IIHS Small Overlap Front Crash Test (2nd Attempt): Only Acceptable again.

[Skotty]

If I might add a point to this general discussion, people really shouldn't fret too much about the exact star rating of any car in these tests. It's just a general measure.

The main problem with these tests is a lack of sufficient data. To get a truly good picture of crash performance, they would have to crash the same type of car in the same type of test many times over, but that's too expensive to do. Any single result could be an outlier that actually performs better or worse than what the true average would be.

 

[MS16]

If I might add a point to this general discussion, people really shouldn't fret too much about the exact star rating of any car in these tests. It's just a general measure.

The main problem with these tests is a lack of sufficient data. To get a truly good picture of crash performance, they would have to crash the same type of car in the same type of test many times over, but that's too expensive to do. Any single result could be an outlier that actually performs better or worse than what the true average would be.

The Model S was tested three times by the IIHS on the small overlap test. This was not a single outlier test.

IIHS allowed Tesla to make changes to the design twice and Tesla did make changes after tests one and two.

The third time was not the charm however.

 

[Olle]

Yes, most manufacturers would re-design the minimum to pass the test. At the same time, to be fair to both the car manufacturers and IIHS, if the test's overlap is 20% or 15%, rather than the current 25%, two vehicles hitting each other head on, or your own car hitting a tree would simply bounce off each other on the side. There wouldn't be much deceleration (thus injury) for occupants inside the car.

Not sure you'd be lucky enough to bounce off even as little as a 15% overlap if you strike outside of bumper reinforcement. Car might as well continue with obstacle going straight through fender and wheel until you hit the first actual crash structure, which will be the A pillar and battery case, resulting in too high deceleration.

 

[David29]

I agree seatbelts are super cheap. Even the feel of the buckle is cheap. Seatbelts don't auto adjust and tighten upon latching like most cars. I miss that morning hug from my car.

I must be missing something. To me the seat belts in my Model S feel like those in any other cars, except for the lack of height adjustment that some cars have. The other exception is that the rear belts of some cars, and of many taxis for some reason, lock up almost immediately and are very uncomfortable, with no give to them. I always assume those are the cheap ones, or faulty.

 

[mtndrew1]

The small overlap crash is a painfully small representation of vehicle fatalities. Driving any kind of car that is well maintained while sober, without using mobile electronics, and while wearing a seat belt eliminates the vast majority of fatality risks. It wasn't long ago that family haulers were crushing occupants in the far less severe moderate overlap test (which the Model S gets a top rating in, of course). For example 2005 Chevrolet Venture
The IIHS small overlap testing (along with headlamps and such) came onto the scene when virtually every car began acing all the other tests done by the IIHS. Cars in the US and EU are just really safe these days, whether you're in base Hyundai or a loaded Tesla.

That said, Tesla needs to deal with this issue in a more grownup way if only for optics. Toyota resolved the Camry's deficiency in the same test mid model year with some structural modifications to the front crash box. Example of its earlier score: Toyota Camry gets slammed in new crash test

It's a "problem" that can be solved, though I doubt anyone has died or been seriously injured in a Model S due to this deficiency.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

I think Tesla's seatbelt problem is a legacy problem from when Tesla didn't have enough clout to purchase first tier quality components. I think Tesla Model S's seatbelt is still second tier quality, and Tesla never revamped that portion of their design. This has always been a mistake, and Tesla got used to making this mistake like a familiar sore.

One of the first fatalities in a Tesla I believe was partially because of a combination of road diet construction and the cheap seat belt. Unlike seat belts found in Volvo and Mercedes, the Tesla Model S seat belt will tighten on you continually throughout your trip, eventually cutting off your circulation and ability to breath. Eventually you get both disoriented and exasperated, and must react by reaching around to take off the seatbelt. This act is both distracting and moves you around, and as you reach you depress your feet, usually the accelerator. It is often almost a minute long task to take it off and restretch the seatbelt to put it on. I believe this is what caused the fatal crash in Los Gatos: he was trying to deal with being asphyxiated to death by the cheap seat belt.

Tesla loves to deny fault, a behavior it shares with the prior US administration. We can assume their lack of admission is meaningless until we find proper evidence of our own.

The obvious solution is so obvious I shouldn't have to say it, but for absolute completeness, I will: get the same seat belts as Mercedes has, or Volvo, or one of the better ones at least. I don't know if asphyxiating seat belts are a new mandate by law, but my 1993 Volvo and 1998 & 2005 Mercedeses did not have them.

I learned from the Los Gatos accident to take the cheap seat belt problem seriously, and whenever my Tesla Model S seatbelt tightened on me, I pulled out of traffic while releasing the seatbelt. It's a dangerous maneuver, but anything having to do with that seat belt is. By getting out of traffic, I can park and put the seat belt back on.

