If you pay attention to the news, you may
remember lots of frightening stories about
Tesla’s crashing under the direction of
their infallible autopilot systems, or have
images of Model 3’s engulfed in flames seared
into your memory.
The message is clear, be wary of these new
fangled electric cars, and their deadly high
voltage battery packs.
Are Tesla’s really more dangerous than conventional
combustion powered vehicles, and if not, why
does it seem like there’s a disproportionate
amount of media coverage of Tesla accidents?
The answer is the same reason that the fabric
of society is being torn apart at the seams,
media impressions.
Tesla is a hot topic. It’s controversial
founder Elon Musk is basically a real life
superhero, the companies stock is incendiary,
and people with a sense of nostalgia for the
fiery gasoline crashes of yesteryear just
love to watch a fancy high tech Tesla burn
so they can say I told you so!
When you cover Tesla, you get clicks. Every
time Jim-Bob’s Ford Bronco bursts into flames
on Route 66 it doesn’t get international
media coverage, because no one cares.
The truth is the probability of electric vehicles
catching on fire is lower than cars with internal
combustion engines, and according to researchers
only one fire occurs for every 100 million
properly used Lithium ion batteries on the
market.
Regarding autopilot, according to Tesla, autopilot
is nearly 9 times safer than a human driver
during average driving conditions. Because
most accidents are caused by driver error,
Tesla’s intelligent system of software and
hardware sensors can protect drivers from
their own mistakes, with features like safety
assist which can prevent you from drifting
lanes.
Personally, I’d rather be driving next to
a Model S with autopilot engaged than someone
who’s late for work responding to email
while doing 80 on the highway.
Autopilot is not yet full self driving, and
most accidents are the result of drivers overestimating
its capability and not following the rules
which insist thy keep their hands on the wheel
and eyes on the road at all times.
Tesla’s revolutionary mix of passive safety
and active safety features makes their cars
some of the safest vehicles in the world.
In fact, their Model X is the only SUV in
history that hasn’t rolled over in the multiple
tests that have been performed, with each
and every outcome, the Model X came back to
its upright position with incredible ease.
But the Model S and Model 3 have also been
praised for their unique features that allowed
them to achieve the lowest overall injury
probability out of any vehicle that was ever
tested by the US government’s New Car Assessment
Program.
When talking about “passive safety” we
refer to all the elements that can protect
the driver during an accident: the overall
architecture, the airbags and the structure
of the seats, as well as roof strength. All
of the Tesla models tested by the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety performed incredibly
well but there was a model that outdid every
other car that was ever tested, and that was
the incredible Model 3.
In fact, the best selling electric sedan is
so safe that it was granted the “2020 Top
Safety Pick+” distinction by the IIHS, receiving
the “Good” rating, which is their highest
score, in all the important categories. The
moderate overlap crash test as well as the
side crash test showed the driver injury staying
in the green which means that in case of an
accident, you can get out virtually unscathed
from a Model 3. And all of these are made
possible by one evident feature electric cars
have: a lack of an engine.
Because the front of the car is basically
empty, there’s more space for the steel
to crumple and drive the impact shock away
from the occupants, redistributing it across
the entire structure of the car. But the Model
3 also proved to be extremely stable during
a crash and this achievement could only be
accomplished thanks to the reinforced structure
of the battery pack that is mounted to the
car’s floor, providing a uniquely low center
of gravity that is translated into extreme
sturdiness and stability in case of an accident.
On top of all this, the Model 3 has a near
50/50 weight distribution, as well as an incredibly
low polar moment of inertia, which means that
the heaviest components are located closer
to the car’s center of gravity.
When talking about airbags and seat structure,
Tesla’s budget sedan excels with its custom
designed restraint system that keep occupants
safely in place thanks to the pre-tensioners
and load-limiters, making the proprietary
design of the seats yet another winning element
that helped it score the maximum safety marks
both from the IIHS and the NHTSA.
Both the passenger and the driver airbags
are shaped to protect the head in angled or
offset crashes, the active vents dynamically
adjusting the internal pressure of the frontal
airbags in order to offer the optimum protection
tailored specifically for the particularities
of the crash. The front and knee airbags together
with the collapsible steering column also
contribute to reducing any possible injury
to the inferior limbs.
The roof strength is yet another aspect that
is attentively tested when wanting to rate
the safety of a vehicle and Tesla’s Model
3 broke all the records when it proved it
can withstand a peak force of 21,000 pounds,
the equivalent of almost 6 times its own weight.
The IIHS requires that cars should only withstand
forces that are 4 times their own weight.
And, remember, we are talking about the Model
3 that has an all-glass roof after all.
Last but definitely not least, Tesla reported
that their Model 3 recorded the lowest intrusion
from side pole impact out of any car that
was ever tested by the NHTSA. Unlike frontal
crashes, in a side impact there is very limited
room for a crumple zone so the patented proprietary
pillar structures and side sills developed
by Tesla were designed to absorb as much energy
as possible in a very short distance. These
structures make the side pole impact much
less dangerous for the passengers and together
with the fortified battery architecture and
the vehicle’s sturdy body frame contribute
to the overall excellent safety of the Model
3.
People fear change, and having a high voltage
battery pack instead of a fuel tank frightens
old people.
