I know nothing about automobile design, but the Smart Fortwo [1] seemed to solve this problem just fine (IIRC they had a very good NCAP safety rating).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo

They very much designed for collisions. They have an engineer discussing those aspects this video.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv5QwgQUMGY

It's an EV, so what little nose it has is probably all crumple zone (as opposed to having a big ol' engine in the way. Popping the hood on most EVs is pretty funny, actually, because of how little there is under there.