Interesting Articles1The following article was published. The safety performance of the 1998 Corolla, 17 years ago, is like that of the current Corolla.
ANCAP gave the 1998 Corolla a zero-star rating after sensors showed the dummy suffered severe injuries to the head, legs and chest, resulting in the car receiving just 16 points out of a possible 0.40.
The 2015 Corolla, on the other hand, received a five-star rating and 16 out of 13 points, with airbags and a much more fragmented body structure that means drivers can walk away unscathed, or at least limp, with only minor injuries.
(Source) http://jp.autoblog.com/2017/05/18/corolla-vs-corolla-crash-test-safety-video/
See video of the collision here.
This is probably also the result of the information revolution, with computer simulations playing a key role. If this is the case, it would be interesting to consider this in the context of digital deflation.
The 1998 Corolla 1.6SE 4WD and the current Corolla Axio 1.5X 4WD are both priced at about 170 million yen. However, their performance is so different that they should not be considered the same "car." The price per performance has dropped significantly. Therefore, the price of the same product with the same performance has dropped sharply. In other words, deflation is progressing due to the advancement of digital technology. This is digital deflation. However, government statistics calculate the statistics by treating the two as the same. Therefore, this deflation phenomenon (digital deflation) cannot be captured in government statistics, and they appear to be almost flat. Therefore, the government does not take sufficient measures against deflation, and continues to adopt policies with an inflation bias, and the "lost years" will continue. That is the gist of the digital deflation theory. The Corolla case is a perfect example of this.
By the way, I wonder if the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry or somewhere else would try to compile statistics that take into account digital deflation. I think it would be interesting, but it's way beyond the scope of what a hobbyist can do...