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Model 3 achieves the lowest probability of injury of any car tested by NHTS
- dotancohen 8y agoAccording to the fine article (by Tesla) the number #1 spot is the Tesla Model 3. Number 2? Tesla Model S. Number 3? Tesla Model X. Too bad they didn't call the 3 Model E.
- ivoras 8y agoHere's hoping for the Model Y :)
- martin_bech 8y agoThe Model Y will be a crossover, or minature Model X. It is already set to be anounced in 2019.
- MarkCole 8y agoThey actually did want to call it the Model E, but Ford filed for a Trademark. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-named-model-3-model-e-2017-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-named-model-3-mode...
- mxschumacher 8y ago"3" is a workaround, models will spell "S3XY" together.
- retSava 8y agoAmazing. Watching car crash tests on youtube is eye opening, and it's interesting to see what makes a good car good. It has certainly made me an even more careful driver. Especially the "car runs into the back/side end of a trailer" crash type is very gruesome since it may strip the top half of a car off like a band-aid in a hot bath tub. Another good car in this aspect is the Smart car, which really punches above its weight and seems very well engineered from the crash point of view. Can't speak of it otherwise.
- DennisP 8y agoSeveral weeks ago I went to a funeral for a family of four, who were killed when an 18-wheeler rear-ended them on an interstate and shoved them under a flatbed trailer. I can't imagine that being survivable in any car. They were in a Ford Explorer.
- DaiPlusPlus 8y agoHow does a Mack/Volvo truck rear-end an SUV such that it ends up under the trailer? Those locomotives don’t have much ground clearance...
- retSava 8y agoThat's horrible, sorry to hear that.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y agoDashcam footage (/r/roadcam /r/idiotsincars) is good for a sobering reminder of how easily crashes happen, and how hard they can be to avoid even with careful driving. ~40,000 Americans die a year; it's nuts out there.
- ataturk 8y agoMore Tesla propaganda. "Lowest probability of injury." What utter bullcrap. How about we do better a driver training? Last I looked, that was the easiest to implement solution technologically but we never attempt it. I am going to laugh so hard when Tesla's debt situation finally puts them out of business and all these smug pricks who drive those stupid cars are stuck with the worst white elephants the world has ever experienced. You paid how much?
- DaiPlusPlus 8y agoTesla is a young car company - yet they’re punching above their weight so easily. I’m aware of the safety benefits inherent in the skateboard-battery chassis design but that doesn’t account for all of the safety accolades they’ve received. Why aren’t the other automakers doing as well in the NHTSA tests as Tesla? Cynically I’d suppose the incumbents are heavily optimised to maximise shareholder value so vehicle safety might actually be reduced to maximise profit given expected liability from damages (Fight Club comes to mind) while Tesla is still idealistic and expends a certain amount of profitability for absolute safety. Is this really the case or is there a better explanation for it?
- rusticpenn 8y agoThey are increasing their brand value by these safety ratings, As a new company, this increases the long term value for the shareholders.
- Shivetya 8y agoWhen you are breaking into an industry or trying to position yourself you need to hit above your weight. I remember when Volvo made their move, they went for the safety angle as well. Tesla has always been dogged by members of the industry and instead of turning to marketing speak Tesla turned to established and trusted entities to show their cars true value. Now it can be claimed by getting into the gritty details as they did in their blog they are entering the realm of marketing speak. (disclaimer, I own a 3). With regards to why aren't all other manufacturers doing as well, just glancing through the web site of the NHTSA I cannot figure out how they decide what to test. In their current list of vehicles to test I do not even see Tesla so I will assume manufacturers can submit cars independently of being requested by the NHTSA. Now when comparing cars at https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings we only get stars which four is pretty common in the price range but you can compare and find cars that have the same star rating. Volvo's tend to still get 5 stars across the board
- iamzozo 8y agoHere is a test report: https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2018/TESLA/MODEL%2525203/4%252520DR/RWD https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2018/TESLA/MODEL%2525203/4%252... As it wrotes, probability of injury, its beyond the stars rating. They provide technical reports on the site, which you can download. These are more detailed results, where injuries also measured and explained, like Head Injury Criterion. Just curious and checked other manufacturer, and see "worse" results. But also realized reading these documents that these tests are depend on many factors...
