Tesla's Inherent Safety Saves Five Joyriding Teenagers In Germany (arstechnica.com) 240
According to German newspaper Merkur, one 18-year old and four of her friends lost control of her father's Model S electric vehicle. The car reportedly flew more than 80 feet into a field before it came to a stop. Even though the driver and two of the passengers were airlifted to hospitals, none of their injuries were life-threatening, thanks largely in part to Tesla's skateboard chassis. Ars Technica writes, "The skateboard chassis used by the Model S and Model X is extremely safe, with crumple zones that are unconcerned with engines that can transfer kinetic energy into the passengers during a frontal collision." The images of the crash are not pretty, but one could imagine how much worse they would be if a front-engined internal combustion vehicle were involved instead of the Tesla Model S.
Sales type 4: talk to the customer's fears (Score:4, Insightful)
The car is as safe as any other modern car.
Re:Sales type 4: talk to the customer's fears (Score:5, Funny)
No, only Tesla's come equipped with this life-saving technology. Everybody else installs a large spike in front of each seating position, covered by a faulty airbag.
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Everybody else installs a large spike in front of each seating position, covered by a faulty airbag.
Remove the airbag so people can see the spike pointed at them and see how that affects accident statistics.
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... as well as people who encounter bad drivers.
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maybe the next tesla will also include the spike?
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No it doesn't. My Mother-in-Law is a one off, and at last check, came as standard equipment in a POS 1998 Eldorado. . .
Re:Sales type 4: talk to the customer's fears (Score:5, Interesting)
Being that there are so few Tesla cars out there, and they are really expensive, I doubt you will see too many real world car wrecks of Teslas. People were always a bit curious about the safety of electric cars, electrical fires, getting electrocuted... Now granted many of these concerns are less of an issue compared to riding a car powered by explosions. However because it is new, people worry about the safeguards in place. And how would such a car fare in real world accidents. Especially lately companies have been cheating the system to change their results from the test to real world.
The point of the story actually was the tesla design allowed for much more crumple zone than standard cars to improve passenger safety.
Not it's not. (Score:3)
The car is as safe as any other modern car.
Nope. It actually *is* safer.
Here's why (from the top of my head):
1) The center of weight is notably lower (huge battery pack along the floor, no huge motor up front), making the Tesla Model S safer in handling than other limosines.
2) It has no motor and thus a *way* better crumpling zone in the forward trunk.
3) Right now tt has the best driving-assistance on the streets and in end-users hands.
My 0.02 Euros.
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Ultimately, until they become self-driving, they will have to follow the driver's commands for better or worse. In this case, much worse.
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Yeah sure and a modern VW Up! is just as strong as a tank, because they are modern right?
Except they are not. Cars vary greatly in safety of passengers in various accidents. It's not just a case of throwing in an airbag and calling it a day, and while it may not suit your narrative or world view the Telsa has outperformed pretty much every other comparably sized car in safety tests.
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"... Model X is extremely safe, with crumple zones that are unconcerned with engines that can transfer kinetic energy"
The word "unconcerned" makes no sense here. I'm guessing they may have meant "unaffected" or "unconnected" or "not affected".
ENGRISH MUTHAFUGGAH, dew ewe speech it??
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Front wheel drive cars have been engineered to let the engine flop backwards and down in a front end accident (going under the passenger compartment) for more than a decade.
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See the Subaru. The "boxer" engine is designed to do just that. Other manufacturers do the same thing. I'm too lazy to find you a video but you can check out this one (of many) pages found by simply asking Google:
http://www.subaruofkeene.com/s... [subaruofkeene.com]
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Plenty of cars in that price range have "inherent safety" and would protect its occupants in a similar accident, even though they run on an internal combustion engine.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I recall an anecdote from a few years ago. Apparently, the Model S uses a variety of weld for its frame/roll cage that was previously only used in spacecraft. When the NHTSA went to do its rollover safety tests by crushing in the roof of the Model S to simulate how it would hold up in a roll, their crushing machine broke before the Tesla did. The NHTSA had to get a more powerful machine before they could successfully measure how much the Model S could take. Results like those were why the Model S got the highest safety scores of all time (a perfect score across the board).
