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[스포츠서울 박현진기자] The stability of the Genesis GV80, known as the accident vehicle of Tiger Woods, the’Golf Emperor’, is drawing attention from around the world.
Woods suffered a car rollover accident on the 24th (Korean time) near Rancho Palos Verdes in Los Angeles County, California. The vehicle he was driving at the time was the official sponsor of the Genesis Invitational, the PGA, which is currently in progress. Hyundai Motor Company is supporting 135 vehicles of the Genesis brand, including G70, G80, GV80, and G90, during the competition to help move the squad and run the competition. The competition is hosted by the Tiger Woods Charity Foundation, and Woods also owned the GV80.
The cause of the accident is not yet known, but according to LA police, Woods injured his leg severely, but there was no disability situation. In particular, even though the front part of the vehicle was broken to the extent that it was difficult to grasp the shape, it was noticeable that Woods was well conscious enough to talk with the rescuers. During an accident briefing, Los Angeles Police said, “The airbags in the vehicle were working properly, and the interior of the vehicle was intact and barely damaged.”
Accordingly, local media showed great interest in the GV80. USA Today introduced that the vehicle that Woods was driving was the GV80 and covered the basic specifications and prices in detail with articles. It has also been praised for its reliability and craftsmanship by competing with Jeep’s Grand Cherokee, Mercedes GLE, BMW X5 and Lincoln Air Aviator. The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal also cited the results of an interim police investigation and praised the safety of the GV80.
The GV80 is equipped with 10 airbags, including the first application of a center side airbag in the front seat to prevent head injuries and collisions between occupants in an accident. Lee Hang-gu, a research fellow at the Korea Automobile Research Institute, said, “Hyundai Motor seems to have put a lot of effort into improving safety internally, having experienced quality issues several times.”
Hyundai Motor Company, whose quality issues such as Kona Electric Vehicles (EVs) were continuously fired, has focused on safety issues. On the 23rd, Hyundai Motor Company emphasized that it minimized the deformation of the passenger compartment in the event of a collision by applying a collision load distribution structure to the front of the vehicle at the first unveiling of’Ioniq 5’based on an electric vehicle platform. It also explained that for battery safety, aluminum reinforcement was applied to the battery protection section under the vehicle and the cooling block was removed to prevent coolant from flowing into the battery. In a New Year message last month, Chairman Eui-sun of Hyundai Motor Group emphasized quality and safety, saying, “All our activities are meaningless unless quality and safety, which is the first step to respecting customers, are secured.”
Automotive safety is a concern not only for Hyundai Motors, but also for all global automakers. Mercedes-Benz established the Automotive Safety Technology Center (TFS) in 2015 and is conducting more than 15,000 simulations and more than 150 crash tests for vehicles just before mass production. At TFS, various tests are also being conducted to improve the safety of pure electric vehicles such as EQC. Benz explained that it is using a prototype equipped with a large electric battery to conduct safety tests in cold or crash environments of minus 35 degrees Celsius.
Porsche recently unveiled the durability test process of its first crossover utility vehicle (CUV) model, the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, emphasizing safety. Porsche said that it has conducted tests in a variety of environments, including driving 990,361 km, which is 25 laps of the earth in an off-road environment, and applying the same test program to electric vehicles to develop vehicles that can drive safely regardless of weather conditions. .
Sweden’s Volvo, known as’safety’, has been running the’Safety Center Collision Lab’ for 20 years. The Safety Center Collision Research Center is a place that reproduces extreme traffic accidents to improve vehicle safety, and conducts collision tests with an average of one car scrapped every day. Volvo’s safety was re-examined in July of last year due to an accident in which the XC90, on which the couple of announcers Park Ji-yoon and Choi Dong-seok, collided with a reverse-driving truck. At that time, the vehicle was greatly damaged, but the occupants were avoided seriously.
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