If you pay attention to the news, you may remember lots of frightening stories about Tesla’s crashing under the direction of their infallible autopilot systems, or have images of a Tesla Model 3 engulfed in flames seared into your memory.
The message is clear, be wary of these new fangled electric cars, and their deadly high voltage battery packs.
Are Tesla’s really more dangerous than conventional combustion powered vehicles, and if not, why does it seem like there’s a disproportionate amount of media coverage of Tesla accidents?
The truth is the probability of electric vehicles catching on fire is lower than cars with internal combustion engines, and according to researchers only one fire occurs for every 100 million properly used Lithium ion batteries on the market.
Tesla’s revolutionary mix of passive safety and active safety features give Tesla some of the best crash test ratings. In fact, their Model X is the only SUV in history that hasn’t rolled over in the multiple tests that have been performed, with each and every outcome, the Model X came back to its upright position with incredible ease. But the Model S and Model 3 have also been praised for their unique features that allowed them to achieve the lowest overall injury probability out of any vehicle that was ever tested by the US government’s New Car Assessment Program.
When talking about “passive safety” we refer to all the elements that can protect the driver during an accident: the overall architecture, the airbags and the structure of the seats, as well as roof strength. All of the Tesla models tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety performed incredibly well but there was a model that outdid every other car that was ever tested, and that was the incredible Model 3.
In fact, the Tesla Model 3 is so safe that it was granted the “2020 Top Safety Pick+” distinction by the IIHS, receiving the “Good” rating, which is their highest score, in all the important categories. The moderate overlap crash test as well as the side crash test showed the driver injury staying in the green which means that in case of an accident, you can get out virtually unscathed from a Model 3. And all of these are made possible by one evident feature electric cars have: a lack of an engine.
When talking about airbags and seat structure, Tesla’s budget sedan excels with its custom designed restraint system that keep occupants safely in place thanks to the pre-tensioners and load-limiters, making the proprietary design of the seats yet another winning element that helped it score the maximum safety marks both from the IIHS and the NHTSA crash tests.
Between 2012 and 2019 there was only one vehicle fire for every 175 million miles traveled in a Tesla. To put this into context, data from the National Fire Protection Association and US Department of Transportation revealed that in the United States there is a vehicle fire for every 19 million miles traveled in all vehicles, a 9.2X higher likelihood of fire than the Tesla.
Tesla’s state-of-the-art battery design prevents fires, and in the case of a crash, the safety system works in such a way that it isolates the fire to certain areas within the battery pack while simultaneously venting the heat away from the cabin and the passengers.
The Tesla Model X became the first ever SUV to refuse to roll over.
The Model S was destroying the NHTSA’s roof-crushing test equipment before it could even register a result past 4Gs, which would have meant that 4 model S’s could be piled up on top of each other without the cabin caving in. Interestingly enough, the Model S also exceeded a safety score above all SUVs and minivans.
Collision avoidance, extra-smart autopilot and lane assist functions, contribute to the great crash rate prevention. In the first quarter of 2020, Tesla reported that they registered only one accident for every 4.68 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged.
The Tesla Model Y has been taken apart by the auto engineering expert Sandy Munro and the findings were quite amazing.
Tesla says all new cars have the hardware capable of full self driving. When the automaker inevitably reaches level 5 full self driving, where the driverless car can operate on any road and in any conditions a human driver could negotiate, it won’t be just equal to a human driver, it will likely be orders of magnitude safer. In the not too distant future, when all cars on the road are full self driving and operate in sync, we will see exponential advances in vehicle safety as we remove the fallible human element from operation.
0:00 Tesla Safety
1:09 Tesla Fires
1:21 Autopilot
2:02 Passive and Active Safety
2:42 Tesla Model 3
5:53 Tesla Battery
6:44 Tesla Model X
7:52 Tesla Model S
8:23 Active Safety
9:40 Tesla Model Y
11:08 Full Self Driving