Between 2012 and 2019 there was only one vehicle
fire for every 175 million miles traveled
in a Tesla. To put this into context, data
from the National Fire Protection Association
and US Department of Transportation revealed
that in the United States there is a vehicle
fire for every 19 million miles traveled in
all vehicles, a 9.2X higher likelihood of
fire than the Tesla.
Tesla’s state-of-the-art battery design
prevents fires, and in the case of a crash,
the safety system works in such a way that
it isolates the fire to certain areas within
the battery pack while simultaneously venting
the heat away from the cabin and the passengers.
Tesla even has a cut loop that first responders
can cut to shut down the high voltage system
in the event of an accident.
It wasn’t only the Model 3 that managed
to break all the safety records when it came
to electric cars, the Model X did one better:
it became the first ever SUV to plainly refuse
to roll over, bad dog.
It’s a well-known fact that the average
sports utility vehicle is now safer than a
sedan but they do have a major setback due
to their high center of gravity: they are
extremely rollover prone. The trick with the
electric Model X is that it has a heavy battery
pack in its chassis which makes its center
of gravity so low that both the NHTSA and
Tesla couldn’t tip it during their dynamic
tests. All of this means that it is not only
one of the most technologically advanced SUVs
in the world, but also the safest.
The NHTSA is the only organization that rates
rollover resistance, besides the frontal and
side crashworthiness, so when they tested
the Model X and acknowledged that it just
doesn’t tip over, Tesla’s in-house testing
department received an official and unbiased
thumbs up. The Model X is 9.30% susceptible
to rolling over, the best score that was ever
achieved by an SUV. In comparison, the 2016
Nissan Rogue has a 16.4% chance of tipping
over in an accident.
But neither the Model 3, nor the Model X were
the first to break all records when it came
to passive safety. In 2013, the Model S was
literally destroying the NHTSA’s roof-crushing
test equipment before it could even register
a result past 4Gs, which would have meant
that 4 model S’s could be piled up on top
of each other without the cabin caving in.
Interestingly enough, the Model S also exceeded
a safety score above all SUVs and minivans,
even though it’s a sedan, averaging better
than 5 stars.
It’s not only passive safety that is important
when looking at a car, the active safety is
of course another important point that we
should take into consideration thanks to the
latest technology available. The whole world
knows that Tesla is continuously striving
to build the most intelligent electric vehicles,
with summon, Collision avoidance, extra-smart
autopilot and lane assist functions, Tesla
engineers have built an amazing AI system
that practically drives the car for you.
All of these contribute to the great crash
rate prevention. In the first quarter of 2020,
Tesla reported that they registered only one
accident for every 4.68 million miles driven
in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. By
comparison, the NHTSA data shows that there
is an accident every 479,000 miles. What’s
even more impressive is that these numbers
actually show a 50% improvement over the previous
quarter, thanks to software updates. For example:
in the first quarter of 2019, Tesla registering
one accident for every 2.87 million miles
driven.
This giant leap shows a significant development
in their active safety systems and it can
be backed up by proof as shown by the IIHS’s
Model 3 tests that scored “Superior” in
the “front crash prevention: vehicle to
vehicle” section and “Advanced” in the
front crash prevention: vehicle to pedestrian”
section.
Even though there are no official safety tests
conducted by the IIHS or the NHTSA, the Tesla
Model Y has been taken apart by the auto engineering
expert Sandy Munro and the findings were quite
amazing. For starters, Tesla used thicker
sheets of metal for the front of the rail
on the Model Y compared to the Model 3. This
will definitely be a plus in case of a crash
and we are entitled to believe that the Model
Y will be an even safer vehicle, even better
than the fan favorite, Model 3.
Building upon the already extremely solid
frame of their electric cars, Tesla took it
one step further with their Model Y and prepared
it even better for a small overlap frontal
test. The IIHS initiated this test in 2012
and wanted to see just how well a car can
mitigate the damage if it hit a rigid barrier
at 40 miles per hour, biased toward the driver’s
side. In the past, Tesla had some issues with
this test since their 2013 Model S only scored
Average and not Good, but meanwhile they improved
their engineering in such a way that the Model
3 aced all of the categories, minus the lower
leg/foot one, which received only the Average
grade, which is still pretty good.
So, because Elon’s company is set on creating
not only the fastest and most technologically
advanced cars, but also the safest ones, the
Model Y was provided with a “tusk” as
Munro named it. This “tusk” is cast and
sleeved into an aluminum bumper beam and it
will absorb all the energy from impact and
send it to the front structure which is unbelievably
solid, as was stated by the auto engineering
expert.
Tesla says all new cars have the hardware
capable of full self driving, we’re talking
get in, enter your destination and the car
does the rest, but the future of unsupervised
autopilot depends on some significant software
advances and regulatory approvals.
Tesla has an ethos deeply rooted in software
development, and is collecting a massive data
set to improve their autopilot system. When
the automaker inevitably reaches level 5 full
self driving, where the driverless car can
operate on any road and in any conditions
a human driver could negotiate, it won’t
be just equal to a human driver, it will likely
be orders of magnitude safer.
In the not too distant future, when all cars
on the road are full self driving and operate
in sync, we will see exponential advances
in vehicle safety as we remove the fallible
human element from operation.
Tesla’s state of the art innovative features
in crash structure design, restraints, airbags,
battery safety, and software put the automaker
in a league of their own when it comes to
safety.
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