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According to the German news ( http://www.merkur.de/lokales/w... ), that is incorrect. It actually did roll over:

Rollover of Tesla sports car / Uberschlag mit Tesla-Sportwagen
The car came off the road and overturned / Daraufhin kam das Auto von der StraBe ab und uberschlug sich

It may not look like it did, but that's because

You can stack the equivalent of four Teslas on on one Tesla Model S without the roof breaking

( http://www.wired.com/2013/08/t... )

Why don't you look at the pictures?

http://www.merkur.de/lokales/w...

Obviously the car did "roll". More precisely it "flipped over" and hit the ground with the front and the back several times.

Or how would you explain a complete smashed front part of a car that hit nothing but simply ran into a field?

The article clearly says: the car flipped over. And I guess the german police is smart enough to see such evidence on the field and car.

You can quite clearly see what happened by looking at the pictures presented by the Bavarian newspaper.

http://www.merkur.de/bilder/2016/05/04/6373067/1613361945-unfall-icking-sportwagen-gaulke-PXHG.jpg - You see the curve there in the background? The one behind the black and the white BMWs?
The driver went around that corner in her father's car, lost control and slid off the road into the grass. Probably either distracted, bad driver or just too faster for physics...
Normally not a problem, you probably fucked up the under-carriage a bit and the front bumpers, but nothing a few days in the shop couldn't fix. But the girl got unlucky. Right after the corner is a small stub road leading into the field for the farm equipment. The black and white BMWs will help with lining up the viewing angles of the pictures.

The car hit the stub road and the effect must have been similar to driving up a ramp for an Evel Knievel styled jump: http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20...

The car rolled length-wise and must have hit the ground twice before coming to rest on the trashed wheels again. You can see the impact points in the field nicely on http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20....

That allows you to reconstruct the flight path: Lift-off at the stub road, front hits the ground first, momentum carries the car forward and leads to the first roll as the front is still embedded in the field. Car is hitting with the trunk next, still rolling with ample forward momentum which means the car will not be burried in the field but land on the wheels next. And that's where the car came to rest.

You can look at the bumper and other plastic parts strewn all over the place, they match up nicely with that order.

If you now look at the car at rest http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... you'll see how the glass is not completely shattered? This means little impact force onto the passenger cell and most of the impact just hit the front. Not even a direct frontal impact but mostly torsion forces hitting the bottom of the car front from the impact into the field.

Based on all that evidence I'd say the 5 kids in the car were supremely lucky that they hit an empty field in a decent car. The airbags came in very handy, no doubt.

But I think it is a bit premature to claim this shows anything like inherent safety of Tesla or even just that electric cars are safer than over conventional vehicles... That's purely the marketing department talking...

You can quite clearly see what happened by looking at the pictures presented by the Bavarian newspaper.

http://www.merkur.de/bilder/2016/05/04/6373067/1613361945-unfall-icking-sportwagen-gaulke-PXHG.jpg - You see the curve there in the background? The one behind the black and the white BMWs?
The driver went around that corner in her father's car, lost control and slid off the road into the grass. Probably either distracted, bad driver or just too faster for physics...
Normally not a problem, you probably fucked up the under-carriage a bit and the front bumpers, but nothing a few days in the shop couldn't fix. But the girl got unlucky. Right after the corner is a small stub road leading into the field for the farm equipment. The black and white BMWs will help with lining up the viewing angles of the pictures.

The car hit the stub road and the effect must have been similar to driving up a ramp for an Evel Knievel styled jump: http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20...

The car rolled length-wise and must have hit the ground twice before coming to rest on the trashed wheels again. You can see the impact points in the field nicely on http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20....

That allows you to reconstruct the flight path: Lift-off at the stub road, front hits the ground first, momentum carries the car forward and leads to the first roll as the front is still embedded in the field. Car is hitting with the trunk next, still rolling with ample forward momentum which means the car will not be burried in the field but land on the wheels next. And that's where the car came to rest.

You can look at the bumper and other plastic parts strewn all over the place, they match up nicely with that order.

If you now look at the car at rest http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... you'll see how the glass is not completely shattered? This means little impact force onto the passenger cell and most of the impact just hit the front. Not even a direct frontal impact but mostly torsion forces hitting the bottom of the car front from the impact into the field.

Based on all that evidence I'd say the 5 kids in the car were supremely lucky that they hit an empty field in a decent car. The airbags came in very handy, no doubt.

But I think it is a bit premature to claim this shows anything like inherent safety of Tesla or even just that electric cars are safer than over conventional vehicles... That's purely the marketing department talking...

You can quite clearly see what happened by looking at the pictures presented by the Bavarian newspaper.

http://www.merkur.de/bilder/2016/05/04/6373067/1613361945-unfall-icking-sportwagen-gaulke-PXHG.jpg - You see the curve there in the background? The one behind the black and the white BMWs?
The driver went around that corner in her father's car, lost control and slid off the road into the grass. Probably either distracted, bad driver or just too faster for physics...
Normally not a problem, you probably fucked up the under-carriage a bit and the front bumpers, but nothing a few days in the shop couldn't fix. But the girl got unlucky. Right after the corner is a small stub road leading into the field for the farm equipment. The black and white BMWs will help with lining up the viewing angles of the pictures.

The car hit the stub road and the effect must have been similar to driving up a ramp for an Evel Knievel styled jump: http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20...

The car rolled length-wise and must have hit the ground twice before coming to rest on the trashed wheels again. You can see the impact points in the field nicely on http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20....

