For the eleventh straight year, the Toyota Camry is the best selling mid-size family sedan in North America. Although the Camry ranks pretty low in a car enthusiast's dream car wish list, as a holistic package for the multitude, you'll be hard pressed to find a car that can offer more for more people. For two decades or more, the Camry has received high praise for everything from amazing value, bulletproof dependability, and safety.
However, the Toyota Camry's flawless reputation literally suffered an enormous impact when the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) rated the mid-size as "Poor" in its latest small-overlap crash test.
Earlier this week, IIHS reported that 18 new cars were subjected to the organization's latest small-overlap frontal crash test, an important test intended to simulate a lane departure accident against a barrier. As opposed to the more familiar partial overlap where the surface area is distributed through half of the vehicles front-end, the latest test challenges the vehicle to smack only the driver's side quarter width of the vehicle.
Take a look at the 2012 Toyota Camry small overlap crash test versus the 2002 Toyota Camry partial overlap crash test from ten years ago:
While both crashes look devastating, the 2002 Toyota Camry scored a "Good" rating while the all-new 2012 Camry scored a "Poor." So is the new Toyota Camry less safe than the old one? What deems a car's safety anyway?
In a nutshell, the safety rating given to a vehicle is based on its ability to isolate the force of the impact from the valuable lives inside the cabin. Look at the 2002 Camry again and notice its front end disintegrate and crumple all the way until the forces reach the A-pillar, or the structural frame around the windshield. The A-pillar does its job of forming a birdcage around the occupants to prevent the impact from injuring them.
Next, take a look at the 2012 Toyota Camry. First thing you'll notice is the deployment of both a front and side curtain airbag. What's more, if you see the crash from inside the car, you will notice an additional knee airbag below the steering wheel as well. That's three advanced, and expensive, airbags dedicated to saving a life. However, here is the crucial difference - the impact was so violent that the A-pillar was unable to sustain its structural integrity, causing the shockwave to dangerously invade into the passenger cabin.
So, is the 2012 Toyota Camry less safe than the 2002 model? No. The fact is, while both videos demonstrate an overlap impact, the new test is so much more severe than the old one. Notice the center-line on the 2002 model as opposed to the quarter-line on the 2012 and you will realize that the new Camry was put up against the same wall at the same speed but with a much smaller surface area to absorb the impact. What's more, the new model may also lack a structure that can properly distribute the impact at such a critical angle.
With three airbags for the driver, the new 2012 Toyota Camry was certainly designed to be even safer than its 10-year-old predecessor. However, what can Toyota do to make its bestselling mid-size even safer?
Subjected to the same IIHS small overlap crash test, the 2012 Kia Optima, also a mid-size family sedan, scored an "Acceptable" rating. Take a look at the test below:
Just like the Toyota Camry, the 2012 Kia Optima boasts front and side curtain airbags. However, the interior footage does not indicate a knee airbag like the one found in the Toyota. So, why did the Optima earn a higher score despite being lesser equipped?
Although the Kia's A-pillar buckled under impact, it retained its shape better than the Camry, thus better protecting the passenger cabin. How did the Kia Optima manage this feat when the Camry could not? There are two likely reasons.
First, the base of the Kia Optima A-pillar looks visually thicker than the Camry's, suggesting that it is inherently stronger. However, the Optima's A-pillar thickness quickly tapers at the base while Camry's A-pillar has a more gradual tapering as it reaches the roof. At that rate, I suspect the structural integrity of both A-pillars to be relatively comparable.
The second reason why the Kia Optima performed so much better is far more crucial - the sporty looking front end, penned by Kia chief designer Peter Schreyer, features a wedge at the edges that successfully deflect the impact away from the vehicle rather than force the car to take the brunt force head-on. The Kia managed to graze the impact, move the vehicle to the right, minimizing the amount of force traveling through the car's architecture. On the other hand, the Toyota Camry was abruptly stopped in its tracks. Remaining inertia caused the car to rotate around the barrier and face a different direction.
So how can Toyota make its Camry perform better in future small overlap crash tests? The brutish method would be to reinforce the front crumple structure as well as the A-pillar to better distribute the impact before it can intrude into the passenger cell. However, we would be very interested to see whether a new Camry design can manage to deflect the impact away from the car in much of the same fashion as the Kia Optima did. If a structure revision can successfully deflect the impact, then Toyota could forgo the cost and the weight necessary for developing more bulky structural frames.
Here's a statement from Toyota following the abysmal IIHS crash test results: "With this new test, the Institute has raised the bar again and we will respond to the challenge. We are evaluating the new test protocols and can say that there will not be one single solution to achieve greater crash performance in this area."
Only time will tell how Toyota will improve upon the Camry's safety. That said, we would be very surprised if Toyota did not follow iMotorTime's advice. Half joking.
