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Tesla Model S Fails To Get Top IIHS Crash Rating (usatoday.com)
mrspoonsi writes: Shares in Tesla have plummeted more than 13 percent this week after lower than expected deliveries and the Model S only attaining an acceptable result in recent crash tests. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states: "Tesla made changes to the safety belt in vehicles built after January with the intent of reducing the dummy's forward movement. However, when IIHS tested the modified Model S, the same problem occurred, and the rating didn't change. Although the two tested vehicles had identical structure, the second test resulted in greater intrusion into the driver's space because the left front wheel movement wasn't consistent. Maximum intrusion increased from less than 2 inches to 11 inches in the lower part and to 5 inches at the instrument panel in the second test. The first test resulted in a good rating for structural integrity, while the second test resulted in an acceptable structural rating. The two tests' structural ratings were combined, resulting in acceptable structure and an acceptable rating overall for the Model S." A Tesla spokesperson responded to the IIHS's crash rating in a statement to Forbes: "IIHS and dozens of other private industry groups around the world have methods and motivations that suit their own subjective purposes."
Telsa has a history of squabbling with safety testing regimes
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/11/21/1959244/nhtsa-tells-tesla-to-stop-exaggerating-model-s-safety-rating
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
This is unacceptable!
Forbes truncated their quote (and worse, added in a period to make it look like that ended a sentence). The actual quote is:
The quote appears deliberately truncated to try to make it look like Tesla is badmouthing the IIHS, when they're very clearly just saying that they think the NHTSA testing is more meaningful. While that's a debatable point (I see no realistic reason to favour one over the other), Forbes' truncation is pretty questionable. Of course, what do you expect from an opinion piece that in its second sentence all but calls Tesla a cult?
The reality is that the failed test ("small overlap") is a new test developed in 2012, after the Model S design was already completed; it was never designed to the test, only adapted to try to meet it (apparently unsuccessfully thusfar). To be fair to Tesla, this same issue has hit numerous other manufacturers; only three vehicles at present pass get the best rating in it (two of them new designs from 2017) - and Tesla did manage the second best rating. On the other hand, Tesla wants to build part of its reputation on being a leader in safety, and the small overlap crash test, while new, is meaningful. It's the equivalent of sideswiping a utility pole or similar - a very real type of crash that has previously not been well represented in existing crash tests. Tesla needs to get this right next year.
Dear Diary...today I was pompous and my sister was crazy.
Oh, are we restarting the old TTAC "Tesla Death Watch" feature, with its regular columns predicting the imminent death of Tesla back in the early Roadster days?
I always get a grin when I thumb through that, now that Tesla is worth as much as a major automaker and just about to start rolling out an EV (Model 3) in production numbers and with a performance/price point widely mocked as impossible just a few years ago... back when they were just starting to roll out an EV (Model S) in production numbers and with a performance/price point widely mocked as impossible a few years before that.... back when they were just starting to roll out an EV (Roadster) in production numbers and with a performance/price point widely mocked as impossible a few years before that....
Dear Diary...today I was pompous and my sister was crazy.
Does Tesla really need to be the best on crash safety? Last time I checked, their goal isn't to make the world's safest car. It's not enough to make a safe electric car, it has to be the safest car?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
How many GM, Ford, Chrysler, Audi, BMW, VW or other cars have received that rating? GM hid a defect for about ten years, VAG cheated on Diesel emissions. Takata is going bankrupt over airbag defects, but Tesla is the bad guy here.
Seems like the big guys don't want the new guy to succeed.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
The IIHS tests are made by the folks who have to pay out money for insurance claims, and are designed to weed out failure modes they are seeing in actual crashes which led them to pay out more than they were expecting. They made the driver's side overlap tests specifically because they saw it as a weakness with the NHTSA tests. The NHTSA test only covers impacts directly from the front and the side. Yet they were seeing a lot of claims from impacts where cars didn't hit head-on and the intrusion thus bypassed most or all the crash-resistance designed to satisfy the NHTSA test.
Those are the scenarios that the IIHS test is trying to replicate. Passing the "small" version of the overlap test successfully is important because if the car can't, it may actually be better for the driver to let a greater portion of the car's front hit the oncoming vehicle/obstacle, rather than to try to avoid it and only receive a glancing blow. As the size of the impact area shrinks, the stresses on the section receiving the impact increases because there's less material absorbing the same crash energy. So the crash-resistance should be concentrated mostly along the sides, tapering off as you move inwards (perhaps increasing again towards the center). That is what this test is encouraging car designers to do. A car could be designed to let its left or right side completely shear off in a collision which misses the center of the front bumper, and still be completely NHTSA-compliant.
Shut up old man and tell me how to use the horadric cube.
But...he just wants you to stay a while and listen...
Wouldn't that be a sex reassignment surgery and a same-gender marriage?