Autoliv has signed Toyota as the first automaker to evaluate its Human Body Model (HBM) safety suite, a virtual crash-testing platform that simulates occupant injury mechanisms without physical dummies. The move, flagged by analysts at GlobalData, comes as OEMs face pressure to compress development cycles while managing rising complexity from electrification and ADAS integration, pushing safety validation earlier into the design process.
For Autoliv, Toyota's participation offers credibility from a high-volume manufacturer with a reputation for engineering rigor, potentially strengthening the supplier's position against established CAE and simulation providers by linking software-based analysis directly to its restraint-system expertise. Autoliv has said it plans to make the HBM platform more broadly available later this year, following earlier tie-ups with XPeng and Great Wall Motor announced in July.
For Toyota, early access to HBM-based injury modeling could support finer-grained restraint tuning across different occupant sizes and seating positions, and help close the gap between simulated results and real-world crash performance — without the cost of building equivalent capability internally. GlobalData's Madhuchhanda Palit noted this fits a broader "shift-left" trend in verification, using digital tools sooner to cut late-stage redesign work and better focus physical test programs.
Palit added that virtual crash testing is increasingly becoming an operational requirement rather than a supplementary method, and that wider adoption of tools like HBM could raise industry-wide expectations for simulation fidelity, workflow integration, and correlation with physical test outcomes.
Source: Automotive Testing Technology International — read the original article