Another win for Tesla Motors and Elon Musk...

[Agschmid]

Tesla Model S scores highest marks ever on U.S. crash testing

As much as electric car builders hail their vehicles as the future of transportation, one question they couldn't answer fully was just how well their vehicles would withstand a crash. Automakers have spent decades finessing their chassis; what happened when an engine-less vehicle went head-on into a barrier wasn't clear, and as the post crash-test smoldering of a Chevy Volt demonstrated, the batteries posed new challenges.

Leave it to Tesla to provide the first hard evidence — with data from U.S. government tests showing the Model S sedan may be the most crash-proof passenger vehicle on the road today.

Normally, Tesla's garnering of five stars on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's crash tests wouldn't be a headline; most new cars and trucks get at least five stars in frontal crash protection and four stars in side impact. But the Model S did better than that; it got five stars in all tests; front, side impact, pole and rollover prevention. Plus, the scores of its frontal, side and rollover test combined were higher than any car ever crashed by NHTSA — and according to Tesla, at one point the testers nearly broke their equipment trying to damage the Model S.

Full Article

[NV Whino]

1. Good stuff!

I love to see good engineering rewarded.

[Agschmid]

2. The cars are amazing, I see so many of them here in MA and every time...

I end up staring and smiling. A bit out of my budget but a boy can dream!

[Motown_Johnny]

8. Really? I have never seen one on the road.

I have seen them at the Auto Show, but never anywhere else.

Chevy Volts are everywhere around here but no Teslas.

[Agschmid]

10. Yes I see so many!

I commute on the Mass Pike and 128 to get where I need to go, and it's a given that I will see at least one a week (though it feels more often since I get so excited).

Vehicles that advertised exceptional gas mileage did well last year. The Chevrolet Sonic, which advertises over 40 mpg and a price tag of abut $14,000, posted a 430 percent increase in new car registrations while the Tesla, a plug-in electric car, shot up by 1,433 percent (46 total sales).

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/bbj_research_alert/2013/02/25-most-popular-cars-in-massachusetts.html?page=all

[calimary]

21. I've certainly noticed more of them around L.A.

Feels good to see!

[physioex]

18. Funny....

I have noticed tons of Nissan Leafs.

[NV Whino]

9. Two of my clients bought the S model

Parked next to the sports model in the Safeway lot and had a chat with the owner.

Beautiful cars!

[Agschmid]

11. Yes they are!

[DirkGently]

12. I keep seeing a black one on driving home.

Looks great, but it also looks so "normal" you have to blink to realize it's not the usual ICE machine.

[Squinch]

14. I am totally not a person who notices a good looking car, but every time I pass one of these

I notice it and think, "What IS that? It's so cute!"

[Warren DeMontague]

27. Those cars are REALLY friggin' cool.

[backscatter712]

3. Awesome! Musk & Tesla are doing it right! n/t

[NuclearDem]

4. Depending on the cost and availability of charging stations,

my next car is likely to be a Tesla.

Damn good work, Tesla Motors!

[KamaAina]

16. So would mine

if I drove.

P.S. Tesla owners get free charging at Tesla charging stations. They are, at least, along the I-5 corridor between the Bay Area and SoCal, and I-95 between DC, NYC and Boston.

[Stuart G]

5. K and R thanks for posting nt

[Agschmid]

6. No problem!

Love the the car... pretty much a fanboy so this just makes it easier!

[DirkGently]

7. Hell. Yes. Chris Hayes had a great piece on this tonight.

He suggested American capitalism might work better if businesses stopped trying to make a buck gambling on Wall Street and seeking out ever-cheaper labor, and maybe worked on ... building "a better mousetrap" again.

[flvegan]

13. Roughly $100k, right?

But that's okay. It never starts out cheap. Nice work, Tesla. Built here in the States, right? Proof that Americans can still build a kickass car, through kickass R&D, and still generate kickass performance.

I'm no hybrid nor electric fanboy, but this is still very good.

[KamaAina]

17. The Model S is quite a bit less than that

unless you want the long-distance battery, which brings it up to about $90K. Perfect for, say, taxis, especially if combined with the Google self-driving system.

[LeftyMom]

23. Made in the old Toyota/GM shared plant in Fremont, CA

Iirc the family sedan version is 40k or so, which is not cheap but plenty of people buy swanky sedans in that price range.

[steelmania75]

15. That company is the future of the American auto industry

Once they can produce a model that's $30,000 and the supercharger stations are set, here we go!

[Phlem]

19. He's done very well up this point

which sets him up for climbing future. Dare I say the future of travel?

He's going to be wonderful to watch.

-p

[lonestarnot]

20. 159.00 Tee hee.

[joshcryer]

22. Almost tripled up.

Once SpaceX has an IPO, woot.

[Go Vols]

24. Seems they have changed the rules

since the early '80s.Now you can get better than 5 stars?

[Warren DeMontague]

25. K&R

[JimDandy]

26. Wooo hoooo! Now start marketing

hundreds of thousands of them please, so the price will come down and we can get rid of the strangle-hold of the whole fucking oil industry and the mess they have made of this world.

[Safetykitten]

28. So reasonably priced, so within reach.

[Go Vols]

29. Tesla

[Mother Muckraker]

30. Safety Rating and Roof Test Lies

There's no such thing as a "5.4 star" rating. The "5.4" is something the Tesla marketing dept. made up for Elon Musk to sell to a gullible public.

The "strongest roof" is also misinformation. The feds did not do that test. It was an unnamed commercial company with an undisclosed testing method and machinery. For all we know, the machine could've broke for some other reason not related to a strong roof or it might not have ever happened. The "strong roof" only came from Elon Musk's mouth.

http://www.freep.com/article/20130822/BUSINESS0104/308220164/Tesla-automotive-electric

Also, the timing of the safety revelations is interesting as it follows a story of a lady that crashed her Model S in Tennessee while "messing" with the touchscreen.