Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflector Plates to Model S

Re:Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflect... by Retric on Friday March 28, 2014 @04:30PM (#7489778)

I don't know about Tesla but 120MPH head on collisions like that are in fact survivable without serious injury given the correct car design. People can safely decelerate at 45g's which takes 10.4 feet from 120MPH. Of course in most cases your going to slow down a little before impact and or not hit an immovable wall so cars are generally optimized for lower impact velocity's.

The closest real world example is probably Nascar. Granted, there track design make head on collisions rather difficult but as cars regularly hit 190MPH you do occasionally get near head on collisions at around 120MPH which are often survivable. Best example I could find was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QVlj7...

PS: The much more common 60MPH drivers side impact is also survivable which I still find shocking.

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Re:Tesla Adds Titanium Underbody Shield and Aluminum Deflect... by sliverstorm on Friday March 28, 2014 @07:16PM (#7490569)

Yes, cars can be designed to protect you from a 120mph crash into a brick wall. But that comes at the expense of their ability to protect you from a 65mph crash into a lamp post or other car.

I don't know about you, but I drive near cars & lamp posts much more often than I drive on an Autobahn full of brick walls.

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