Volkswagen's 'Active Hood' Technology Could Save Pedestrian Lives

• Volkswagen's Proactive Pedestrian Protection system will offer a function that automatically pops open the hood.
• The feature is intended to soften the impact for a pedestrian's head.
• If it's a false alarm, the hood automatically closes.

Pedestrian safety. It’s something modern American cars struggle with, partly because there’s no standard in place to test how a human head hitting a vehicle hood would fare in an impact. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is working on introducing a new standard to change this, but until that happens, we can look to our European counterparts to see how more pedestrian lives could be saved through the use of clever tech on new cars.

Some new vehicles have hoods that automatically pop up before hitting a pedestrian, including the updated Tesla Model 3, but not many can automatically retract the hood back to its original position after the impact is avoided.

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Here’s where Volkswagen comes into play. The German automaker recently showcased how such a system would work in conjunction with the other safety-related functions of the Proactive Pedestrian Protection system. The video below shows an ID.7 electric liftback driving down the road before having to engage the emergency braking system to avoid an impact with a dummy that was crossing the road in front of another that was parked on the side of the road.

Right before coming to a full stop, the front hood of the EV pops up. Why? To act as a metallic cushion for the pedestrian’s head and minimize the risk of injury. In this case, the car’s emergency braking system worked flawlessly and the front bumper didn’t touch the dummy, but if it did, its head would have been somewhat protected from the fall by the bouncy hood.

After the car sensed the danger had passed, it automatically retracted the hood to its original position–pretty cool. On other cars that have active hoods, the driver someone has to climb out of the car and push the hood back to its original position. Or, even worse, a visit to a service center could be needed to put everything back in position.

It’s worth noting that the ID.7’s automatically popping hood isn’t yet available. According to the automaker, the function is coming in the future. However, there are other features of the Proactive Pedestrian Protection system that are available right now.

As shown in the video below, a VW fitted with the PPP system will automatically tighten the seatbelts, close the windows and put the hazard lights on if it detects a crash is imminent.

In the United States, the Volkswagen ID.7 is expected to go on sale sometime next year with an estimated starting price tag of around $50,000.

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