Never had this problem, my S seat belts work like every other car I've ever had. Very comfortable. I think you're wrong on this.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Likewise. I have never had the driver's belt lock up unexpectedly or "continually tighten." I have had the right front passenger seatbelt lock up. It seems to happen when someone pulls the belt all the way out to buckle it (which is intended behavior), or when someone turns in the seat to speak to someone in the back, thus (apparently) extending it to the limit. I have had it checked at the Tesla service center twice, and was told it is operating correctly. First I have ever heard of seatbelts "suffocating" passengers....

Concur 100%, and we're on our 6th and 7th Tesla MS's.

The seat belt may be a fault with the IIHS double failure, but in daily operation we've never had the problems noted by in the "suffocating" post.

An odd post indeed.

 

[brianman]

Those numbers make me wonder if Teslas are just some sort of collision magnet, though one that keeps the occupants safe.
View attachment 234451

I'm too lazy to do it myself, but isn't the interesting number from that chart (not shown) the PersonalInjury/Collision rate?

 

[oktane]

I must be missing something. To me the seat belts in my Model S feel like those in any other cars, except for the lack of height adjustment that some cars have. The other exception is that the rear belts of some cars, and of many taxis for some reason, lock up almost immediately and are very uncomfortable, with no give to them. I always assume those are the cheap ones, or faulty.

Test drive a modern Mercedes or Audi luxury model and you will immediately see/feel the difference in seat belts. It's not really easy to describe. It's more a quality thing and the pre-tensioning which I like. In the Tesla they feel like rental car seat belts. It's just a minor point.

I also have never experienced any suffocating feeling with the seat belts.

 

[brianman]

I would tend to agree with you that a controlled test doesn't always equal real life performance. You know me well enough now to know that even though I would give this benefit of a doubt to a different car manufacturer, due to my negative opinion of Tesla I cannot offer them the same. In my book, I simply do not trust them anymore.

I'm not sure how to phrase it or position it exactly, but I think a thread that attempts to be productive in corralling "disgruntled" Tesla owners (and ex-owners) into a discussion regarding how Tesla can repair their image and customer trust would be very interesting.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

And, by the way, the best way to score really, really well on the small overlap crash test is pretty simple: Don't stop for the crash test . . . .

I'd posit that the BMW i3 has a strong "deflection structure" in the forward bumper area? It's not just BMW--there are some other brands that do very, very well in this test likely using the same concept. The best results come from having a much smaller velocity delta by shifting the energy impulse from the barrier to something useful, like moving the car laterally away from the impact.

 

[MS16]

Why all the negativity here? look on the bright side!

Our heads may hit the steering wheel in an accident, our headlights are rated Poor, our roofs are much weaker than we were told, but hey, at least we don't need to worry about having a Takata airbag, right?

 

[bhzmark]

Yes the I3 aces that test because it keeps going forward instead of abrubt decel.

And, by the way, the best way to score really, really well on the small overlap crash test is pretty simple: Don't stop for the crash test . . . .

I'd posit that the BMW i3 has a strong "deflection structure" in the forward bumper area? It's not just BMW--there are some other brands that do very, very well in this test likely using the same concept. The best results come from having a much smaller velocity delta by shifting the energy impulse from the barrier to something useful, like moving the car laterally away from the impact.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

This data doesn't appear to be normalized for miles driven, which would drastically effect the results. So much so that I would say they are rather useless as a means of estimating crash safety. That would also explain why cars that are more likely to be second/weekend cars appear safer.

While it is true that miles driven is not among the normalized variables that IIHS lists, I think it is reasonable to guess that a Model S is not driven substantially more or fewer miles than comparable BMW 5-Series and Mercedes E-Class sedans.

The whole point of the Model S is that it can be used for all the same purposes as a luxury sedan, whether it is daily driving or the occasional long trip. The S is not meant to be a weekender car like a Honda S2000 or Porsche convertible.

 

[agtdDelirium]

Everyone really needs to take a step back from these arguments. To say a Tesla is a safe or not safe car based on a single very limited physical parameter test is absolutely ridiculous. As a practicing emergency physician for the last 25 years, I can tell you every modern day car on the road is multitudes more safe than what we were all driving two or three decades ago. We just do not see the type of injuries that even mild to moderate accidents used to produce, simply with the adoption of mandatory airbags and seatbelt laws. Is any car as safe as it could be right now? Absolutely not! Every manufacturer has to make compromises in structure/weight/cost/mass manufacturing ability. And there are accidents that no car is going to be adequate enough to save your life. If you want to be in the safest vehicle on the road, you should be looking towards the race car industry. You should have a full steel roll cage around you, a five point seatbelt harness, wear a helmet and fireproof clothing, and be sitting in a custom molded seat. Or better yet, ride around and in an M-1 Abrams Tank. I guarantee that will survive any offset crash test.

