Kia’s Side Impact Airbag is Looooooooong

2015 marks Kia’s release of its new Sedona model, a minivan capable of carrying eight passengers.  Often under-appreciated, minivans can transport lots of occupants, in quite a bit of comfort.  But if something goes wrong, that also could mean that lots of people are at risk of injury.  That’s why the safety systems are so important.

Although Kia has equipped its Sedona model with many safety features, including rollover mitigation, stability control, and front and rear crumple zones.  And, as required by Federal Motor Vehicle Standards, the Sedona also features front and side impact airbags.  And being a rather long vehicle, there’s a lot of “side space” for side impact airbags to cover.

What Kia decided to do is to utilize one long side airbag to cover the full length of the vehicle, rather than use separate airbags for each row of passengers.  As is the norm with side impact airbags, it will remain inflated for some time, rather than immediately deflate as dash-mounted airbags tend to do.  But it is unusual looking, and should be very effective in protecting the occupants.  Naturally, a larger airbag like this could be expected to cost more to replace, should that become necessary.  However, that will be a small price to pay for the protection that it and the other airbags will afford the Sedona’s occupants.

See Kia’s new side impact airbag on page 11 of the Sedona brochure, at:

http://cdn.dealereprocess.com/cdn/brochures/kia/2015-sedona.pdf