. . . you might want to watch this video of a test we did a couple weeks ago. Please note that this is a Thrie-beam rail, which is made of the same material as a standard W-beam rail, except it has one more rib, so it’s about 8" wider. A standard W-beam will redirect a passenger car or a 1/2 ton 4-door pickup with an internal combustion engine, so this is a stronger rail than what’s typically used on roadways.
I suspect that the testing standards will need to be modified as the number of electric vehicles on the road increases.
Wow Glenn. Could you share a video of an internal combustion engine car? I am just curious what the difference is. Do you think the electric one does not redirect because the weight being so low in the vehicle (where the battery pack is located), it just seems to snap the wooden posts.
Here you are. I don’t have access to any film of a specific test with one, but this video has two similar tests where the goal was to contain the vehicle. The first one (starting at about the 9:00 mark) is impacting W-beam, which as I mentioned above is a narrower rail than the one in the electric car test, and the one right after it is a box van impacting Thrie-beam.
By the way, the structure being impacted in the last test in this video, starting at about 12:00 minutes, is one of the first projects I worked on when I started with SW (with no previous modeling or drafting experience). As you might imagine, I breathed a big sigh of relief when it all fit together like it was supposed to.
Just the extra mass on those huge battery packs on something like a Tesla an unstoppable force, especially with the center of gravity of that mass so low to the ground.
But, my question is that you have much heavier machines on the road like big semi trucks. Is it that these barriers were approved beforehand because the barriers can usually handle the mass at that velocity if the center of gravity is higher up?
I personally am not a fan of EVs (especially Teslas) because of range, cost, and horrible customer service/repair concerns. Anything goes wrong with these, you look at multiple thousands and months backlog to fix at a place that may be hundreds of miles away. I also think there may be some fraud involved. If you call something “full self driving” it should mean “driving by itself”. That is near some Theranos level trickery there and I think Musk dd it just to manipulate stock prices when he knew all he had was a more advanced form of cruise control. How many big employers would LOVE to not have to pay drivers if this were true. But at least unlike Elizabeth Holmes, a Tesla still drives, so he gets somewhat of a pass. But still think some regulatory body needs to look into this and require Tesla to let other people work on their cars.
The current testing standards for roadside barriers were established about 15 years ago, so before there were many electric vehicles on the road. That barrier would not stop a semi truck, but if you watched the second video I posted you will see that it will stop smaller trucks (what we generally refer to as box vans).
You need a concrete barrier to re-direct a loaded semi truck (42" tall, if I remember correctly).
Also, if that isn’t enough, one of my sister-in-law’s neighbors house flooded during the hurricane last week, with a Tesla parked in the garage. Apparently salt water is pretty good at conducting electricity. The part of the house that wasn’t under water burned up.
Taking away the barrier issue riding under or over, a car smashed to bits at the front in a crash is usually a reasonable good sign in a crash test. The crucial bit is keeping the occupants safe inside and all the crumple zones taking the impact without forcing objects into the passenger area.
The maintenance side of things does make me a bit hesitant. It seems like the whole service model still has a long way to go before they really become mainstream. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how the industry adapts!
