
Model 3 achieves the lowest probability of injury of any car tested by NHTS - sahin-boydas
https://www.tesla.com/blog/model-3-lowest-probability-injury-any-vehicle-ever-tested-nhtsa
======
DaiPlusPlus
Tesla 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?

~~~
gcb0
Every car was getting the top score until nhsta realized they were all
"cheating". by cheating I mean going for the low hanging fruit: they all saw
crash tests only doing frontal crashes and sideways, so they beefed up against
those type of collisions.

When NHTSA checked that the most fatal (but less common) crashes where off
center, they started testing that way and all grades crashed (pun intended).
and all makers had a hard time to improve because engine and engine bay
designs made it very difficult, but that was the goal of the new test: go for
the high hanging fruit for those car designs.

the tesla battery chassis doesn't have the engine, so it is easier to make
changes that will beef up their car in the very same way other makers did for
full fontral collision before. basically they are " cheating" the same way
makers "cheated" on the full fontral collision test before.

it is very likely that other kind of crash tests, that are not even tested by
anybody because internal combustion engine cars always did so well on those,
are extremely fatal on teslas. but we will never know because nhsta just put
teslas in the same test battery as any other car. we lack the 50+ year of
continuous self improvement cycle the crash tests had with other designs so
far.

~~~
gooseh
When "cheating" is defined as preventing deaths in (i) the most common and
(ii) the most deadly crash scenarios, I don't think it counts as cheating.

~~~
craftyguy
In this case, "cheating" is defined as designing _only_ to pass whatever the
NHTSA happens to be testing now, and ignoring all other areas where things
could go wrong.

edit: I'm not saying I agree with GP, just explaining what I think they meant
by stating that they were "cheating."

~~~
dpkonofa
That doesn't really seem to be the case, though. The NHTSA looks at highway
and road data to determine what types of crashes result in the highest number
of fatalities and then creates tests around those. If "cheating" implies that
they're only designed to pass what the NHTSA happens to be testing then, by
extension, the vehicle would protect the occupants against the types of
crashes that are most likely to result in a fatality. That seems like huge win
to me.

~~~
craftyguy
I'm not saying I agree with OP, just explaining what I think they meant by
stating that they were "cheating."

------
rconti
One 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
Tesla "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
Now 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
That 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-...](https://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-
process/appealing-patent-decisions/trials/inter-partes-review)

------
mabbo
Pet 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
Hiding 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.

~~~
superlopuh
I 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.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
>There is no hint of the bars continuing below the axis

Aren't the numbers big and bold enough? Should we only design chart while
presuming that viewers can't read numbers?

------
retSava
Amazing.

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
Several 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
How 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...

~~~
sjwright
Based on how it was written, I assume that the Explorer was shunted from
behind by the 18-wheeler, into the flatbed trailer of a different vehicle that
was in front.

~~~
DennisP
Yep, exactly.

------
syntaxing
Interesting, 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
Does anyone know how the BMW i3 and the Chevrolet Bolt compare?

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
I 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
This 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.

------
Shivetya
Someone threw together pictures of the car

[https://imgur.com/a/oCAVKzz](https://imgur.com/a/oCAVKzz)

------
mtw
Damn - really looking to buy one... only if the price was actually $35k - not
$60k

~~~
rconti
$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
There 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

~~~
rconti
As a followup comment mentioned, the Supercharger network is a huge plus;
whether or not road trips are possible with other DC Fast Charging networks on
another manufacturer's car, the seamlessness of the Supercharger experience
from the number of installed units, to realtime charger status on your nav
screen means it can't be beat. If nothing else, it solves for the uncertainty,
even if that's just FUD.

I still think the 3 is hard to beat for the combination of real-world
usability, range, and tech. I think it's a fantastic car in its own right; I
preferred it to the options that were available at the time, which did not
include the Jag or Hyundai.

Googling it now, the Jag _starts_ at $20k more than our 3, is "available in
the fall" and has a much crappier range.

The Hyundai is like the Leaf and eGolf; $30-$35k for an extremely limited
range and performance vehicle. If you don't mind spending that much money on
what is _solely_ a commuter car, that's fine. With Tesla I'm able to use it as
a commuter _and_ as a nice weekend getaway and roadtrip vehicle.

I did the 14 day autopilot trial, and... it works, but I'm more nervous using
it than just driving myself. I certainly don't want to be a beta tester of
this stuff at 70mph. It was occasionally nice in traffic jams, but not $5k
nice.

Put simply, every other car I've owned, I had to drive myself. And I don't
mind it; in fact, I enjoy driving. The 3 is pleasant to drive, so I don't see
why I wouldn't want to. Some folks on the forums disagree and think the only
reason to buy one is autopilot/FSD. They're welcome to their opinion, but I
don't share it.

------
dotancohen
According 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
Here's hoping for the Model Y :)

~~~
martin_bech
The Model Y will be a crossover, or minature Model X. It is already set to be
anounced in 2019.

------
fredliu
Honest 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
[https://www.autoblog.com/2018/05/11/a-list-of-tesla-car-
fire...](https://www.autoblog.com/2018/05/11/a-list-of-tesla-car-fires-
since-2013/)

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...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/companies/electric-car-fire-
risk/index.html)

One complication is that BEVs are novel and emergency services may not yet
have effective procedures for responding to such events.

------
DenisM
I 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.

------
velco
Can you "optimise" for crash tests? Like, say, software is optimised against
specific benchmark to give good scores.

~~~
mannykannot
Optimizing 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
A 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
On 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.

------
djanogo
I 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.

------
modzu
what 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...

~~~
rconti
You'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
pricing 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

------
lostmsu
Let's wait for European ratings. Model S did not excel at those.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
It got a 5 star rating, the highest available.

~~~
lostmsu
These 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-ra...](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)

------
romed
Now multiply by the chance of getting into the collision in the first place.

------
ape4
Except for the huge tablet on the console you need to use while driving.
Averting eyes from the road.

------
softgrow
Five 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
5% 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
There is a physical limitation, because of the deceleration tolerated by the
human body has an upper limit if you want people to survive.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Vehicle 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
Go-karts do not have harnesses at all, much less four-point harnesses. Source,
ex kart racer.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Off road go-carts usually have a simple 4pt.

------
dsfyu404ed
Safety, 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
You 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.

