As an ev driver, some people shouldn't be allowed this much acceleration 0-60 time, me included.
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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I've got a "shitbox" VW Golf - the twin charger version, it's only around 118kw. It's not quick by any stretch of the imagination even with the bolt-on mods mine has so far.
I'd not like to imagine the levels of trouble I'd find myself in owning even a midrange EV. Being able to give an EV a ham sandwich and hit 100kph in ~5 seconds or less is absurd.
Not to mention the weight. Those premium vehicles with long range stats are very heavy. That's what makes them so terrifying to me.
But all they did was market their pretty good lane-assist and automated braking as a magic butler that lets you nap in the driver's seat.
How could this happen??
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Which is odd, because most electric vehicles (including some models of the Tesla) have better crash ratings due to having a crumple zone where the engine would be. Assuming that’s still true, there must be another factor that tips the balance towards deadly accidents. Some thoughts:
- They are heavy cars. Maybe it’s safer for the passengers but more deadly for the other vehicle.
- Maybe Tesla drivers are more irresponsible than other car owners.
- Maybe the torque and acceleration is too high, causing people to lose control more often.
- Maybe something that doesn’t get rated in the crash ratings causes deaths, eg. electric locks which are unable to open when power is lost, a likely scenario during collisions.
- Maybe the FSD features are causing more collisions to happen.
"A vehicle’s size, weight, and height certainly play a part in its ability to protect passengers in a crash,” said Brauer. “But the biggest contributor to occupant safety is avoiding a crash, and the biggest factor in crash avoidance is driver behavior. A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.”
Maybe Tesla drivers are more irresponsible than other car owners.
That was going to be my suggestion.
If there's a systemic reason Tesla drivers have more accidents in a Tesla than drivers of other cars, that car is inherently less safe.
You can't simply put it down to "Tesla drivers suck", that's irresponsible and flawed logic.
If it's the acceleration, maybe we shouldn't have cars that accelerate the way a Tesla can. But I very much doubt that is the reason except anecdotally. I suspect more that safety features may in fact serve to distract, or people "learn" to rely on them, and than they turn out to not be 100% reliable.
We've all heard the weird tendency of Tesla breaking for no reason, that is hazard, also the turn signals are placed wrong, causing them to be impractical in some situations like roundabouts. Also the instrumentation in general of a Tesla is centered very much around the touch screen, another source of potential distraction. AFAIK even the speedometer isn't placed where it should be to observe it quickly without looking away from the road for too long.
A lot of inherent safety feature in traditional cars, have been shaved away in Tesla cars. Even getting out in an emergency can be a problem, as the handles may fail because they are electric, and the "real" handles are hidden.
There a dozens of examples where Tesla is designed for less safety than traditional cars, and if (when) the safety features fail, I bet they are a lot less safe than if those features weren't there to begin with.
Tesla cars are designed with a VERY strong focus on reducing production cost, Elon Musk is even boasting about it, and how he has an uncompromising goal to simplify production. But Tesla also lack the experience about why things are like they are in traditional cars.
The systemic reason might just simply be "They were the kind of a person that would buy a Tesla".
If I wanted to buy a safe car to drive responsibly while respecting all the traffic rules, an EV with almost a thousand horses with a 0-60 time of 2.1-2.4 seconds wouldn't exactly be my first choice.
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When this was posted last week, I mentioned that it was odd that all the most deadliest models on the list were all low production cars, meaning there might be something wonky with their methodology.
There was a similar "study" done a year or so ago where they simply looked at car insurance applications and used people's accident history and whatever vehicle they were trying to insure at the time to generate a list of which models had the "most accidents" in an incredibly flawed manor (Pontiac and Oldsmobile were among the safest even though neither company exists anymore).
The study said they normalize by mileage, which will account for both model popularity and driving distance. Driving safety is usually reported in incidents per mile or something to that effect, so that's all standard.
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Or, hear me out, maybe they are just shit because so many corners have been cut in manufacturing that tesla cars should be perfect spheres by now.
Last time I looked up publicly available crash statistics in the US and calculated the per-maker numbers, Tesla was like 1/80th the typical per capita crashes of the average auto maker. That was a few years back, but I doubt that's changed without some sketchy statistic interpretations.
they used crash statistics for new cars with models from 2018 to 2022, where tesla is the most dangerous brand
Obligatory preface written after comment was written:
I am in no way a statistician or data analysis guru. I admit I could be looking at this shit entirely wrong and welcome anybody who corrects anything I I'm looking at incorrectly.
Actual comment:
The entire report itself is skewed as fuck before Rolling Stone cherry picked the fuck out of it for the article to slam Tesla. Listen I'm as sick of Elon as the next but these fucking shit on everything Elon hiveminds are so much more fucking obnoxious. Theyre always 10 to 1 comments by people who didnt read the article to comments by people who did.
At the end is the actual image from the site that issued the report. I didnt bother with a source link because it's right in the article OP posted.
Issues with the article and report:
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The figures are not for every car on the road it only covers cars made between 2018 and 2022. Not a big deal but still deceiving as fuck to theme the article as Tesla has one of the highest death rates. Cuz they left the time frame out of the RS article. Kinda how they left out the fact that only 1 tesla is in the top 6 and the other Tesla is second to last with a flood of much larger much more common vehicle names that fill in between 1 and 23.
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Each rate is calculated off 1 billion miles driven per year. When you put any Tesla model up next to any Ford, Honda, GM, Toyota, etc the % of all teslas on the road are going to be ridiculously higher than the % of the other much larger industry makes and models on the road that it takes to reach 1 billion miles. Because idk if I explained that well here is a made up scenario to illustrate it. Let's say there are 1000 teslas on the road compared to 1,000,000 Prius on the road. The tesla death rates are based out of 1000 Teslas driving 1,000,000 miles each. Whereas the Prius death rates are based off 1,000,000 Prius' driving 1,000 miles each.
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Remember point 2 as it plays into point 3. The method they used to calculate the rate outlined in point 2, I believe is normal when govt is figuring out vehicle death rates by category, location, driver age, etc. However the study they reference is specifically for death rates per vehicle make. Which makes the methods used for calculating deathrate by make and model completely fucked. They should've done the same number of cars per each make and model type as well as the same miles driven to get a comparable outcome of death rates per make amd model over 4 year span.
They looked at fatal crashes only, which is presumably a very small share of all crashes. They also normalised to per mile driven using a sample of data they have - presumably some data on miles driven by car type.
Could be sketchy, could just be a much smaller sub-population.
My bet is on the extra torque being the primary problem. Rental companies have complained about increased incident rates, and they're probably not renting out Teslas.
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Maybe Tesla drivers are more irresponsible than other car owners.
This is my first thought. Anecdotally Tesla drivers joins the ranks of Audi and BMW of insane drivers around me.
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I wonder if they have the data broken down by propulsion technology rather than manufacturer. One thing about Teslas and other luxury electric cars is that they have insane amounts of horsepower and instant torque. If you buy a Model S to schlep the kids around and are expecting it to behave like a minivan you'll be really surprised what happens if you floor it.
I'm curious to know if this trend is the same for other high-powered electric cars like the Hummer or Rivian. Cars that go that fast used to be limited to supercars, not large and widespread SUVs and pickups.
(Note this is not saying electric is bad or we shouldn't use it. But maybe manufacturers could ease up on the mo powah baby.)
But I also agree with the article that it could be related to their claims of "full self driving" because people might trust it too much and just not pay attention, or have it fail to detect something.
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So we will see some insane stuff from Elox to take the spotlight from this or meh?