I cannot believe the
I cannot believe the hypocrisy going on in both this article and some of the replies below. There are 200,000+ auto fires causes by crashes reported in the United States. Yet, Tesla has three or four of its cars involved in crashes resulting in fire and the entire world of Fossil Fuel Paid Trolls run out and dump on Tesla, like it was producing something equivalent to the 1970s era Ford Pinto. Remember, the Ford Pinto, with its "exploding gas tanks?" Of course, you don't.
The reason the Model S has not been tested by IIHS is because IHSS had decided not to. Tesla, has requested IIHS testing (to include the Small Overlap Test) multiple times. You will have to ask IIHS why it refuses to test the Tesla Model S. What are they afraid of? Are they afraid of having to give the Model S, their coveted Safety Pick + designation based on the outstanding NHTSA crash test results that Tesla and its Model S obtained?
In all Model S accidents, not one Tesla owner/driver was fatally wounded or even seriously injured. Is Tesla, now responsible for Thieves and their law breaking behavior? The Tesla driver was at fault for rear-ending another vehicle, but that would be the case regardless of which vehicle the Tesla rear-ended. When you rear-end someone, you will 99.99% of the time be deemed "at fault."
Regarding this so-called "Forward Crash Prevention Technology" that Tesla allegedly refuses to implement in their vehicles. No matter what you call it: Intelligent Break Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Warning, etc., the DRIVER is ALWAYS the best "Safety Device" in the vehicle. Following too closely (less than 1 vehicle lengths distance from the vehicle directly in front of you, for ever 10 mph that your vehicle is traveling) is something that I am 100% the writer of this article did on his way to work today and will be something that he does on his way home after work today. 90% - 97% of drivers on U.S. roads today are not just Tailgaters but CHRONIC TAILGATERS and should be cited by law enforcement and dealt with severely. Tailgating is the Number #1 cause of crashes and it drastically decreases safety margins at ANY speed (highway or street driving). No automobile manufacturer should be held responsible for Chronic Tailgaters. Those people need to be taken off the road, but if you did that - nobody in the United States of America would be driving. You would shrink traffic down to 10% its normal density, if you took car of all the CHRONIC TAILGATERS.
Lastly, I'm not arguing that installing a Radar coupled to a Camera in the front of a vehicle and then designing an algorithm to slow the vehicle down to reduce the impulse force of an imminent collision is not a good idea. In fact, it is a wonderful progressive safety feature that all automobiles should have. I am 100% behind any effort to reduce collisions and no one should be against that. But, to sit here and pontificate on the physics behind this particular collision and then take the leap of faith in logic to conclude that "if" this particular Model S had anti-frontal collision technology, that the occupants of the Toyota, would not have suffered fatal injuries, is way over the top and holistically decoupled from any real empirical evidence.
You DO NOT KNOW the kinetics of this particular collision. You CANNOT say with any degree of certainty that such technology would have increased the probability of preventing fatalities more than Toyota, building a car that withstands rear impacts more effectively with less deformation. The fact of the matter is that the Model S, has received stellar marks from NHTSA. No vehicle as ever received higher marks in the history of NHTSA testing.
So, yes - Tesla, would do well to include anti-frontal collision technology, but let's not sit here and pile on a car company that has defeated all the naysayers who said that the government would never get its money back because Tesla, was doomed to fail right from the beginning. Not only did the government gets its money back, but Tesla, paid off its loans way ahead of time and became a profitable car company in record time as well - debunking all the critics stories about how the company would never make it and ultimately fail as a concept.
- Get the damn Tailgaters off the road.
- Build more Five Star Safety Rated electric cars with as much appeal such as the Model S.
- Stop making hugely ugly electric cars as a Freakish Sideshows to Fossil Fuel Dinosaur products.
- Teach United States Drivers HOW to "think and behave" on the roads of America.
- Include Crash Prevention Technology that actually works and make it Standard Equipment.
These are some of the critical keys to making our highways, streets and roads a safer place to travel. Sitting back blaming an outstanding new electric car company, merely because it successfully extracted its driver/owner from another collision without major injury, is definitely NOT the answer.