Vehicle safety is of the utmost importance to Porsche, with the safety of the vehicle’s occupants being the top priority. In addition, making sure that other road users are also kept safe is another crucial aim. The objectives of passenger protection are constantly derived from the laws in the target market on vehicle safety as well as the occurrence of accidents. In addition, compliance with the Porsche safety standard (comprising meeting statutory requirements and Porsche-specific requirements) is part of the safety strategy that applies until 2030, which the Executive Board adopted in 2021.
Responsibility for the functional targets being met lies with the vehicle safety departments. However, the relevant project coordinator for vehicle safety handles overall product maturity tracking, which Porsche uses to review target achievement with regard to the vehicle safety requirements. Final approval of the function is given by the responsible head of the specialist area.
Porsche’s response to vehicle safety extends beyond merely meeting the legal requirements. This is why the internal safety standard covers more than just conformity with all global laws on vehicle safety and also includes additional specific vehicle safety requirements. A requirements list describes how the safety standard should be implemented and complied with according to the safety strategy, regardless of model and market. During the technical development process, the control for the design of the vehicle looks at achieving the targets relating to overall vehicle, structural, passenger, fuel and high-voltage safety. Development tools are component trials, full vehicle testing and full vehicle simulations.
All road-legal vehicles are tested for safety using stricter quality management systems and controls. These comprise development and production processes as well as the after sales area.
Porsche is constantly monitoring the changing global legislation as well as the activities of the consumer protection institutions. It also performs a continuous competition analysis on the current status of technology.
Porsche expanded its accident research further in 2022, making a decisive contribution to products’ performance and field behavior. Collaboration started with the first Porsche customer centers in the greater Stuttgart area.
Expert committees analyze all information and findings from the accident research and the activities of the consumer protection institutions. Those responsible create forecasts for future requirements of the legislator and consumer protection. Porsche uses these to continuously adjust the safety standard. Every year, Porsche prepares a current publication of the generic Porsche requirements list on vehicle safety as well as the generic legal matrix. It uses this to generate project-specific versions.
Porsche discusses and agrees upon the requirements and approaches to vehicle safety in several functional corporate working groups in the Volkswagen Group. The Safety working group comprising safety officers for all of the brands meets three times a year.
Porsche has an overview of the challenges posed by the structural change in the automotive industry, constant growth and tougher technical regulatory framework conditions thanks to its technical conformity specialist department. The unit informs and advises other specialist departments in a targeted manner and focuses on strengthening awareness about conformity, creating transparency across existing and new requirements worldwide as well as promoting long-term structures for process safety, stability and quality.
Vehicle safety is a decisive criterion for Porsche from the outset in the development of vehicles. Everyone who is responsible for the safety of individual vehicle components and systems collaborates in a central function. With regard to “front protection” for example, the relevant experts come together to focus on the structure and aggregate design in terms of energy management and deceleration characteristic, the development of restraint systems and primary safety components including components such as airbags and seatbelts. All of the necessary development tools such as simulations, component trials, system and full vehicle testing are also brought together. The functional properties are further tuned in multiple iterations on the basis of simulations and tests. This process is continuously improved all the way through to production maturity.
