Hyundai Mobis said Sunday the company is focusing on enhancing the reliability of its roof airbag to take the lead in the global market.

The South Korean company’s roof airbag was first developed in 2017, designed to protect passengers from being ejected from sunroofs in rollover accidents. The airbag can deploy and cover the whole roof in 0.08 seconds.
Hyundai Mobis’ roof airbag has recently received interest from the global car markets as a safety measure to reduce the number of casualties in rollover accidents, according to the firm.

Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the US conducted safety evaluation of Hyundai Mobis’ roof airbag. In January this year, the NHTSA acknowledged the novel airbag system through test results at the government-industry meeting hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers.

According to NHTSA’s data, of around 13,700 rollover accidents between 2000 and 2015, The number of people who were injured from being ejected from sunroofs reached around 240. The figure is expected to grow as more vehicles come equipped with glass sunroofs, according to the industry sources.

Allied Market Research has estimated the global automotive panoramic sunroof industry to grow at $4.26 billion by 2026 from 1.31 billion in 2018, marking a compound annual growth rate of 15.7 percent. 

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)