- softgrow 8y agoFive percent is very much non-zero and scarily so. And this is just for the vehicle occupants, not counting damage and injury to other people hit by a vehicle. Whilst we can applaud the work done, there is much more to do.
- syntaxing 8y ago5% is actually extremely impressive. I do not think there will be a "zero" car with the current understanding of physics and materials (maybe a new super material can be developed. A non-newtonian interface would be awesome to see). The amount of kinect energy a car has is absolutely absurd. The energy has to go somewhere and redirecting it away from the occupants is not an easy task.
- hvidgaard 8y agoThere is a physical limitation, because of the deceleration tolerated by the human body has an upper limit if you want people to survive.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoVehicle crashes by themselves are nowhere near the upper limits of the amount of force the human body can survive. With proper harnesses we could survive speeds well in excess of 100mph straight into a wall. The problem is passenger cabins can't survive that. http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm http://www.ejectionsite.com/stapp.htm The problem is that passenger vehicle restraints suck because they have to fit anybody and everybody and simple enough that you actually use them. In the upper classes of racing it's not uncommon for someone to walk away with only a concussion after a barrel roll down the infield but they have better seats and harnesses. Even a 4pt harness like found in a go-cart or small aircraft would be a massive step up.
- davidgould 8y agoGo-karts do not have harnesses at all, much less four-point harnesses. Source, ex kart racer.
- syntaxing 8y agoInteresting, I wonder how much of this is from the advantage of the car being a EV. Not having a huge engine on the front or a "transmission" probably gives a lot of freedom on how the chassis can be designed. It must of been really fun designing the car frame.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 8y agoDoes anyone know how the BMW i3 and the Chevrolet Bolt compare?
- DaiPlusPlus 8y agoI can’t speak for those, but the Ford Focus Electric is based on the original ICE Focus design and has the batteries in the rear cargo area (and no frunk either). The lack of a big chunk of metal where the engine would be - without augmenting the front crumple zone - presumably lessens the Electric Focus’ front impact safety rating based on the physics alone.
- CompelTechnic 8y agoThis is flawed reasoning. Think of the original Focus's crumple zone as a spring that can deflect until it hits the rigid engine. Remove the engine for the electric model and the spring is free to deflect further. Increased deflection results in more energy absorption. You also get increased time during which the impact is spread out, reducing maximum acceleration. If your original thinking is that the engine acts as dead weight to absorb momentum, which is now located in other areas of the car in the electric version, this is likely a smaller effect than the increased energy absorption and impact duration. I wish I could find a trustworthy comparison of the safety ratings of the two models, but it looks like the two cars' ratings are considered identical most places I look. Not sure if that is actually true.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoWorse. No matter how good they do they can't do better because they're smaller cars with less availible space that can be converted into time spent decelerating in a crash. Crumple zone size is a high school physics problem. More distance -> more time -> less acceleration -> less force
- chodeboy 8y agoMost of the security comes from the drive train itself. You can clearly see the transmissions and the bulky engine pushing into the cabin of the car. I would attribute the vehicle safety to the electric drive train rather than some engineering magic. I know I am stroking the HN-Tesla-Cat against the grain here but people shouldn't be too surprised when every other car maker who uses a similar layout in the future will have the same safety rating. What I am saying: this is not the same magic as a carbon fibre monocoque but rather some inherent properties of skateboard constructed vehicles. (which is another pro for e-vehicles, I suppose).
