4 ms·

what I don't get is why the effect of a crash on other isn't taken into account in the evaluation of car safety

furyg3 3y ago
It is. One of the key differences between the EU and US regulations is (was?) that there is a greater evaluation of what happens to a pedestrian when hit by the car being tested.
- aurea 3y ago
  I hope this car never makes it into Europe in current form.
  - devnullbrain 3y ago
    Tesla have made statements saying that it won't. As a layman, I don't think the flat front is possible.
    - dan_hawkins 3y ago
      Sharp edges are also not allowed in most European countries.
gambiting 3y ago
The impact to pedestrians is taken into account. The impact on other cars isn't, because I don't see how you'd do that objectively - do you just crash it against an identical model? A selection of several other cars from different categories/brands? How would you determine those? Do you just test head-on collisions, or the whole gauntlet of impacts? Wouldn't that make any test require dozens and dozens of vehicles, and ultimately tell you very little because the variety of vehicles on road is so huge that your crash results against a Honda Jazz might mean nothing in a crash against a Civic or anything else.
- hetspookjee 3y ago
  Well I think one can start with a bit of an average car. I mean humans vary a lot too. Both in size and resilience. If there’d be some wireframe made that can represent a bit of the car rigidity of an average 2008 car for example we can definitely see how this monolith would vaporize any car, versus the Jazz that’d mostly dent itself in a crash. And include that in the rating as well. Current SUV trends are abysmal for others with their 800bhp and near 3000kg kerb weight. It’s I think a solid way to stop this race to the bottom.
- poulpy123 3y ago
  it would be possible to test the effect of the car on a (or several) standardized objects, and compare the car resistance to these standardized objects
  - gambiting 3y ago
    The issue with that is that manufacturers would obviously work to make sure their cars score super well against those specific objects. Would you be able to make sure it translates well to collisions against real life cars in real life situations? I'm not sure - usually when you start judging manufacturers on a certain metric they make sure to do well on that one metric at the cost of everything else.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Avoiding Goodhart's law is a general problem, and in this case it's the regulator's problem.
- rurp 3y ago
  No crash test is perfect, but some are useful. Cars don't change that much from year to year and manufacturers tend to copy each other quite a bit. Developing a suite of tests against a selection of typical vehicles seems very doable. Existing crash tests don't perfectly cover every scenario, and people quibble about the details, but the tests still provide useful information.
- 3y ago

It is. One of the key differences between the EU and US regulations is (was?) that there is a greater evaluation of what happens to a pedestrian when hit by the car being tested.

aurea 3y ago
I hope this car never makes it into Europe in current form.
- devnullbrain 3y ago
  Tesla have made statements saying that it won't. As a layman, I don't think the flat front is possible.
  - dan_hawkins 3y ago
    Sharp edges are also not allowed in most European countries.

gambiting 3y ago

The impact to pedestrians is taken into account. The impact on other cars isn't, because I don't see how you'd do that objectively - do you just crash it against an identical model? A selection of several other cars from different categories/brands? How would you determine those? Do you just test head-on collisions, or the whole gauntlet of impacts? Wouldn't that make any test require dozens and dozens of vehicles, and ultimately tell you very little because the variety of vehicles on road is so huge that your crash results against a Honda Jazz might mean nothing in a crash against a Civic or anything else.

hetspookjee 3y ago
Well I think one can start with a bit of an average car. I mean humans vary a lot too. Both in size and resilience. If there’d be some wireframe made that can represent a bit of the car rigidity of an average 2008 car for example we can definitely see how this monolith would vaporize any car, versus the Jazz that’d mostly dent itself in a crash. And include that in the rating as well. Current SUV trends are abysmal for others with their 800bhp and near 3000kg kerb weight. It’s I think a solid way to stop this race to the bottom.
poulpy123 3y ago
it would be possible to test the effect of the car on a (or several) standardized objects, and compare the car resistance to these standardized objects
- gambiting 3y ago
  The issue with that is that manufacturers would obviously work to make sure their cars score super well against those specific objects. Would you be able to make sure it translates well to collisions against real life cars in real life situations? I'm not sure - usually when you start judging manufacturers on a certain metric they make sure to do well on that one metric at the cost of everything else.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Avoiding Goodhart's law is a general problem, and in this case it's the regulator's problem.
rurp 3y ago
No crash test is perfect, but some are useful. Cars don't change that much from year to year and manufacturers tend to copy each other quite a bit. Developing a suite of tests against a selection of typical vehicles seems very doable. Existing crash tests don't perfectly cover every scenario, and people quibble about the details, but the tests still provide useful information.
3y ago