The German news site has a slideshow showing the car from a variety of angles. We've likely all seen the woeful pictures of luxury cars after rolls. Quite often the roofs are buckled, the passenger compartment is barely visible, and while you can see how someone's body might contort in the space so they could survive, it looks like it would still have to be a miracle. In contrast, this car was so intact that they were able to just open the door. The roof looks like it only has a few scratches. Meanwhile, the entire front is just gone, and the back is smashed to bits.
Say what you will, but I have NEVER seen pictures after a rollover crash like this with the passenger compartment so remarkably intact.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Never in a month of sundays did that car roll. If it rolled then Tesla needs to start selling their paint products as a magical no mud sticks and can't be scratched. It has impacted something at the front and then it had bounced a few times through the dirt.
The tesla is a great car but it isn't magical.
http://www.autoevolution.com/n... [autoevolution.com]
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Never in a month of sundays did that car roll.
It rolled, but never touched the ground. It looks like it went off the road, dug in, and flipped endo (end over end), and bounced off the trunk, and landed on the bottom (or landed on the tail or nose and settled upright). It never touched ground on the sides or top, but did "roll". You are thinking the wrong axis.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
You can quite clearly see what happened by looking at the pictures presented by the Bavarian newspaper.
http://www.merkur.de/bilder/2016/05/04/6373067/1613361945-unfall-icking-sportwagen-gaulke-PXHG.jpg - You see the curve there in the background? The one behind the black and the white BMWs?
The driver went around that corner in her father's car, lost control and slid off the road into the grass. Probably either distracted, bad driver or just too faster for physics...
Normally not a problem, you probably fucked up the under-carriage a bit and the front bumpers, but nothing a few days in the shop couldn't fix. But the girl got unlucky. Right after the corner is a small stub road leading into the field for the farm equipment. The black and white BMWs will help with lining up the viewing angles of the pictures.
The car hit the stub road and the effect must have been similar to driving up a ramp for an Evel Knievel styled jump: http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... [merkur.de]
The car rolled length-wise and must have hit the ground twice before coming to rest on the trashed wheels again. You can see the impact points in the field nicely on http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... [merkur.de] and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... [merkur.de].
That allows you to reconstruct the flight path: Lift-off at the stub road, front hits the ground first, momentum carries the car forward and leads to the first roll as the front is still embedded in the field. Car is hitting with the trunk next, still rolling with ample forward momentum which means the car will not be burried in the field but land on the wheels next. And that's where the car came to rest.
You can look at the bumper and other plastic parts strewn all over the place, they match up nicely with that order.
If you now look at the car at rest http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... [merkur.de] and http://www.merkur.de/bilder/20... [merkur.de] you'll see how the glass is not completely shattered? This means little impact force onto the passenger cell and most of the impact just hit the front. Not even a direct frontal impact but mostly torsion forces hitting the bottom of the car front from the impact into the field.
Based on all that evidence I'd say the 5 kids in the car were supremely lucky that they hit an empty field in a decent car. The airbags came in very handy, no doubt.
But I think it is a bit premature to claim this shows anything like inherent safety of Tesla or even just that electric cars are safer than over conventional vehicles... That's purely the marketing department talking...
Wrong. (Score:2)
Never in a month of sundays did that car roll.
Wrong. Quote from the accident report:
"Der Wagen überschlug sich und kam schwer beschädigt wieder auf den Rädern zum Stehen."
Literal translation (German grammar, you'll figure what it means): "The car rolled and came heavily damaged on it's wheels to a standing."
So it did roll, at least once. According to the report exactly once.