- mabbo 8y agoPet peeve: choosing the axis to make yourself look better. Model 3 is around 8-10% lower than the Model S, but on that graph appears to be 50% lower. These are great scores, and fantastic news, but this is purposeful dishonesty to exaggerate and mislead.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 8y agoHiding the labels of the axis is dishonest. Choosing a good frame to compare different values is not. Would you consider this chart misleading: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp ? edit: they gain nothing by making the 3 appear safer than the S and X. They make much bigger margin on the most expensive models, and they want to increase demand for them (while they're ramping up the 3 production and go through the huge backlog). Although they've stopped anti-selling the 3, they certainly don't want people to think of the 3 has a newer/better version of the S.
- ianai 8y agoI think they chose their axis range to make the differences starker than they are. Their graph doesn’t include a value for the highest probabilities, for instance. I’m all for zooming a graph to maximize information content, but a range of 5-8% doesn’t present a clear heuristic tie to any widely known phenomenon. A range of 5-10% would have the benefit of being easier to tie to 1/20 to 1/10 odds. Having said that, this is Tesla’s website. Of course it’s all sales copy to move product.
- crististm 8y agoThe one you mention is not misleading: they put the Y values everywhere in the chart. The other one is starting at 5% and ending at 8%. While a full range 0-100% would bury the relevant data, a picture with 0-10% would tell a different story.
- superlopuh 8y agoI do, and I don't think I'm the only one. There is no hint of the bars continuing below the axis, and the effective result is the impression that the relative difference is larger than it really is. Even the gradients seem poorly chosen, the bar gets to full white by the bottom. My intuitive first impression is that if the gradient cannot continue below the chosen cut off point, then the bar cannot continue either.
- velco 8y agoCan you "optimise" for crash tests? Like, say, software is optimised against specific benchmark to give good scores.
- mannykannot 8y agoOptimizing for the test, in a way that does not necessarily have any relevance for real-world performance, is much more of a possibility for software than it is for physical things. This is because of the fractal/chaotic nature of software: small differences can result in wildly different outcomes. NHTSA testing has been developed over a long time, and in conjunction with studying both real-world and laboratory crashes, so I imagine they are quite realistic and representative. The one way that they equivocate the tests that I am aware of is to divide vehicles into weight classes, but this would be difficult to take advantage of.
- danielbigham 8y agoA bit off topic, but I've never seen "fractal" and "chaotic" conjoined before. If you feel like expanding on that I'd be all ears.
- mannykannot 8y agoOn reflection, the 'fractal' bit isn't relevant here. The fractal nature of software is the way that the abstract specification - concrete implementation dialog appears at all levels of detail.
- nindalf 8y agoAccording to this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18167535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18167535) it is possible. It's not that Tesla is optimising for performance in these tests, it's more that the tests look at the failure modes of internal combustion engine chassis.
- usrusr 8y agoSure. Every modern car, Tesla or not, has been designed to maximise crumple zone utilisation at the exact speeds prescribed in standardised tests. Crash a little slower or faster and a different structural design would yield better survivability. As for what constitutes "modern" in this context, the first FEM simulations for iterating car crumple zone designs have been run in the 1980ies.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoSafety, acceleration and comfort are Tesla's pro-EV talking points. Of course they're going to try to be good at them. This car accomplishes those design goals (i.e. the people involved did their jobs). Safety is an easier goal to accomplish when you're only shipping cars in low volume because you can just throw steel at the problem. When you're an established car company shipping millions of cars per year cutting out a few hundred dollars of materials per car and a handful of part numbers and a few dozen manufacturing steps is a huge tantalizing savings and wall street awards profits, not overbuilt cars so that's what you do. I don't think Tesla will ever be a high volume manufacturer (I think they'll wind up closer to Audi or similar) but it'll be interesting to see if they can keep over building cars at scale.
- WhompingWindows 8y agoYou can't not mention the battery pack and the huge crumple zones. Yes they have bigger, more expensive cars, but their design is fundamentally much safer than the standard gasoline designs. The battery is a huge pro-safety factor, it's very low, massive, and very rigid, plus it frees up space in the front/rear for crumple zones to be much larger.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y agoModel 3's aren't being made 'at scale'? I swear that Tesla will always be considered a boutique novelty when rhetorically convenient unless they're literally the best-selling automaker.
