundai, has been hard at work creating this first-ever system.
The panorama sunroof airbag was engineered in an effort to prevent passengers from spilling out of the car through the roof in a rollover-collision.
If the airbag senses a change in the turning angle, such as in a rollover accident, the inflator will deploy the airbag. It deploys forward from the front to back in just 0.08 seconds.
The airbag is made from tempered glass and extends the entire length of the sunroof, providing a blanket of cover for the passengers inside the vehicle.
In the test conducted with dummies, results showed that rollover-related injuries were severely lessened. According to Hyundai, "...Serious injuries likely to result in the death of the passenger were reduced to minor injuries."
The new airbag system is "more complex compared to ordinary airbags" and took a lot of engineering expertise to develop. For example, researchers had to take into consideration how successful it would deploy whether the sunroof was open or closed.
Hyundai also secured 11 patents during the process, preventing competitors from developing the same kind of technology.
Safety innovation is ever-evolving in the auto industry, and Hyundai is proving to be one step ahead with this latest engineering.
The expected rollout for the panorama sunroof airbag is early 2019.
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