Slashdot Mirror
NHTSA Gives the Model S Best Safety Rating of Any Car In History
cartechboy writes "Even crashing into a wall is good news nowadays for Tesla Motors. Independent testing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has awarded the company a 5-star safety rating, not just overall, but in every subcategory. While its five-star score across the board has been attained by other vehicles (around one percent of all cars tested are capable of such a score) its ratings in individual categories are higher than any other vehicle, including larger SUVs and minivans. What's really interesting is that part of the safety rating may be because the car is electric."
Ridiculous. Because the gov't want to promote electric cars, will we now see artificially high safety ratings on electric cars to promote sales? Since when did the gov't get into the marketing business?
Five star safety rating across the board. Excellent! Now if only it didn't come with a five star price tag
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Don't get me wrong, the numbers are quite impressive - especially the following passage from TFA:
However, at a price point of $80 - 100K, it's going to remain a playtoy for people with money, not become the OMG super-car replacement for mom's $30K Volvo.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
E. Musk
:) Volvo and other car makers are shitting their trunks right now...
The Tesla broke the roof testing jig and NHTSA had to raise their rating ceiling - another good day for TSLA
From the article
"It means the Model S joins more established vehicles such as the 2013 Kia Optima, Honda Accord and Volvo S60 in scoring maximum marks in all impact tests."
What ratings are higher? Or is this just more Tesla love?
but but...the govt also bought shares of GM and other American manufacturing company during the auto bailout. Why didn't they hand out free 5-stars rating then? Perhaps the government was selling short!
If you don't have any facts, or the ones that come out of your ass, go troll elsewhere.
You'll find out real quick that weight makes a big difference... Assume a Humvee and a Model S collide Head on, both going the same speed.
Because the Humvee has greater mass, the Model S would wind up going backwards, and the Humvee would continue moving forward after the collision.
This means the actual amount of energy that needs to dissipate in the Model S is much higher than the Humvee, because the change in velocity is much higher, and the amount of energy expended in the collision is = 1/2 * mass * (change in velocity) ^ 2
I think to call it the 'safest car ever' is quite a bold lie. Clearly there are safer vehicles out there ( Tanks, Semi-Trucks, even airplanes). These NSHTA safety ratings are done for ludicrously slow speeds as well! Don't expect a lot of safety at 70mph...
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-calculate-velocities-of-two-objects-with-di.html
Because the gov't want to promote electric cars, will we now see artificially high safety ratings on electric cars to promote sales?
Wow, cynical much? Maybe, just maybe, the engineers at Tesla actually did a really good job. If the vehicle is subjected to the same tests and scores higher then what possible problem could you have with that? If you have evidence that the government somehow held Tesla to a different standard then by all means please share with the rest of the class. But if you are just being snarky then shut up.
That is freaking awesome!
However, at a price point of $80 - 100K, it's going to remain a playtoy for people with money, not become the OMG super-car replacement for mom's $30K Volvo.
Tesla's first product (2008), the Roadster, base price of US$109K.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster
The base Model S (2012) starts at US$69,900 with a 60 kWh battery pack up to US$79,900 with the 85 kWh pack before any government subsidies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S
Prices for the Model X (2014) have not been announced, but Tesla says it wants to have the price of the BlueStar (2016) at under US$ 40K.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_BlueStar
If you want cheap, but a Corolla. If want quality and innovation, someone has to be willing to bankroll the progress in technology that Tesla is trying to achieve.
If tesla drivers drive the same way Prius and Accord drivers drive, pull out in front of people and slow down and driving slowing in the middle lane; they need that crash rating.
At least when a BMW or Audi driver cuts me off, they're usually driving faster than I am and they know which pedal is the accelerator. Toyota and Honda drivers seem to have a problem with that. Just look at the alleged Toyota acceleration problem a few years ago, they didn't know the break from the gas. (Yeah, Audi 5K drivers also had that problem.)
Does this mean that the drivers will feel safer in them and therefore drive less carefully as a result?
The cars might be safer, but I bet it still hurts if one hits you
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I mean realize that the Model S does not have anything in the front so its just a large crumple zone. All other cars have 1 ton of engine block in the front and depending on how severe the accident is, that engine block is going to come into the passenger cabin as some point. I mean I would say that the car is probably as safe on any other side as any other car, but for head on collisions it moves the rating up a notch.