- ape4 8y agoExcept for the huge tablet on the console you need to use while driving. Averting eyes from the road.
- mtw 8y agoDamn - really looking to buy one... only if the price was actually $35k - not $60k
- mtgx 8y agoIt's not the only factor, but it's a shame Musk really wanted to put the Autopilot hardware into all Model 3s. I think that increased the base price of the car by at least $5,000.
- Cshelton 8y agoThe autopilot hardware IS in every single car. Every autopilot feature as of now is a software feature flag. That's why you can buy "Enhanced Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving" features after your car is delivered at any time. Someday when Tesla has scaled up, those features will most likely be standard. Right now, they are trying to be profitable and a high number of current orders are willing to pay for at least the Enhanced Autopilot.
- martythemaniak 8y agoThe 35k version is still on track for a few months from now. The autopilot hardware does not add 5k and the basic safety features are included in the base model (crash warning, emergency breaking) etc. What costs 5k is the convinience of on ramp to off ramp autopilot.
- rconti 8y ago$60k is FUD. It's $50k. Inflating the price by 20% does not add credibility to your argument. I, too, was hoping for a $35k Model 3, but when it came time to pull the trigger, I realized I'd want the $5000 Premium package regardless, so it wasn't hard to talk myself into the extra $9k for the bigger battery when considering the guaranteed tax incentives vs the unknown ETA of the mythical "short range" car.
- mtw 8y agoThere are 2 reasons to buy a Tesla - electric power, and self-driving capability. If I don't get full self-driving, I can get a Jaguar, a Hyundai or a Nissan Leaf. These are cheaper or have more options and better return for your dollar. On the configurator, it gives me $58.4K with the base motor
- lostmsu 8y agoLet's wait for European ratings. Model S did not excel at those.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoIt got a 5 star rating, the highest available.
- lostmsu 8y agoThese have percentages on the official web site. Many cars have 5 in rounded rating, but if you look at the percentages... There's only 2014 S though: https://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/latest-safety-ratings/#?selectedMake=7315&selectedMakeName=Tesla&selectedModel=0&selectedStar=&includeFullSafetyPackage=true&includeStandardSafetyPackage=true&selectedModelName=All&selectedProtocols=30636,26061,24370,1472,5910,5931,-1,14999&selectedClasses=1202,1199,1201,1196,1205,1203,1198,1179,1197,1204,1180&allClasses=true&allProtocols=true&allDriverAssistanceTechnologies=false&selectedDriverAssistanceTechnologies=&thirdRowFitment=false https://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/latest-safety-ra...
- romed 8y agoNow multiply by the chance of getting into the collision in the first place.
- DenisM 8y agoI wonder why aren't "they" making extendable bumpers for cars? Like extend bumpers 2 feet forward and backward when collision is imminent and then use the extra space as extra crumple zone.
- Shivetya 8y agoSomeone threw together pictures of the car https://imgur.com/a/oCAVKzz https://imgur.com/a/oCAVKzz
- fredliu 8y agoHonest Question: is there enough data to show how likely the battery will burst into flames in crashes? So far the few incidences that I'm aware of make it feels like "the battery don't always burn, but when it does, there's no way to survive out of that". How true is that?
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y agohttps://www.autoblog.com/2018/05/11/a-list-of-tesla-car-fires-since-2013/ https://www.autoblog.com/2018/05/11/a-list-of-tesla-car-fire... There's a mix of 'freak' failures and some seriously gnarly crashes, but overall not that many fires. It's not a complete list, as Tesla claims 'about 40' fires (link below) but the severity of the others may not have been newsworthy. Battery fire vs. ICE fire rates are somewhat tricky to compare (you want an apples-to-apples comparison, so throw out older ICE cars, cars of different classes, etc.) but ICE cars catch on fire quite a bit. If fires are your concern, BEVs are likely the better option. https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/companies/electric-car-fire-risk/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/companies/electric-car... One complication is that BEVs are novel and emergency services may not yet have effective procedures for responding to such events.
