I didn’t talk to the car companies but to the engineers who designed the cars. They told me what they were shooting for as well as the federal regulations involved.

Further, I’ve read a number of times in the past when a car was involved in a collision with little damage to the car but the riders killed. In other instances cars were totaled with minor injuries to the riders. (By the way, air bags were added because so many refused to use seat belts. Unrestrained bodies tend to rattle around, sometimes being ejected and then rolled over by the vehicle or another. I knew a kid who died THAT way. His truck wasn’t particularly hurt, he was just thrown out of it into the path of a semi.)

And then there’s Ralph Nader’s UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED in which he pointed out that cars were too hard, too likely to kill the passengers. This led the federal government to write regulations leading to the things you think were done to make cheaper cars.

David for soft obstacles
rather than hard ones

I’m sorry David if you believe what you READ.
The cheap products are just for bigger profits. Car companies will
tell you anything.

Design philosophy for cars is not to make a car which will survive a crash but to make one in which the riders will survive. The best way for that to happen is for the vehicle to absorb as much of the energy of any impact possible. That involves the car crumpling.

David for polyurethane foam car bodies

I have owned 5 of these Saturn ‘S’ series and they are pretty good cars in my experience.