But I mean who buys a car because of its safety rating? I mean there are millions of people driving Toyota's that don't stop when you want them to and they still have high safety ratings so to argue about this is moot.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Without a large motor in the way Tesla is able to use the whole front compartment as a crumple zone as opposed to most combustion vehicles that primary use the sides as a crumple zone. While I don't think the ratings were manipulated they are artificially high because the Tesla design is able to game the system.
Explain to me exactly how having an enormous crumple zone in front of the driver is somehow a bad thing. Would you rather have an engine pushed into your lap from a frontal collision? Their is no evidence I've seen that their ratings are "artificially high". The results are what they are.
go figure it gets the best score ever. yawn.
During one of the presidential debates, Mitt Romney named Tesla a failure, and claimed that the loan given to Tesla by the DOE was a waste of taxpayer money. This drove the stock down to $25 per share. I wish I'd bought then, because that stock is now around $140 per share, and climbing.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
"And just how strong is the Model S roof, which is secured with aerospace-grade bolts? It broke a testing machine that was pushing down on the roof with the equivalent of the weight of four cars."
Four cars? Pshaw. Forty years ago my Volvo could bench press 6.
http://imgur.com/kmdoVYR
The NHTSA applied their standard tests to the Model S, which is good. We can see how it compares with other cars on the market. But it is a little misleading since the tests were made for vehicles with internal combustion engines. The Model S isn't susceptible to fires from leaking petroleum fuel since it doesn't have any, unlike most other cars on the road. The existing tests don't account for conditions that might set the very large lihium ion battery pack on fire, which is what needs to be tested for the Model S. The Model S might have (probably does) have great engineering to prevent such fires, but we don't know since that isn't part of the consideration for the existing tests.
Wrong question; what you should be asking is, "why spend 100K, when I can buy a car with an almost equivalent safety rating for leas than half that price?
You can buy a car with a 5 star safety rating AND which performs like a Tesla for half the money? Where can I find this incredible vehicle?
Nobody buys a car just for the safety rating. Your argument is a strawman.
> What's really interesting is that part of the safety rating may be because the car is electric.
Yes, but probably not in the way you mean.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Cars that are Top Safety Picks from IIHS are already required to withstand 4 times its weight on its roof as well and there are quite a number of cars that have done this for a number of years already. Yes the Tesla Model S is safe, but it's only as safe as it should be for a car its price. This is just silly PR fluff for EV lovers. What I wanna see is the small overlap crash test done by IIHS since it has a "frunk" for crumple zones. NHTSA results are far less meaningful (redundant) today since IIHS has tougher tests.
And then auctions it for charity, and buys another one.
I seem to remember he always gets a great novelty plate like "Thrifty" or something.
My mom says I'm cool.
. . . for the car to go up in a fireball. Especially if you're chasing James Bond at the time. No gasoline == no fireball. So sad.
The Chevy Volt had to re-address some design issues due to these tests. Because they realized a fluid leak caused a short that ignited a vehicle after impact tests.
but it's still just a commuter car if it can only go 200 miles on a charge or if it requires a special charging station to charge the battery in faster than 'overnight' (and this is both).
why not a diesel-electric option.. extend the range out to that of a typical mid-sized car (400-500 miles).. or even sustain battery levels at cruising speed for when there are no practical charging options available. it IS possible to create a true diesel-electric hybrid that can run off stored (battery) electric charge or off diesel-generated electricity... it's just never been done before (trains run off diesel-generated power.. and diesel-electric hybrid mass transit buses are a reality today), so it would be somewhat expensive at first to develop, but in mass production, costs would be no different than today's hybrids, but with the end result being more efficient and more flexible.
Earlier this year, there was a bad accident where a Tesla Model S hit a 90 Honda Accord head-on: Tesla vs Honda Head-on Collision. The two people in the Accord were killed immediately. The Accord was a crumpled mess, as you can see from the photo in the article. The Tesla driver had only minor injuries. He was able to simply open his door and exit the vehicle. The accident itself is a terrible tragedy, but seeing a real-world example helps you to see just how safe the vehicle is.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
It is not the only or first car to get 5 star in every subcatagory with the New NHTSA ratings.
