Automobile Journalists Association of Canada awards Honda Canada the 2021 Best Safety Innovation Award for its next-generation airbag
Honda's ‘catcher’s mitt’ airbag is designed to reduce
serious injuries that can occur in frontal collisions
Markham, ON. March 30, 2021. Today, the Automobile
Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) presented the 2021 Best Safety
Innovation Award to Honda Canada for its revolutionary, next-generation
front-passenger airbag. The airbag is a testament to Honda’s leadership in
engineering and safety technology and is designed to better protect occupants
in a wide range of frontal collision scenarios, including angled crashes
between vehicles or a vehicle and another object.
VIDEO – AJAC 2021 Best Safety
Innovation Award to Honda Canada
Saving Lives and Preventing Injury
Honda's
next-generation airbag is particularly beneficial in angled frontal impacts in
which lateral collision forces can cause an occupant's head to rotate severely
or slide off the airbag, increasing the chance of serious injury or death.
Unlike
conventional airbag systems that rely on a single inflatable compartment, the
new system utilizes four major components: three inflated compartments -- a
centre chamber and two outward-projecting side chambers that create a wide base
across the dash -- along with a "sail panel" that stretches between
the two side chambers at their outermost edge.
Operating
something like a baseball catcher's mitt, the sail panel catches and
decelerates the occupant's head while also engaging the side chambers, pulling
them inward to cradle and protect the head, mitigating the potential for
injury.
The
new front-passenger airbag is standard equipment on the 2021 Acura TLX sedan
and 2022 Acura MDX SUV. Honda plans to integrate and include new airbag designs
and technology in future models and has made this technology available to other
vehicle manufacturers in its commitment to “Safety for Everyone”.
“In
our fundamental pursuit of Safety for Everyone and the enhanced safety of
Acura, Honda, and the vehicles of other brands—all for the benefit of
society—we are incredibly honoured that our new passenger front airbag has been
recognized with the 2021 AJAC Innovation Award for Best Safety Innovation.” Eric Heitkamp, Honda Principal
Crashworthiness Engineer, and co-inventor of the new airbag.
Honda Safety for Everyone
As
a manufacturer of a wide variety of products including automobiles and
powersports vehicles, Honda's "Safety for Everyone" commitment is not
limited only to the needs of car drivers and motorcycle riders, but extends to
passengers, pedestrians, and occupants of all vehicles — in short, to everyone
sharing the road.
On
the basis of this "Safety for Everyone" concept, Honda is committed
to developing innovative safety technologies and equipping them to its
automobiles, motorcycles and other powersports products toward Honda's vision
for a collision-free mobile society where its customers, and everyone sharing
the road, can safely and confidently enjoy the freedom of mobility.
About Honda Canada
Honda Canada Inc. was
founded in 1969 and is the parent company for both Honda and Acura vehicle
brands in Canada. Since 1986, the company has produced Honda engines and more
than nine million cars and light trucks at its Alliston, Ontario manufacturing
facilities, where the Honda CR-V and Honda Civic are currently built. Honda
Canada has invested more than $4.7 billion in Canada, and each year it sources nearly
$2.1 billion in goods and services from Canadian suppliers. Honda Canada has
sold more than five million Honda and Acura passenger cars and light trucks in
Canada. For more information on Honda Canada, please visit www.hondacanada.ca.
