Tesla claims that it would be impossible for Model X to flip over and the recently released footage by the company proves their claim as well. The video released shows the car accelerating sideways before hitting a raised edge. The car slightly rolls over before straightening itself on its wheels. The exact speeds of the car during the test is not known, however, the impact was very harsh. After this test, Tesla Model X is officially known to be the highest safety rated SUV with a 5-star rating in nearly every category.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration awarded the car with a 5-star rating in nearly every category and subcategory during testing last year. Tesla has boasted a lot about the safety performance of the Model X for quite some time now. It also described the 5-star rating on its website as well. The Blog stated, “Model X performs so much better in a crash than gas-powered SUVs because of its all-electric architecture and powertrain design. The rigid, fortified battery pack that powers Model X is mounted beneath the floor of the vehicle creating a center of gravity so low that Model X has the lowest rollover probability of any SUV on the road. No other SUV has ever come close to meeting and exceeding this rollover requirement.”
Model X is the first and only SUV to achieve a NHTSA 5-Star safety rating in every category and subcategory, with the lowest probability of rollover and overall injury of any SUV pic.twitter.com/V0f8ljeIBp
— Tesla (@Tesla) May 20, 2018
Rolling over is a basic safety problem for SUVs due to their general top-weighted design. The battery pack in the middle of Model X makes it a bottom heavy car. The car also lacks an engine block in the front which allows for the addition of a large crumple zone as well. Tesla has claimed that the owner of the Model X will have 93% chances of escaping the car safely without getting seriously injured. Musk has tweeted many images of Tesla cars in crashes where the riders stayed safe. However, there have been several crashes which resulted in fatalities as well.
In 2017, a Model S owner was killed when the car smashed into a semi-trailer. Later, it was revealed that the Model S was in auto-pilot mode, which also questioned the legitimacy of Tesla’s driver assisting system. Tesla was later cleared of any involvement in the crash by NHTSA. This year in March, a Tesla Model X crashed into a freeway divider as well that caused a fire and two lanes of Highway 101 near Mountain View California were blocked. The driver was fatally injured in the accident. Tesla denied the responsibility of the crash saying, “The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so.”
