How do pedestrians fare when hit by a Tesla? I'll save my cheering for when they have a self driving one so I no longer have to worry about drunk or distracted drivers.
Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
111–120 of 306 posts
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sports cars have always made sacrifices in this regard. The first being simply that real sports cars are half the size of a modern saloon, which gives much less room for crumpling.
I'd gladly go up against every sports car that the Tesla beats off the line and the quarter mile. Which is quite a few.
Err... what? If what you are trying to say, in the most roundabout way possible, is the Tesla accelerates fast- sure. But so does a top fuel dragster, and neither is a sports car.
A sports car is a small, usually two seat, two door automobile designed for spirited performance and nimble handling. Sports cars may be spartan or luxurious but high maneuverability and minimum weight are requisite.
-- Wikipedia
(Notice it doesn't say a damn thing about horsepower)
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe one of the tests is crashing into a wall that yields very little, so the tungsten dumptruck would fare poorly, exciting as it would be to drive. EDIT: this one: http://youtu.be/V5R80yUUVNk
The wall at left in that video is, at most, four dump trucks in volume and perhaps constructed of reinforced concrete (density ~2,500 kg/m^3)? A single solid tungsten dump truck would have almost twice the mass of the wall. Even with a completely inelastic collision, the wall's going to shatter and move. For a 35 mph collision, I think you're right, that wall would ultimately bring the truck to a halt from friction w…
>400 metric tons
So around the max takeoff weight of a 747, with approximately as heavy duty a wheel setup I assume. That would be quite a truck.
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I remember beign told at the end of the 90's that if you'd bought 100 shares (~$2000) of Microsoft stock at IPO and sold in '99, you'd have cashed in well over a million dollars. Tesla gives me that kind of feeling at the moment. It probably won't be to the same extent as Tesla's market cap is already quite high. So I can't see them splitting quite as much as MS. But on the other hand, I think they're definitel…
I bought several tens of thousands of TSLA shares at ~$17/share when they went IPO; my wife still chides me I didn't buy more.
Assuming at least 20k shares, you made >$2.5mm off that investment, using $340k of capital?
Not bad.
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#115I'm sorry, but as a car enthusiast who spent much of his younger years devouring every ounce of Road&Track/Car&Driver mags, the phrase "any car ever tested" is a bit over the top... I'm almost positive the McLaren F1 (a car 20 years older) fared better than the Tesla in safety testing and was capable of being driven away after the testing finished... F1 @ 30mph: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Peloton25/McLare…
You may well be right -- I know nothing about car safety -- but I thought you might enjoy this fun bit of Elon-Musk-McLaren-safety-related info:
After selling PayPal (long before the Tesla Roadster), Musk bought a McLaren F1, subsequently crashed it, and walked away unscathed. Here's him talking about it!
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#116There have been several real-world crashes of the Tesla S, and none, as far as I know, have resulted in any injuries to the driver. One was even a head on crash at fairly high speeds which killed the other vehicle's driver. The Tesla S driver walked away. Tesla never fails to amaze me.
Source on the head-on crash story?
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#117If you're curious, like I was, about the side pole test, here's a video of the Tesla: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBvH3lysmJA Here's a Prius for comparison (4 stars): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc0uUx2T37k
That seems like such a shit way of doing the pole test and introduces too much randomness to be uniform across all cars. The much better way is to keep the car stationary on a moving platform like ANCAP does http://www.ancap.com.au/crashtesting
is randomness not good? you aren't going to be driving around on a rail irl
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. It is an incredibly refreshing departure from how things are normally done in Corporate America.
And I think it's worth it for them to spend CEO time on it. Because the difference is not just between people reading good PR vs mediocre PR, but whether people will actually read it. (I.e. if it's not worth doing well, might as well not do it.)
Having a fearless leader one can look up to must also be fucking awesome for employee morale.
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#119Very impressive. One really cannot over stress that there is a lot of car that you "don't need" in the front and back if you don't have a big engine but using it for energy absorption is a certainly valid use. So far the only complaints my friends have had with their cars has been the "constant" updates to the software.
I can't believe people would complain about the updates to the software. They are more rare than iPhone dot releases and come with real benefits. Maybe they were pulling your chain.
What kind of updates come in Tesla software releases, and also how do they get into the car? I've actually never thought about this at all.
Re: Tesla Model S achieves best safety rating of any car ever tested
#120This is all very good PR.... BUT. The critical safety concern with the Tesla is....... You guessed it. The high voltage system. It can kill you or a first responder with a touch. It's not just about batteries catching fire, although that's gotten a lot of press lately. A chief concern during a Tesla accident is the exposure of high voltage components. It's a big concern for first responders. Read it from the horse's…
> All I'm saying is, never trust Elon Musk PR to tell you the whole picture.
Never trust anyone's PR to give you the whole picture!
Though as a counterpoint, I've seen cars with the roof cut off to extract people, but never the side doors or the floor cut open. I don't think they'd cut the floor since it's quite thick and has all sorts of wires and pipes anyway.