Setting Hyundai’s Safety Strategy

Brian Latouf, Hyundai North America’s chief safety officer, talks safety tech, standards and industry trends.

November 1, 2020

Latouf and a close friend: Hyundai’s safety boss strongly believes that driver monitoring will be part of the ADAS future below SAE Level 3.

One year ago this month, Brian Latouf joined Hyundai North America as Chief Safety Officer, responsible for all safety-compliance matters, strategic direction and oversight of all safety and emissions investigations and recalls in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. A mechanical engineer experienced in vehicle structures and safety testing, Latouf is also a Six Sigma Black Belt who previously served as executive director of GM’s Global Safety Field operation. He spoke about Hyundai’s safety-related developments with SAE Media editor Lindsay Brooke.

Given Hyundai’s focus on technology across its brands, where does safety reside in terms of development priorities?

We’re all-in on safety. It’s embraced at the top level of the organization. Safety is foundational to Hyundai and is a core area of our innovation. We call our approach the ‘circle of safety.’ We learn from what’s on the road today, looking at crashes, vehicle behavior, quality issues — things my team can address immediately and also that serve as a ‘launch pad’ for improvement and future innovation.

Hyundai’s rise as an IIHS Top Safety Pick (TSP) Award winner has been remarkably swift.

We’re currently tied for the lead — we have 10 TSPs or TSP-Pluses, most recently with the new Venue, our smallest SUV. Earning a TSP is not just one crash test! It’s a whole slew of challenging crash tests and engineering requirements.

What sort of challenge is establishing real safety leadership in the public’s mind in 2020, given the ever-increasing roster of technologies that are either mandated or are deployed by most other OEMs?

It’s a difficult equation to balance. What’s exciting to me is Hyundai isn’t going to compromise on any part of the equation, on both the passive- and active-safety sides.

In safety recalls in recent years, suppliers are inevitably involved because of the systems nature of the technology. Going forward, do you expect suppliers will be called out increasingly in vehicle-crash situations, even though the OEM has vehicle integration responsibility?

At the end of the day, vehicle safety is the OEM’s responsibility. Our brand is on the vehicle. We’re constantly doing data analytics for vehicles in the field. It’s important that the safety organization is independent of the engineering-release business and is functionally unbiased so it can take a technical view of what’s happening and act if needed. There is a balance between supplier knowledge and involvement in that process.

The Hyundai Nexo hydrogen fuel cell electric SUV has earned a Top Safety Pick+ recommendation from the IIHS in 2019. Hyundai nominated the vehicle for early testing, which also enabled IIHS opportunity to evaluate a FCV.

Do you expect more alignment between U.S. and European NCAPs?

I don’t see U.S. and European New Car Assessment Programs coming together any time soon. We expect NHTSA to upgrade their NCAP program over the next year, to include enhancement of active safety systems — to encourage more technology onboard vehicles to avoid the crash. We also expect pedestrian protection systems required for North America. There are approximately 6,000 fatalities per year between vehicles and pedestrians and cyclists.

The industry has for a long time prioritized protection of the front-seat occupants. Will rear seat-occupants eventually have the same level of protection as those in the front?

Rear-seat protection is improving steadily. For side impact, there is FMVSS 214, which includes rear-seat occupants and has to meet certain thoracic, pelvic and head impacts. It’s a small female dummy to look at a smaller-stature occupant. The IIHS test also has a rear-seat occupant for side-impact crashes. NHTSA’s looking at adding rear-seat occupants for its front-crash tests, as part of its NCAP enhancement. I don’t think increasing rear-seat occupant protection will require as big a leap as has been needed for front-seat occupants. We may see more seatbelt pretensioners for the rear seats.

What interests you and your company in terms of safety-related technologies?

Hyundai is really getting into Diagnostic Health Management — sensors and diagnostic systems in the vehicle to manage potentially catastrophic events and to alert the driver. We’re doing a lot of research into this.

And what Standards are you looking at most closely?

NHTSA has added further development time to FMVSS 141, the ‘Quiet Car Rule’ [Minimum Sound Requirements for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles]. It’s very critical for visually impaired people to hear a vehicle as they near a crosswalk. EVs are so quiet and we’re invested heavily in them. But I think it’s just the right thing for the industry to do.

What’s your view of safety and AVs?

We’ve partnered with Aptiv in the new venture called Motional, announced in March 2020. We’re also very focused on ADAS, Level 2 — SAE should be ready to upgrade its Level numbers!

Speaking of SAE automated-driving levels, Level 3 is contro-versial. Do you see a role for that transitional automated driving level?

Possibly, but we’re not there yet. I see a Level 2 and a Level 2-Plus. Level 2 is constantly ‘hands on wheel’ with adaptive cruise control, lane centering. The vehicle can center itself and slow, stop and accelerate to the speed you want, but the wheel requires you to constantly engage it. You can’t have hands-off-wheel. A Level-2-Plus gives the ability to go hands-off. To do that requires driver monitoring. I feel very strongly that driver monitoring is in our future for systems below Level 3. You’re constantly making sure the driver is engaged in the driving task — and eyes-on-road is extremely important for that. You can get by with hands-off-the-wheel if the driver’s attention is there so they can re-engage quickly.

Can we safely go to a Level 3, or do we just jump to Level 4? In certain ODDs [Operational Design Domains] such as highways that meet the right criteria, maybe you can go to a Level 4 and [the driver can] disengage. At that point infrastructure — lane markings, lighting — becomes very important for safety.