Hyundai endorses ESC
Electronic stability control (ESC) may cost an OEM $300 or more per-vehicle, so how much should the OEM charge the customer for the feature? Nothing, says John Krafcik, vice president of product development and strategic planning at Hyundai Motor America. Hoping to seize the ESC high ground, Hyundai has decided to make the feature standard on models that account for about 70% of its sales in the ’07 model year – upwards of 350,000 vehicles.
Citing research conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Krafcik noted that ESC can reduce the risk of fatal single-vehicle crashes by 56% and fatal multi-vehicle crashes by 32%. According to IIHS, as many as 10,000 fatal accidents could be avoided each year if all vehicles were equipped with ESC. Susan Ferguson, IIHS senior vice president for research, says the Institute’s findings “indicate that ESC should be standard on all vehicles,” and adds, “Very few safety technologies show this kind of large effect in reducing crash deaths.” A researcher at the University of Michigan concurs, suggesting that ESC systems “appear to be the most significant safety advance since seat belts.”
Hyundai is by no means alone in making ESC a standard feature. According to the IIHS, ESC is standard on 40 percent of 2006 passenger vehicle models, including every vehicle from Audi, BMW, Infiniti, Mercedes, and Porsche; however, nine automakers make the technology available on no more than 25% of their models.
ESC technology is available from a handful of suppliers, and there’s not much differentiation among them, according to Krafcik. OEMs must decide where to set the threshold, and whether or not to provide an ESC on/off switch (Hyundai will), or include a buzzer or warning light when the system activates (Hyundai won’t). “The reason that ESC works so well is that it helps a driver do what the driver would do intuitively in an ESC situation,” Krafcik says.
Hyundai’s decision to make ESC technology standard gives the company great economies of scale, according to Krafcik. “If we’d made ESC an option, we’d double our build complexity, yet few dealers would order it because few customers are likely to ask for it,” he says. With ESC a standard feature, however, suppliers can anticipate high volume and price accordingly. Krafcik adds that ESC gives Hyundai’s design engineers more freedom, since they can achieve good limit handling performance without having to compromise for non-ESC models.
Krafcik says that with ESC as a standard feature on its midsize Sonata sedan, he can claim safety leadership positioning against its primary competitors – Toyota Camry and Honda Accord – and still undercut them in price. “Anyone can do what we’re doing, but since they’re not, we see (ESC) as an opportunity for us to lead.” It’s an opportunity he thinks can only last another couple of years by which time stability control is likely to be standard on every vehicle.