That allows you to reconstruct the flight path: Lift-off at the stub road, front hits the ground first, momentum carries the car forward and leads to the first roll as the front is still embedded in the field. Car is hitting with the trunk next, still rolling with ample forward momentum which means the car will not be burried in the field but land on the wheels next. And that's where the car came to rest.

You can look at the bumper and other plastic parts strewn all over the place, they match up nicely with that order.

If you now look at the car at rest http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... you'll see how the glass is not completely shattered? This means little impact force onto the passenger cell and most of the impact just hit the front. Not even a direct frontal impact but mostly torsion forces hitting the bottom of the car front from the impact into the field.

Based on all that evidence I'd say the 5 kids in the car were supremely lucky that they hit an empty field in a decent car. The airbags came in very handy, no doubt.

But I think it is a bit premature to claim this shows anything like inherent safety of Tesla or even just that electric cars are safer than over conventional vehicles... That's purely the marketing department talking...

You can quite clearly see what happened by looking at the pictures presented by the Bavarian newspaper.

http://www.merkur.de/bilder/2016/05/04/6373067/1613361945-unfall-icking-sportwagen-gaulke-PXHG.jpg - You see the curve there in the background? The one behind the black and the white BMWs?
The driver went around that corner in her father's car, lost control and slid off the road into the grass. Probably either distracted, bad driver or just too faster for physics...
Normally not a problem, you probably fucked up the under-carriage a bit and the front bumpers, but nothing a few days in the shop couldn't fix. But the girl got unlucky. Right after the corner is a small stub road leading into the field for the farm equipment. The black and white BMWs will help with lining up the viewing angles of the pictures.

The car hit the stub road and the effect must have been similar to driving up a ramp for an Evel Knievel styled jump: http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20...

The car rolled length-wise and must have hit the ground twice before coming to rest on the trashed wheels again. You can see the impact points in the field nicely on http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20....

That allows you to reconstruct the flight path: Lift-off at the stub road, front hits the ground first, momentum carries the car forward and leads to the first roll as the front is still embedded in the field. Car is hitting with the trunk next, still rolling with ample forward momentum which means the car will not be burried in the field but land on the wheels next. And that's where the car came to rest.

You can look at the bumper and other plastic parts strewn all over the place, they match up nicely with that order.

If you now look at the car at rest http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... you'll see how the glass is not completely shattered? This means little impact force onto the passenger cell and most of the impact just hit the front. Not even a direct frontal impact but mostly torsion forces hitting the bottom of the car front from the impact into the field.

Based on all that evidence I'd say the 5 kids in the car were supremely lucky that they hit an empty field in a decent car. The airbags came in very handy, no doubt.

But I think it is a bit premature to claim this shows anything like inherent safety of Tesla or even just that electric cars are safer than over conventional vehicles... That's purely the marketing department talking...

You can quite clearly see what happened by looking at the pictures presented by the Bavarian newspaper.

http://www.merkur.de/bilder/2016/05/04/6373067/1613361945-unfall-icking-sportwagen-gaulke-PXHG.jpg - You see the curve there in the background? The one behind the black and the white BMWs?
The driver went around that corner in her father's car, lost control and slid off the road into the grass. Probably either distracted, bad driver or just too faster for physics...
Normally not a problem, you probably fucked up the under-carriage a bit and the front bumpers, but nothing a few days in the shop couldn't fix. But the girl got unlucky. Right after the corner is a small stub road leading into the field for the farm equipment. The black and white BMWs will help with lining up the viewing angles of the pictures.

The car hit the stub road and the effect must have been similar to driving up a ramp for an Evel Knievel styled jump: http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20...

The car rolled length-wise and must have hit the ground twice before coming to rest on the trashed wheels again. You can see the impact points in the field nicely on http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20....

That allows you to reconstruct the flight path: Lift-off at the stub road, front hits the ground first, momentum carries the car forward and leads to the first roll as the front is still embedded in the field. Car is hitting with the trunk next, still rolling with ample forward momentum which means the car will not be burried in the field but land on the wheels next. And that's where the car came to rest.

You can look at the bumper and other plastic parts strewn all over the place, they match up nicely with that order.

If you now look at the car at rest http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... you'll see how the glass is not completely shattered? This means little impact force onto the passenger cell and most of the impact just hit the front. Not even a direct frontal impact but mostly torsion forces hitting the bottom of the car front from the impact into the field.

Based on all that evidence I'd say the 5 kids in the car were supremely lucky that they hit an empty field in a decent car. The airbags came in very handy, no doubt.

But I think it is a bit premature to claim this shows anything like inherent safety of Tesla or even just that electric cars are safer than over conventional vehicles... That's purely the marketing department talking...

flew more than 80 feet

The linked German article (as well as a follow-up) does not mention anything about the car flying... it says the car overturned until it landed back on its wheels (which explains all the bodywork damage in the photo...).

Also, 80 feet???? Germany have not used such a unit in a couple of years ^H^H^H^H^H centuries. Might still be in use in the USA, Burma and Liberia. And perhaps the UK and Canada.

flew more than 80 feet

The linked German article (as well as a follow-up) does not mention anything about the car flying... it says the car overturned until it landed back on its wheels (which explains all the bodywork damage in the photo...).

Also, 80 feet???? Germany have not used such a unit in a couple of years ^H^H^H^H^H centuries. Might still be in use in the USA, Burma and Liberia. And perhaps the UK and Canada.