Mercedes crash test scandal
The Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday December 1 2005
A demonstration of new crash-avoidance technology has backfired due to an embarrassing failed cover-up, reports GREG KABLE.
Mercedes-Benz has been left red-faced and a German motoring journalist has been sacked following revelations that they conspired to doctor a crash-avoidance test to gain exposure on one of Germany's highest rating television programs.
The crash test demonstration, at Mercedes-Benz's Safety Centre in Germany in early November, was intended to highlight the ability of the new S-Class's crash-avoidance technology.
The plan was to drive a new S-Class towards a parked car in a cloud of simulated fog and rely on a radar system that detects obstacles and applies maximum braking pressure to avoid a crash.
At the wheel of the Mercedes test car was Michael Specht, a senior journalist with Germany's Auto Bild magazine, who tested the system the previous day in an outdoor test area.
All was going well until Mercedes-Benz safety engineers found the Safety Centre's steel walls interfered with the crash-avoidance system's radar unit. In the earlier outdoor demonstration it performed flawlessly.
However, in six out of 10 runs carried out in the Safety Centre prior to the media demonstration, the system failed, according to senior Mercedes-Benz officials.
Instead of cancelling the test display, however, Mercedes-Benz allowed it to go ahead, revealing to Specht the problems caused by the surrounding steel walls and suggesting he brake the car in a way that would simulate the actions of the radar and braking systems.
As a back up measure, Mercedes-Benz safety engineers placed a plank of wood on the ground to mark the point at which Specht should apply the brakes.
Despite all this, Mercedes-Benz failed to reveal to other journalists, including a reporter from Stern TV, that it had secretly doctored the test demonstration in co-operation with Specht following the failure of the system to function properly.
With cameras from Stern TV rolling, Specht then drove the S-Class into the main hall of the Safety Centre and through a thick cloud of "fog".
But without the hydraulic back-up supplied by the Brake Assist Plus system, he failed to apply sufficient braking force and the $250,000 Mercedes ploughed into the rear of the parked car.
In an interview immediately after the incident, a clearly shaken Specht told Stern TV he had failed to react fast enough in activating the S-Class's brakes once the Distronic Plus's acoustic warning had sounded.
However, a replay revealed no acoustic warning had been picked up by a number of microphones placed around the car by the German television program's technicians.
At the same time, questions were raised about the presence of the wooden plank.
Furthermore Stern TV's microphones had also picked up suggestions from Mercedes personnel to move the wooden plank further back to lengthen the critical braking distance.
Mercedes's head of safety, Karl-Heinz Baumann, was reluctantly forced to admit the system had failed, yet he agreed to let Specht take a second run in another S-Class.
As suspicions about the authenticity of the first demonstration grew, a reporter from Stern TV, Juergen Brand, asked if he could accompany Specht in the car for the second run.
His request was declined amid concerns that he would detect that the system was not functioning due to the lack of an acoustic warning. (When the radar senses an obstacle, a warning beep sounds in the cabin.) With the wooden plank moved back, the second demonstration was carried out without mishap, although by then serious doubts about the test had arisen.
It was only after Stern TV producers studied their footage and questioned the authenticity of the test that Mercedes admitted it had withheld information about the system's inability to work within its own Safety Centre.
"We failed to inform Stern TV and I'm not proud of that," Ulrich Mellingh of, Mercedes's head of active safety, told Stern TV in a studio interview.
"With hindsight we should have cancelled the test there and then but we were worried about the negative impact that such a move may have cast on the [crash-avoidance] system's ability to perform in the real world."
For his part in the cover up, Specht has been sacked by Auto Bild, which claims it did not set out to deceive the public.
In Drive's experience, crash-avoidance technology is not infallible. At the international launch for the Mercedes S-Class earlier this year, two journalists managed to collide in a low-speed nose-to-tail crash, pictured below. The incident prompted Mercedes to remind drivers that electronic aids will not overcome physics. "If you're going too fast, you're going too fast," said a Mercedes minder at the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What really happened
* The demonstration started by showing an old C-Class sedan crashing into an offset barrier.
* The C-Class was then hit from behind - as planned - by a current-model
S-Class.
* In the final pass, a journalist drove a new S-Class towards the crashed cars with the aim of testing the new radar-assisted crash-avoidance technology.
* Because the radar technology didn't work in the crash test centre, the driver agreed to brake manually, judging his distance with a plank a wood placed on the ground. He braked too late and crashed into rear of the previously crashed S-Class.
* A TV crew queried why a plank of wood needed to be placed on the ground if the system used radar to detect an obstacle such as a parked car.
* Checking its on-board audio recording equipment, the TV crew found that there was no audible alarm warning of the obstacles.
* Mercedes eventually admitted there was a cover-up. Stern TV has since performed the test 40 times in an outdoor test area with a 100 per cent success rate.
