We do not know the speeds yet
Your passion is infectious Tim. We do not know the speeds yet, you are right. Will it matter to the argument? We have not said "Would have" or taken a stance that this is an EV vs ICE car issue. We report on ICE cars fires. We were all over the Porsche GTS fire stories and a ran a series about the Escape's fire recalls. We have pointed out an example and say "could have." This isn't a legal discussion, we are exploring an topic using a recent event as an example. With regard to your tailgating discussion, an accident this severe could not have been caused by tailgating. The relative speeds of the cars would have been too close to cause such dramatic destruction of the Corolla. It seems pretty apparent that the Corolla was either stopped or moving dramatically slower than the Tesla when it was hit. - - I remember the Pinto and the issues with that car. Our commenters still refer to it. One did just this week in Aaron T's story. - - With regard to why IIHS has not tested the Tesla, they commented on that. They said they have limited resources and time (regardless of cost) and don't try to test cars that sell in such small numbers (true if you look at the stuff they test). Tesla is now down to roughly 1100 cars per month in the US. IIHS also mentioned the class of cars that Tesla falls into and points out they rarely do test those. To which I say "BS!" They have tested the Audi A6 in the past. There's more to it. Why would Tesla want to enter a test knowing they cannot achieve the highest rating in? They are simply not eligible for the top score because they lack safety systems now commonplace that are required for consideration.