If you really want to make a change in your safety now, do just one of the following:

1. Put your freaking phone way and stop looking at it every time it makes a noise.
2. Stop listening to music or engaging in conversations while you drive. Pilots on takeoff or approach to an airport are not making small talk. It's a sterile environment so that nothing interferes with the task at hand. I'm not saying we are all able to do this when driving every day, but pay attention to the most important thing you are doing for you and your family. Drive the car without distraction.
3. Actually look out the window and scan not only the lane in front of you, but all other vehicles that are within any proximity of yours, and make a mental note of what they are actually doing or could do to interfere with your travel.
4. Don't assume other drivers are going to do what they should.
5. Maintain your vehicle mechanically; brakes, and especially tire pressures and wear on old tires. Stopping distance and maneuverability are a huge factor in avoiding any accident.

Any of these, or a huge list of others, will do more for your safety than any "acceptable" or "good" rating in a particular artificial crash test parameter. I drive a model S, and I feel about as safe as an oncoming driver is going to let me be.

 

[Krugerrand]

My question is, how bad were the results of the first test for vehicles built before Nov 2016, with the shorter side air bags?

Irrelevant question.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Everyone really needs to take a step back from these arguments. To say a Tesla is a safe or not safe car based on a single very limited physical parameter test is absolutely ridiculous. As a practicing emergency physician for the last 25 years, I can tell you every modern day car on the road is multitudes more safe than what we were all driving two or three decades ago. We just do not see the type of injuries that even mild to moderate accidents used to produce, simply with the adoption of mandatory airbags and seatbelt laws. Is any car as safe as it could be right now? Absolutely not! Every manufacturer has to make compromises in structure/weight/cost/mass manufacturing ability. And there are accidents that no car is going to be adequate enough to save your life. If you want to be in the safest vehicle on the road, you should be looking towards the race car industry. You should have a full steel roll cage around you, a five point seatbelt harness, wear a helmet and fireproof clothing, and be sitting in a custom molded seat. Or better yet, ride around and in an M-1 Abrams Tank. I guarantee that will survive any offset crash test.

If you really want to make a change in your safety now, do just one of the following:

1. Put your freaking phone way and stop looking at it every time it makes a noise.
2. Stop listening to music or engaging in conversations while you drive. Pilots on takeoff or approach to an airport are not making small talk. It's a sterile environment so that nothing interferes with the task at hand. I'm not saying we are all able to do this when driving every day, but pay attention to the most important thing you are doing for you and your family. Drive the car without distraction.
3. Actually look out the window and scan not only the lane in front of you, but all other vehicles that are within any proximity of yours, and make a mental note of what they are actually doing or could do to interfere with your travel.
4. Don't assume other drivers are going to do what they should.
5. Maintain your vehicle mechanically; brakes, and especially tire pressures and wear on old tires. Stopping distance and maneuverability are a huge factor in avoiding any accident.

Any of these, or a huge list of others, will do more for your safety than any "acceptable" or "good" rating in a particular artificial crash test parameter. I drive a model S, and I feel about as safe as an oncoming driver is going to let me be.

Thank you for being a voice of reason.

MS16's post history consist largely of finding forum posts where people have issues with their Model S and then claiming that they too, have that issue. For some reason, Tesla and Elon Musk really upset MS16, though for what reason I do not know.

 

[EinSV]

While it is true that miles driven is not among the normalized variables that IIHS lists, I think it is reasonable to guess that a Model S is not driven substantially more or fewer miles than comparable BMW 5-Series and Mercedes E-Class sedans.

The whole point of the Model S is that it can be used for all the same purposes as a luxury sedan, whether it is daily driving or the occasional long trip. The S is not meant to be a weekender car like a Honda S2000 or Porsche convertible.

In another recent report the IIHS reported that the Model S was actually driven more miles per day than other large luxury sedans (3 more miles per day or over 1000 per year).:

Teslas also are on the road more than comparable large luxury cars. On average, Teslas travel three more miles per day than other large luxury cars, Tesla Model S has high crash losses
​

So the Model S's improved personal injury protection score compared to other large luxury sedans cannot be explained by it being driven fewer miles.

In fact, according to the IIHS data, the Model S did better than all sedans on Personal Injury Protection and Medical Payment -- it the only sedan rated in the top 10 for lowest Personal Injury Protection and medical claims. You can see this by clicking on the "Best and Worst" tab and then clicking "Personal Injury Protection" and "Medical Payment" tabs. Insurance loss information

 

[brianman]

...
3. Actually look out the window and scan not only the lane in front of you, but all other vehicles that are within any proximity of yours, and make a mental note of what they are actually doing or could do to interfere with your travel
...

Good perspective post.

I would add a note to your #3: get a feel for the attention/focus of the driver in those vehicles as well (and the various "distraction factors" going on in their vehicles).

 

[MS16]

This is actually Tesla's third attempt at the IIHS test.

My question is, how bad were the results of the first test for vehicles built before Nov 2016, with the shorter side air bags?

Irrelevant question.

That information is irrelevant why?

As an owner of a pre-November 2016 S, I'd personally find the information highly relevant.