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Say what you will, but I have NEVER seen pictures after a rollover crash like this with the passenger compartment so remarkably intact.
I don't care about the car, I care about the people inside it.
I've seen video of a Mercedes S-class wreck at 130 mph on the autobahn, it rolled three times.
The driver got out and walked away.
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*citation needed
I'm guessing you're recalling this semi-famous crash. Reports varied, but it was likely going 120 mph, and it only rolled once -- more like flipped over, skid upside down for 100 yards, then flipped back when it was stopped and the roof was torn off. It was a Mercedes SL, and was a hard-top convertible. The hard top was tough, but not 3 roll accident tough. The weight and momentum of the car would have crushed that top if it had rolled 3 times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Check some pics of Volvos after an accident. They are setup so that things like the entire nose can be knocked completely off - which means (for many models) they've designed the drive train to accommodate that. Things like that is why they're so expensive to insure. Not because you're likely to get hurt but because an accident will likely result in a totaled vehicle. It is designed to do so at the expense of protecting the passengers.
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Responding to myself to provide citations and additional details, since there's some (perfectly understandable) incredulity in response to my comment.
Regarding the weld, it's a variety of friction welding that SpaceX developed:
http://electrek.co/2015/05/24/... [electrek.co]
http://gas2.org/2015/05/29/spa... [gas2.org]
Regarding the crush test breaking the machine:
http://www.wired.com/2013/08/t... [wired.com]
http://www.roadandtrack.com/ne... [roadandtrack.com]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
It's also worth noting that Tesla claimed they had achieved a NHTSA safety
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Inherent Safety is not a discrete feature. It's a sliding scale. While the article itself reads like sensationalist bullshit it's undeniable that the Tesla has one of the best designed vehicle bodies from a safety point of view and that is well reflected in all the tests that have been performed on it by third parties.
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Undeniable based on what? Previous marketing / cheer-leading articles?
If you finished reading to the end of the sentence you'd get to the bit about "tests performed by 3rd parties". Telsa's marketing has been good on this, they have referred to outside companies rather than themselves. The product stands up on it's own merits.
Now if you believe vehicle safety standard tests are all bullshit then that that's your right, but Tesla topping these tests in their category across various different test houses in various countries is in fact "undeniable".
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Tesla has a much better crumple zone in front because it doesn't have a huge heavy engine block in there. Just look at the pictures, the front end is essentially gone yet the passenger compartment is intact. I would say that's a pretty important advantage, and it may have been just the difference required to save their lives. If it had been a Mercedes, where would the engine have gone? Even if it didn't go into the cabin, it sure would have left much less room for crumpling to absorb the impact.
The passenger compartment is also extremely strong, they actually broke the testing equipment when they tried to crush the roof, for example. They overengineered the hell out of that car. Tesla is pretty new in the car business: when they designed the Model S they hadn't figured out yet that you have to compromise on safety if you want to compete in the market. They just made it as strong as they could. Fortunately the car is compelling enough that rich people don't mind spending the extra money. The Model 3 will probably be pretty safe, but I doubt it's going to break any testing equipment. For $35000 something will have to give.
Also, the car didn't catch fire. I know real cars don't automatically burst into flames while airborne like they do in the movies, but in this kind of crash some kind of fire would have been pretty likely. Here's one [insideevs.com] from not long ago, a crash between a Tesla and an ICE vehicle, the ICE caught fire while the Tesla didn't. Yes, I know, some Teslas have caught fire as well in other accidents but it was always after at least 10 minutes or so, giving people plenty of time to get out first. With an ICE, as soon as a fuel like breaks, you have to run away fast.
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That's not the impression I get after googling something like "Mercedes crash images" (just to pick a random luxury car brand). In head on collisions the mangled engine always seems to remain in front of the cabin. I can't find a single picture with an engine underneath the cabin.
I do remember Mercedes being very proud of that feature in their old A-class models. Those were indeed engineered that way. But for most other cars, the engine just stays in front.
