Taking crash tests to the next level

To continue improving the safety of our vehicles, we put them through a wide variety of crash tests at our dedicated Crash Test Centre in Cologne, Germany.

Each year, around 250 vehicles are driven into the wall. This testing will soon expand to include vehicles travelling at 50 km/h crashing into a barrier also moving at 50 km/h, which will provide the test situation for head-on crashes. The new facility will also conduct crash tests with collisions from behind and from the side.

In order to introduce this new series of tests, we are expanding the Crash Test Centre to include a 100-metre run-up track and a crash area of more than 2,000 square metres. The crashes will take place over a six-metre deep filming area where high-speed cameras will record the impacts from below, the sides and above.

For this new construction and to refurbish the existing test facility, we are investing $15.5 million (€13.1 million). And we’ve already added six new crash test dummies to our test family, at a cost of $5 million (€4.2 million). The new facility is scheduled for completion by mid 2021. 

Jörg Beyer, managing director, Product Development, Ford-Werke GmbH.

“This is an investment in the future of our innovative development centre and of course in the safety of our customers. Our new facility makes it possible to carry out crash tests at the highest technological level.”

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