• By
  • Jonathan Welsh
Tesla Motors Inc.
Tesla Model S




NHTSA officials did not respond to requests for comment.



The Model S’s electric motor is smaller than a typical gasoline engine and is mounted near the rear axle, so the front section that is normally the engine compartment is used as a second trunk.

Tesla said aluminum extrusions in the side rails of the Model S absorb crash energy and spread it to the rest of the vehicle. This setup helped its perform well in the NHTSA pole-test, which simulates single-vehicle accidents involving poles, trees and other obstacles that focus impact forces on a small area of the car.

For rear-impacts, the company installs a double rear bumper if the car is ordered with a third row seat. This structure is designed to “protect against a highway speed impact in the rear with no permanently disabling injury to the third row occupants,” Tesla said.

For the rollover test, which checks the vehicle’s resistance to the crushing forces of a rollover crash, a machine applies force to the car’s roof. But the machine broke at around the 4g mark, which is beyond the federal standard.


The company also said that after selling more than 15,000 cars worldwide, it knows of fatalities of from crashes in any of its Model S or Roadster models, but noted “this is statistically unlikely to remain the case long term.”