Re: So what? (Score:2)
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Front wheel drive cars.
Finally, proof! (Score:2)
Oh how long we've waited for this sign that physics worked exactly how we formulated it would. Think of the possibilities this entails, being able to plan out systems ahead of time using math and sound principles of modeled dynamics. We could call it a new field. I know, since it involved not having an engine in the front, we could call it "engineering!"
We'll build a better world, I tell you!
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Sounds like a great idea. The problem is that no matter how well you do this work, and create products which will work exactly like how you formulate it will, hordes of morons will come out of the woodwork to tell you that it won't work, or that other products not designed this way will work just as well. And not just random uneducated idiots either, but other "engineers" even! Just look at all the idiotic comments right here in this discussion, trying to convince us that crumple zones aren't necessary,
Invincible Tesla (Score:2)
"(According to comments left at electrek.co, about the only way to fatally crash a Tesla appears to be driving one off a cliff at high speed.)"
I bet crashing it into a brick wall at high speed would be fatal.
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This guy did a pretty good job....
http://insideevs.com/additiona... [insideevs.com]
In the end physics wins.
Re:Invincible Tesla (Score:5, Interesting)
Would a concrete wall (at around 100mph) followed by a tree count? With the fronts wheels completely sheared off? Driver walked away. There was a fire (after the driver exited), but the body blocked it from the passenger compartment.
Quote below from the link (photos at link):
http://insideevs.com/tesla-rev... [insideevs.com]
We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wall on the other side of the road and tearing off the right front wheel, before crashing into a tree. The driver stepped out and walked away with no permanent injuries and a fire, again limited to the front section of the vehicle, started several minutes later. The underbody shields will help prevent a fire even in such a scenario.
I realize it's a fan site link for EVs, but it has the coverage as I remember it.
And I'm not a fan boy, I respect Elon Musk and his RESULTS. He's pretty good in the results category, and in the dream categories.
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Impressive, but difficult to judge. Speed is one factor, but angle of impact is important, too. 110 mph head-on into a concrete barrier will kill anyone. Even if the cabin is intact, the deceleration would liquefy and/or rupture organs. This incident appears to have the vehicle smack the wall at an angle, then ricochet and smack another wall at another angle, then continue farther before stopping at a tree. That's a lot of force transferred over time and would have decelerated the vehicle quite a lo
Re: Invincible Tesla (Score:2)
I was fine (as were the three 21" CRT's buckled-in to the back).
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Wow! You were lucky that one of those CRTs did not kill you.
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Is that a question or a statement.
More slashvertisements (Score:5, Funny)
Why do you think it is slashvertissment ? (Score:2)
Re:Why do you think it is slashvertissment ? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is news for nerd, at least me as a nerd, interested into security things like crumple zone , doing finite element analyzis etc... And if Tesla is using a different method with better effect then yeah that's highly interesting.
I think the problem is the way the information is delivered. TFA sounds more like a marketing guff than an informed analysis.
This being a news for nerds site, should have it's summaries tailored to this audience, not junk click bait from TMZ.
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The news aspect here is the lovely after picture along with the stat of zero fatalities.
It's not like this is the only thing Slashdot covers. We have had several stories talking about the analysis of the chassis, the safety testing of the vehicles, and in past accidents the discussion following the sensationalist bullshit articles are well worth the read to the readers.
If you come here for the stories and the accurate well researched investigative journalism then you're doing it wrong. This clickbait junk h
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It's a slashvertisement in that they lead the reader to believe that no other manufacturer cares about safety. It's been a constant theme to celebrate everything one of Elon Musk's companies do.. even if it's been done before.
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Well, one thing is sure, if everybody would change to electric cars, then the world would be a pile of toxic battery waste and renewable energy would certainly not cut it.
