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At least part of what keeps people from switching to more eco-friendly transportation is the protection arms race: people buy bigger cars because they are safer

At least part of what keeps people from switching to more eco-friendly transportation is the protection arms race: people buy bigger cars because they are safer for their occupants. This leads to more injuries because bigger cars do more damage. Which means people are more concerned about injuries and buy bigger cars. This is one area where I am concerned about the impacts of electric vehicles. They weigh a lot more than ICE cars and might cause more significant injuries for pedestrians. There probably ought to be some sort of tax or fee on vehicles that scales by weight. However, that would favor ICE vehicles over EVs so it may not be popular among the people who might otherwise be interested in such things.

pcl 3y ago
IANA automotive engineer, but I would assume that injuries from car-vs-pedestrian collisions are mostly due to impact velocity, and not due to momentum. I wouldn’t be surprised if the higher-mass electric vehicles are more dangerous to other cars when involved in car-vs-car collisions, though.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Smaller cars are more likely to throw you up and over - still dangerous, but not as dangerous as a direct inelastic hit. Smaller cars have better visibility of pedestrians and so are more likely to see and thus avoid pedestrians. If you take a direct hit with even a tiny car at faster than 30mph you are dead. However smaller cars make it somewhat less likely you take that direct hit.
  - pcl 3y ago
    Yeah — but when I hear people talking about how EVs are heavier, I assume that people are making a like-for-like model comparison. In a similar body size, EVs tend to weigh more, due to all the extra battery.
- agent281 3y ago
  IANA automotive engineer either. I'll quote national bureau of economic research: > The probability of a fatality, conditional on a collision, is 0.19 percent -- or about one in five hundred. The authors find that being hit by a 1,000-pound heavier vehicle results in a 47 percent increase in the baseline probability of being killed in the accident... https://www.nber.org/digest/nov11/vehicle-weight-and-automotive-fatalities https://www.nber.org/digest/nov11/vehicle-weight-and-automot....

pcl 3y ago

IANA automotive engineer, but I would assume that injuries from car-vs-pedestrian collisions are mostly due to impact velocity, and not due to momentum. I wouldn’t be surprised if the higher-mass electric vehicles are more dangerous to other cars when involved in car-vs-car collisions, though.

bluGill 3y ago
Smaller cars are more likely to throw you up and over - still dangerous, but not as dangerous as a direct inelastic hit. Smaller cars have better visibility of pedestrians and so are more likely to see and thus avoid pedestrians. If you take a direct hit with even a tiny car at faster than 30mph you are dead. However smaller cars make it somewhat less likely you take that direct hit.
- pcl 3y ago
  Yeah — but when I hear people talking about how EVs are heavier, I assume that people are making a like-for-like model comparison. In a similar body size, EVs tend to weigh more, due to all the extra battery.
agent281 3y ago
IANA automotive engineer either. I'll quote national bureau of economic research: > The probability of a fatality, conditional on a collision, is 0.19 percent -- or about one in five hundred. The authors find that being hit by a 1,000-pound heavier vehicle results in a 47 percent increase in the baseline probability of being killed in the accident... https://www.nber.org/digest/nov11/vehicle-weight-and-automotive-fatalities https://www.nber.org/digest/nov11/vehicle-weight-and-automot....