Engineers working on electric vehicles tend to talk about the freedoms afforded by getting rid of that big, hulking piece of metal?the conventional internal-combustion engine?in front of the passenger compartment. It allows not just smarter packaging but extra space for crash-energy absorption, they boast, making for better occupant protection. However, the results for one new crash test show that the Tesla Model S hasn?t entirely delivered on that promise.
In testing from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the Model S underdelivered in a couple of areas and was denied a place on the organization?s Top Safety Pick honor roll. The demerits included a second-best rating of Acceptable in the small-overlap front crash test, Poor for headlight performance, and an asterisk that excludes the top P100D from the top Good roof-strength (rollover protection) rating. This is in sharp contrast to 2013 results from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which gave the Model S a top five-star rating in every single category and subcategory. At that time, Tesla touted those results as being the highest score for any vehicle ever tested in the federal Vehicle Safety Score (VSS) system.
In the IIHS testing just released, of greatest concern are the results from the small-overlap front crash test, which helps simulate what happens when a vehicle?s front corner collides at 40 mph with another vehicle or a fixed object like a utility pole or a tree. The re...