Not seeing how this is any different. (Score:2)
I have unfortunately been involved in a couple of major accidents and have had 1 of my cars look similar to this, though in my case the rear of the car was destroyed as well. I'm not seeing anything there that would make you think the Telsa was inherently safer. They may not have a front mounted ICE but they do have batteries and electric motors that aren't mass free.
The one where my car ended up looking the worst was when I was rear ended by a semi-trailer that then pushed me into the car in front. I wa
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They may not have a front mounted ICE but they do have batteries and electric motors that aren't mass free.
The batteries and motors are not in the crumple zone. The batteries are in the chassis, so when you are driving, they are under you. In an accident, the front end of the car can crumple further, and absorb more energy, than an ICE car.
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It's not about how your car looked compared to the tesla, it's about how bad the crash itself was.
If _your_ car had gone through the same it would not be looking 'similar to this'.
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My idiot friend (at the time - now he's just an idiot) lost it on a country bend at what the police later estimated to be around 80mph, and flipped us clean over a dry stone wall and easily 60 metres into a field. The car rolled at least once, and the front passenger corner of the roof took the brunt of it. All four of us walked away, although one of the rear-seat passengers still has a nasty scar from sticking his head through the rear window.
That was 20 years ago, and the Ford Fiesta was easily 15 years o
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The engine
A little error in the german article (Score:2)
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Advertising Feature (Score:4, Insightful)
This advertainment informercial has been brought to you by Tesla; saving kittens the world over.
What? (Score:2)
80 feet... into a flat field, beside a road that's also flat and on the same level.
Sorry, but if your car CAN'T survive that without lethal injury, how the hell has it passed basic safety tests like Euro NCAP ratings?
Next question - what speed were you doing on that unbordered single-lane country road that you lose control and drive 80-feet into a field?
This safety demonstration was brought to you by our sponsor, Tesla, indeed.
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80 feet... into a flat field, beside a road that's also flat and on the same level.
Proof that the Tesla is a prototype for the long-promised flying car!
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80 feet... into a flat field, beside a road that's also flat and on the same level.
Sorry, but if your car CAN'T survive that without lethal injury, how the hell has it passed basic safety tests like Euro NCAP ratings?
Before you make assumptions about the conditions of the crash, take a look at the pictures of the carnage and tell us just how nice and passenger friendly your flat on flat scenario really is.
Quite frankly the car looks like it ran full speed into a large truck, and I've yet to see that much damage to the front of a car without some serious deformation of the passenger compartment.
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I did.
And a crumple-front I expect to crumple. That's the point of it. And that would have happened the second it "nosedived" from the flat road into the flat-gradient-but-uneven field.
Cars have rollcages for a reason. Cars have crumple zones for a reason. Cars travelling forwards get more damage on the front end. That's why it crumples.
And that's why the majority of cars that pass Euro NCP are actually as safe or safer than the Tesla, petrol, diesel, hybrid, LPG, or electric.
Accidents nowadays look at
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Then you haven't seen the right picture. They drove at 110mph into what can only be called a GTA-style ramp, the flat road and field is just where they got their speed and awesome high-impact landing.
It's hard to see how the conclusion is supported (Score:5, Insightful)
So saying it is "inherently safe" or that a petrol vehicle would fare worse is pretty absurd. Inherently safe cars don't plant themselves 25m into fields in the first place regardless of their form of propulsion. And that's without even knowing what caused the accident in the first place.
Re: It's hard to see how the conclusion is support (Score:2)
Inherently safe cars don't plant themselves 25m into fields in the first place regardless of their form of propulsion.
You were in the process of making a very valid point when the above suddenly managed to slip out of your asshole...
It depends (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that most of the glass is still intact, I'm leaning towards this being either a low velocity impact, or a med/high velocity crash spread over a long distance and time (which also means low impact forces). Which means the fact that the front end shattered like that is really troubling. Perhaps the additional mass of the battery pack (the Tesla weighs as much as an SUV because of the battery pack) contributed to demolishing the front end despite the low impact forces? In an ICE vehicle, the bulk of the mass (engine) is in the front and it absorbs impact forces directly instead of through the structural beams. In a Tesla, the bulk of the mass is in the battery pack underneath the passenger compartment. Since the passenger compartment is designed to remain intact, the kinetic energy of the battery pack has to be fully absorbed by the structural beans in the front or rear.
