Working with one of their prestigious household name automotive OEM clients, USE* engineers are actively influencing early package decisions and architectural hard points to reduce the insurance group rating in support Cost of Ownership targets.

Vehicle Cost of Ownership is influenced by a number of factors from the cost of servicing, to the cost of insurance. Recently USE* have been one client’s focus on reducing Cost of Ownership by working with Product Development in the concept stages of a vehicle's design. The goal is to minimise the cost impact of low speed collisions.

Low speed crash is defined as anything below 15kph. It is a constituent part of the Thatcham and RCAR tests and consequently informs insurance group rating. By ensuring expensive components are packaged outside the crush areas, the cost of repair is reduced and in turn, so is the insurance group rating. In general, input into the very high level package (engineer position, cooling pack position) is key to delivering the best CoO result.

Reduction of insurance group rating offers the customer a genuine benefit (for example, moving from group 48 to group 45 is equivalent to a 20% cost saving) and consequently directly influences the volumes of vehicles sold.