Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the only governmental really allowed to drive cars into walls on a regular basis, has beaten the crap out of a few Tesla Model 3s and decided that hey, this thing is pretty good at smashing into things. As a result, they've awarded the car the highest possible score, five stars. Not bad for a car built in tents!
So far, every car Tesla has built has earned a five-star safety rating, an impressive achievement. The automaker has a strong history of building cars that ace these crash tests with flying colors and bits of bodywork.
Source: https://jalopnik.com/tesla-model-3-gets-five-star-crash-safety-rating-from-n-1829196052
Also: Tesla Model 3 crushes NHTSA's crash testing with a 5-star rating at c|net.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @02:51PM (2 children)
well DUH! where did all that extra crumble zone come from?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 24 2018, @06:18PM (1 child)
What if you fill that extra crumple zone with luggage? Even then, it probably isn't as massive or dense as an engine block.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday September 24 2018, @07:21PM
True, but on the other hand, if you have a lot of inertia in that engine block in front of you, as soon as it hits the wall and stops, you also have a smaller portion of the inertia left for the frame to deal with.
The batteries between the tires gives more crumple zone, but the frame has to deform to absorb all the kinetic energy. Which is a problem all the mid-mounted and the rare rear-engined ICEs also have in frontal crash tests.
Obviously, it seems like Tesla took that into account. But it's not as simple as "no engine, more crumple, better".
I'd really like to see comparative sims of the efforts at play and the real-time kinetic energy dissipation.