I would assume Tesla strengthened the beams by a corresponding amount to pass the crash safety tests. But those tests only cover direct front impacts, not a car leaving the ground and impacting the ground at (say) a slight nose-down pitch. The cantilever forces in such an impact due to the additional torque caused by the heavy battery pack behind it could account for the front shattering and shearing off like that.
Re: It depends (Score:5)
Unjustified (Score:2)
Survived the crash, but ... (Score:3)
... I wonder if the driver survived the aftermath when her father saw what she did to his car. I doubt if the insurers are going to cover the loss.
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... I wonder if the driver survived the aftermath when her father saw what she did to his car. I doubt if the insurers are going to cover the loss.
In other news...she is SO grounded.
"flew more than 80 feet" (Score:3, Funny)
flew more than 80 feet
The linked German article [merkur.de] (as well as a follow-up [merkur.de]) does not mention anything about the car flying... it says the car overturned until it landed back on its wheels (which explains all the bodywork damage in the photo...).
Also, 80 feet???? Germany have not used such a unit in a couple of years ^H^H^H^H^H centuries. Might still be in use in the USA, Burma and Liberia. And perhaps the UK and Canada.
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Congratulations, you win the "asshole American" award of the day. This is a tech site, and people are constantly complaining about the lack of engineering units. Libraries of Congress has ever become a meme. The events mentioned happened in Germany, a metric country.
When considering this story, engineers will want to do calculations, and most engineers use metric units because it's daft not to. TFA must have got the data in metric and converted it, and likely rounded it just to decrease the accuracy of the
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metric feet
... which have nothing to do with the rhythmic structure of poetry ;-)
Not a front-end collision (Score:2)
Fair comparison? (Score:2)
The images of the crash are not pretty, but one could imagine how much worse they would be if a front-engined internal combustion vehicle were involved instead of the Tesla Model S.
And what about comparing it to a mid-engine internal combustion vehicle? That would be more consistent in terms of center of mass with the Tesla Batteries.
Considering the Tesla S is an up market sports car this is probably reasonable to do, as there are mid-engine cars in that space for comparison.
Tesla makes Volvo look bad (Score:2)
Complete. Fucking. Horseshit. (Score:3)
The images of the crash are not pretty, but one could imagine how much worse they would be if a front-engined internal combustion vehicle were involved instead of the Tesla Model S.
You can imagine all day, but as long as you're only using your imagination and not crashing testing or computer modeling, you're just being a stupid ass.
The fact is that the Tesla is not at all unique in its ability to protect the occupants from harm in a ridiculously major collision. Look at Audi A8 crash photos sometime. There have been a fairly high number of incidents in which the car was very well mangled (even to the point of "what part is that?") and yet all the occupants walked away. You can expect this to be true out of basically any of the truly modern premium vehicles, that is, made out of Aluminum or better. That's because they don't have to make poor tradeoffs for crash safety, they just cost more money. But mind you, lots of the really scary-looking crashes I'm talking about were in the original A8, which was finalized way back in 1993 and appeared as a 2004 model.
The idea that the essential design of the vehicle protected these passengers better than would another car in the same price range is specious at best.
So... (Score:2)
So skateboards are inherently safe, got it.
What?? (Score:2)
"... Model X is extremely safe, with crumple zones that are unconcerned with engines that can transfer kinetic energy"
The word "unconcerned" makes no sense here. I'm guessing they may have meant "unaffected" or "unconnected" or "not affected".
ENGRISH MUTHAFUGGAH, dew ewe speek it??
