Engineers have crammed a knee airbag into the 2015 Edge’s glovebox door. This clever design work improves packaging efficiency by a whopping 75 percent compared to a traditional arrangement and is up to 65 percent lighter.
A plastic bladder is sandwiched between the glovebox door’s outer surface inner structure. When a crash occurs the bladder inflates, providing a cushioned impact surface. Because of its mounting location directly in front of the front passenger’s knees, the airbag can use a drastically smaller inflator, which is key to this design’s significant mass reduction. This feature will also be offered in the 2015 Ford Mustang.