- modzu 8y agowhat can be done about insurance costs? id love to recommend a model 3 to friends and family but they can't all afford paying the same premiums as they would for a porsche 911...
- sbradford26 8y agoI recently looked for an insurance quote for a model 3. At least through esurance it was going to be cheaper than my 07 BMW X3 to insure. I am in New York where all insurance feels cheap compared to when I lived in Michigan.
- rconti 8y agoYou'd love to recommend a specific car for your friends and family but have decided not to because of an unknown quantity? Or did you actually price out insurance and find that it cost as much as a 911? I'm not even sure if 911s are particularly expensive to insure, but I do know our Model 3 costs no more to insure than my VW Golf did.
- modzu 8y agopricing it out online, at least in canada, has it in the upper tiers (of course other factors may influence your premiums more than the car, ymmv). tesla was also only in a handful of the databases. its great to hear there are companies offering competitive rates! id read somewhere the reason for high numbers are twofold: bodywork and its speed (ie accident risk) are equal to high performance vehicles, so thanks for chiming in with real world examples
- rgrove 8y agoI pay about the same for insurance on my Model 3 as I did on the Mazda CX-7 it replaced. I've heard stories of some insurers charging ridiculous premiums for Teslas, but that hasn't been my experience with USAA.
- rconti 8y agoOne thing that stood out to me in this blog post was the comments about the doors. They say: > "Model 3 also has the lowest intrusion from side pole impact of any vehicle tested by NHTSA. Unlike frontal crashes, there is little room for crumple zone in a side impact, so we patented our own pillar structures and side sills to absorb as much energy as possible in a very short distance. These structures work alongside the vehicle’s rigid body and fortified battery architecture to further reduce and prevent compartment intrusion. With less intrusion into the cabin, our side airbags have more space to inflate and cushion the occupants inside." It's something I didn't really appreciate until weeks after we brought our 3 home, but the sides of the car have an incredibly strange shape. Both front and rear doors, and even the rear fender and side sills, have absolutely massive character lines and sculpting. I have no idea if they're outright thicker than other carmakers' doors, or if they're there for aerodynamics, or if they aid safety, but they're really like nothing else. Take a close look next time you see one; I think the S is much the same way, but like most people, I don't usually stop to closely examine styling elements unless I have a particular reason to do so.
- jjeaff 8y agoTesla "open sourced" a lot of their patents, which was a good thing. But why would they then patent things like side panel designs that could save lives? It kind of highlights the idea that the original release of patents on the electric tech was self serving only. In hopes that it would bring electric to more mainstream and help create a charger network faster.
- jon_richards 8y agoNow that patents are first to file, couldn't someone patent the doors based off reverse engineering a tesla and then sue tesla for infringement?
- cmbailey 8y agoThat patent could easily be defeated by showing the older Tesla designs as proof of "prior art". This could happen i) easily after the application is published through an internal submission to the examiner, ii) fairly easily after grant through an "Inter Partes Review"[0], and iii) then still at any time in the future through litigation in the courts. These submissions could be made by Tesla, or any third party who cares about the illegitimate patent not being in effect. If anyone, at any time, demonstrates that prior art existed before the date of the patent application, that patent can be permanently invalidated. This happens frequently, and is often used by victims of patent trolls to defend themselves. With the side benefit of "punishing" the patent troll. [0] https://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/appealing-patent-decisions/trials/inter-partes-review https://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/appealing-...
- djanogo 8y agoI was terrified of what would happen to my right knee if I ever got in an accident in Model 3. I felt the screen was intruding into crash zone. Unlike the dummy in real crash people move their limbs before and during the crash.