Transfer Kinetic Energy (Score:2)
that can transfer kinetic energy into the passengers during a frontal collision.
WTF? That's NOT what you want to happen during a crash. Where did this come from? From TFA:
can effectively dissipate the kinetic energy of a crash
That's a more accurate description of crumple zones function. Editor could have just copy/pasted this and not been so horribly wrong.
PS. Photos of the wrecked Tesla with unbroken windows demonstrate how well the passenger compartment was protected during the crash.
Also english cars costing 1.000.000 US$ !! (Score:2)
I would like to see a Tesla under such a condition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Why does anyone read Slashdot anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Why does anyone read Slashdot anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Really? No idol of mine - just another hyped-up salesman. My idols are those that strive to improve the life of others via technology, social work, opposition to extremists of all kinds or just trying to make a difference.
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Really? No idol of mine
Then go find a site that worships your god.
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He referring to this Slashdot story, also posted today:
cientists: Electric Vehicles Produce As Many Toxins As Dirty Diesels
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
Re:Tesla pollute more than regular gasoline cars (Score:5, Interesting)
The actual article is behind a pay wall, but the Daily Mail summary unambiguously says:
- That was finding of a study looking at particles from tyre and brake wear
- Made heavier by batteries and parts meaning tyres and brakes wear faster
The Daily Mail article itself continues with multiple references to brake wear. Not once does it mention regenerative braking.
Now I do admit that I should know better than to assume that a Daily Mail article about a paper would be in any way related to the actual contents of the paper, and it's entirely possible that the actual paper, behind the paywall, says exactly the opposite. Maybe it will even say that EVs are cleaner after all.
Re:Tesla pollute more than regular gasoline cars (Score:4, Insightful)
"However, due to the increased weight of electric vehiclese, they are subject to more tyre wear and they cause more road wear"
I can't recall anyone making much fuss over the many, many, many F-150s, other trucks & SUVs that have been causing excessive tyre & road wear since the 80s, or acknowledging that 18-wheelers & buses should bear the burden of paying for most of the road repair since they cause, by far, most of the damage.
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Probably the shameless and extreme lie currently on display here:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
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Re: Tesla pollute more than regular gasoline cars (Score:5, Funny)
"The problem with internet quotes is that you cant always depend on their accuracy" -Abraham Lincoln, 1864
Re: Tesla pollute more than regular gasoline cars (Score:2)
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Perhaps you meant 'ingested'?
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I'm sure we've got teenagers around here that would try for 90 feet. (meters?)
I'm pretty sure it must have been feet. I'm not saying it's impossible to get a car crash ending up 80 meters from the road but it would probably require an adjacent 80 meter cliff.
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I'm pretty sure it must have been feet. I'm not saying it's impossible to get a car crash ending up 80 meters from the road but it would probably require an adjacent 80 meter cliff.
80 meters = 262 feet
Average braking distance on dry pavement at 80 mph = 320 feet (http://www.government-fleet.com/content/driver-care-know-your-stopping-distance.aspx)
There's less friction while careening across a field than there is on dry tarmac, so I doubt 80 meters would be difficult to achieve, especially viewing those photos from the article - it's a very flat field with very few obstacles, and it sure looks like they traveled at least 80 meters.
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In perfect conditions, your car may be able to go from 80mph to zero in 117ft, not counting reaction time.
In this case, there was no reaction. All stopping was done by the car hitting things and tumbling across the dirt.
What's the distance your car can stop from 80mph on loose dirt? I'll bet it's still more than 80 meters.
Re: No praise for Tesla in the original article. (Score:2)
To the contrary, newest updates make a point of the fact that the car supposedly was equipped with a much smaller engine than previously thought, 236 instead of 700 horsepower.
I believe the front motor in most AWD Model S's puts out about that much horsepower.
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This article is about 18 year olds. There's no such thing as "enabling [them] to be riskier". No matter how safe or unsafe something is, kids that age will test its limits and generally exceed them.