The Tesla Model S missed the mark on some IIHS crash tests

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Elon Musk’s Tesla brand of electric cars has received much praise as well as just as much criticism over the past few years. Without a doubt, Musk has built a formidable business with an arguably amazing piece of equipment as the crown jewel. While the Model S is a technology masterpiece, there is another piece of the puzzle that would make it that much more desirable: safety. The Insurance Institue for Highway Safety conducts crash tests of all makes of cars and the Model S fell short in some of their testing. The crash tests they conducted were also done on other electric cars from Toyota and Chevrolet which both passed with flying colors, watch the video below.

 

The Model S experienced problems in the small overlap front crash test the IIHS performs. While the safety belts worked, they allowed the crash test dummy to move too far forward in the cabin striking the steering wheel through the airbag. That’s pretty significant since the airbag is supposed to help cushion any blow to the body — going through it and hitting the steering wheel wouldn’t be a great experience. The IIHS highlight that both the Prius and the Volt earned a Top Saftey Pick Plus over the Tesla Model S.

Tesla does say they are working on improving the safety of all their cars. This will include not only mechanical improvements but software improvements to the braking systems. Of course, we need to stress that missing the mark on some of these tests doesn’t make the Model S unsafe, there is just room for improvement to be made. As far as we can tell, Tesla is open to making those improvements so that is very encouraging.

What do you think of the IIHS crash tests? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

[button link=”http://www.usatoday.com/videos/money/cars/2017/02/01/tesla-model-s-falls-short-iihs-crash-tests/97338940/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: USA Today[/button]
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