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http://www.drive.com.au/editorial/article.aspx?id=10759
The Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday December 1 2005
A demonstration of new crash-avoidance technology has backfired due to an embarrassing failed cover-up, reports GREG KABLE.
Mercedes-Benz has been left red-faced and a German motoring journalist has been sacked following revelations that they conspired to doctor a crash-avoidance test to gain exposure on one of Germany's highest rating television programs.
The crash test demonstration, at Mercedes-Benz's Safety Centre in Germany in early November, was intended to highlight the ability of the new S-Class's crash-avoidance technology.
The plan was to drive a new S-Class towards a parked car in a cloud of simulated fog and rely on a radar system that detects obstacles and applies maximum braking pressure to avoid a crash.
At the wheel of the Mercedes test car was Michael Specht, a senior journalist with Germany's Auto Bild magazine, who tested the system the previous day in an outdoor test area.
All was going well until Mercedes-Benz safety engineers found the Safety Centre's steel walls interfered with the crash-avoidance system's radar unit. In the earlier outdoor demonstration it performed flawlessly.
However, in six out of 10 runs carried out in the Safety Centre prior to the media demonstration, the system failed, according to senior Mercedes-Benz officials.
Instead of cancelling the test display, however, Mercedes-Benz allowed it to go ahead, revealing to Specht the problems caused by the surrounding steel walls and suggesting he brake the car in a way that would simulate the actions of the radar and braking systems.
As a back up measure, Mercedes-Benz safety engineers placed a plank of wood on the ground to mark the point at which Specht should apply the brakes.
Despite all this, Mercedes-Benz failed to reveal to other journalists, including a reporter from Stern TV, that it had secretly doctored the test demonstration in co-operation with Specht following the failure of the system to function properly.
With cameras from Stern TV rolling, Specht then drove the S-Class into the main hall of the Safety Centre and through a thick cloud of "fog".
But without the hydraulic back-up supplied by the Brake Assist Plus system, he failed to apply sufficient braking force and the $250,000 Mercedes ploughed into the rear of the parked car.
In an interview immediately after the incident, a clearly shaken Specht told Stern TV he had failed to react fast enough in activating the S-Class's brakes once the Distronic Plus's acoustic warning had sounded.
However, a replay revealed no acoustic warning had been picked up by a number of microphones placed around the car by the German television program's technicians.
At the same time, questions were raised about the presence of the wooden plank.
Furthermore Stern TV's microphones had also picked up suggestions from Mercedes personnel to move the wooden plank further back to lengthen the critical braking distance.
Mercedes's head of safety, Karl-Heinz Baumann, was reluctantly forced to admit the system had failed, yet he agreed to let Specht take a second run in another S-Class.
As suspicions about the authenticity of the first demonstration grew, a reporter from Stern TV, Juergen Brand, asked if he could accompany Specht in the car for the second run.
His request was declined amid concerns that he would detect that the system was not functioning due to the lack of an acoustic warning. (When the radar senses an obstacle, a warning beep sounds in the cabin.) With the wooden plank moved back, the second demonstration was carried out without mishap, although by then serious doubts about the test had arisen.
It was only after Stern TV producers studied their footage and questioned the authenticity of the test that Mercedes admitted it had withheld information about the system's inability to work within its own Safety Centre.
"We failed to inform Stern TV and I'm not proud of that," Ulrich Mellingh of, Mercedes's head of active safety, told Stern TV in a studio interview.
"With hindsight we should have cancelled the test there and then but we were worried about the negative impact that such a move may have cast on the [crash-avoidance] system's ability to perform in the real world."
For his part in the cover up, Specht has been sacked by Auto Bild, which claims it did not set out to deceive the public.
In Drive's experience, crash-avoidance technology is not infallible. At the international launch for the Mercedes S-Class earlier this year, two journalists managed to collide in a low-speed nose-to-tail crash, pictured below. The incident prompted Mercedes to remind drivers that electronic aids will not overcome physics. "If you're going too fast, you're going too fast," said a Mercedes minder at the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What really happened
* The demonstration started by showing an old C-Class sedan crashing into an offset barrier.
* The C-Class was then hit from behind - as planned - by a current-model
S-Class.
* In the final pass, a journalist drove a new S-Class towards the crashed cars with the aim of testing the new radar-assisted crash-avoidance technology.
* Because the radar technology didn't work in the crash test centre, the driver agreed to brake manually, judging his distance with a plank a wood placed on the ground. He braked too late and crashed into rear of the previously crashed S-Class.
* A TV crew queried why a plank of wood needed to be placed on the ground if the system used radar to detect an obstacle such as a parked car.
* Checking its on-board audio recording equipment, the TV crew found that there was no audible alarm warning of the obstacles.
* Mercedes eventually admitted there was a cover-up. Stern TV has since performed the test 40 times in an outdoor test area with a 100 per cent success rate.
------------
http://www.drive.com.au/editorial/article.aspx?id=10759