The 2013 Chevy Camaro was the first followed by the 2013 Cadillac ATS.
I am sure there are others that have followed.
Also some intresting tidbits are ALL SUVs have 4 star or less in rollover which prevents them from getting 5 star in every subcatagory.
Since the NHTSA ratings are new not all tests are performed on older models still in production. Its up to the manufacture to pay for the tests again to get the new ratings.
...is a car analogy.
Every time Top Gear is upbraided for the assinine idiocies on it because the three guys presenting are playing the parts of complete shitheads, they are defended with "They are *ENTERTAINMENT*, not a factual reporting programme!". Yet their every word is remembered as "Gospel truth" by the same idiots.
No, the battery has a guaranteed lifetime of 15-25 years and when you give it back, they buy it from you for a large chunk of the cost of a new battery because everything there apart from the electricity you charged it with is recyclable 100%.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1qB0lb401ZU
As the old joke goes: if Ted Kennedy had been driving a Beetle, he'd have been President.
And then there was the one that drove around the world ... with an adapter to let the engine drive an external propeller when crossing water between islands and mainlands. Go ahead and drive your Jeep through a river, but know that pales next to the guy who drove his Beetle through the Pacific Ocean.
I'm all for safer cars, but safety ratings are measuring the wrong things. Moms love SUVs because they are perceived as safer for the occupants. Never mind that they are more dangerous for everyone else. For a pedestrian, SUVs are one of the most dangerous! Car safety needs to consider how dangerous it is for other people.
Cars kill twice as many pedestrians as drivers or passengers (World Bank) (That's worldwide--in USA, pedestrians are closer to 14% of deaths because everybody drives and nobody walks in US). Of course, nobody wants to buy a car that's safer for other people.
Maybe the Model S is safe, maybe not. Who knows?
They just haven't designed one specifically for running under water.
Stupid fucking idiots scrabbling in the shit for ANY reason to have a car that even tangentially is "green" (therefore not manly enough, and your world only HAS "Hippy shitheads and the sane society who agree with me", therefore the tesla CANNOT be a proper car) fail at something.
WHY THE FUCK DO YOU DO THAT???
Do you think that insulating, as you say, stops shorting electrics, can they be used to make an electric engine work under water too?
In which case your "query" can be answered "yes" in just the same way as it was answered with "yes" to the query "Can a gasoline engine work under water". Yes, if you modify it to work under water.
Do you want a citation for his thinking marshmallows taste nice too?
I am eager to see what Top Gear more particularly Clarkson has to say about this car.
One detail that's often missed in the gasoline cost analysis is the total loss incurred when paying for gas. Let's say you own the car for 10 years and in a gasoline car during the same period you would have spent 36k on gas. That money is gone forever with a gasoline car, in the Model S you "pay" that same money over the same period into owning an asset with a higher resale value.
Tesla drivers are going to be high-G people. They die in accidents less, except for private-plane accidents.
Read the Bell Curve.
Or, don't.
Does that matter? Normally it's not the TOP of the car that crashes into anything...
Ah, but that'll be compensated for with electric arcs that are about as realistic.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Kind of how like new drugs are very expensive at first, then cheap generics come out when the patent expires.
I wouldn't have it any other way. The profits made possible by patent protection are the reason billions get poured into R&D to develop new drugs. "Reforming" the system to do away with this would be a childish, self-loathing outburst: "If poor people can't have these remarkable new drugs, nobody can!"
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
if your mode of transport didn't always contain 50-100 litres of highly flammable and explosive liquid... just saying.
Having to had taken multiple WHIMIS (Workplace Hazards somethingthatstartswithI Materials... etc..) training back in the day pretty much the most common and dangerous thing people work with is gasoline.
It's not even proper engineer's mindset. An engineer speaks from field experience, or at least knowledge verified by past experimentation.
This is just some armchair know-it-all, like a lot of people commenting on Slashdot. A software engineer, more likely.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
Hey Grandpa, vehicles don't use distributors any more. The HV coils are right over the spark plugs and it's all fairly well insulated already. FFS...