It helps that it weighs 4,600 pounds. (More than a thousand pounds heavier than the Volvo S60 they compare it to.) Heavier vehicles always do better-- which is why SUVs survive crashes so well.
Weight can be a factor, especially in multiple-vehicle accidents, where the heavier vehicle simply has more momentum and kinetic energy. In a multiple-vehicle accident, the larger vehicle experiences lower g-forces, and the occupants lower forces.
Collisions with a stationary object (the basis for the NHTSA tests) largely takes this factor out of the equation. More mass can _still_ result in better survivability if it means more material around the driver, but here the choice of materials and engineering matter far more. Look at the comparison tests of classic (1950s/1960s) and modern (post 1980 and more recent) vehicles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g
I don't know the GVW of the Bel Aire, but I suspect it's rather higher than that of the Malibu.
Of course, modern vehicles with poor engineering and materials can also fare badly:
This is outdated information, SUVs are now far safer than cars. Death rate (per 1M vehicle years) for 4WD midsize SUV: 23. Midsize Sedan: 51 [1]
What if SUVs just get driven less (due to poor mileage, only being taken out in the snow...)
Vehicle-years can be determined directly from vehicle registration data. Miles traveled would require a lot more guesswork.
It's also interesting to note that pickups can fare quite poorly (the Nissan Titan Crew Cab is among the worst vehicles listed), and even within the same manufacturer, lager models aren't necessarily safer (Mazda 3 at 52 deaths/million miles, Mazda 6 at 60). The error bounds and total miles (exposure) on a number of the larger SUVs are also large and small respectively, suggesting a possible data collection limitation.
When I read your comment I realized something must be off and went to check the source data. Imagine if the average driver drives 20K miles / year it would take only 50 drivers to get to million miles. If the death rate of cars would even approach 50 deaths per million miles then everybody would stand a good chance of dying in a car accident. Clearly this is not the case.
For some stats:
In 2009 there were 10.5 million accidents, and 35,900,000 motor vehicle fatalities. Your odds of dying in any given accident are 0.3%.
In 2013 projections were for 1,203.6 billion vehicle miles travelled. Travel mileage has actually been declining slightly (about 1%/year) since the 2008 depression.
You could expect to travel 33,526,462 without a death, on average.
http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/DOT-Miles-Driv... https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103....
What were the crash parameters? Speeds? Head-on? (Looks like it).
Your car was a Subaru something or other?
I had a slight gash on my head that bled for a little bit, and I have a dislocated clavicle near my breast bone.
I was driving 20 Mph, taking a left turn, the Nissan Titan was doing (by the drivers accounts) 45 - 50 Mph. Practically head-on.
According to the fire department, police and EMT's that arrived on the scene it was a miracle how in-tact the interior was, and that I walked away from it. The insurance adjuster at first wouldn't believe me when I told him to start working up paperwork for totalled while also telling him I had walked away from it. He ended up later calling me while looking at my vehicle, and I quote, "Are you sure you are okay?"
The guy that towed my vehicle from the accident site was surprised to see me after I was released from the hospital looking for my keys (house keys are on the same key ring), he hadn't been told about my status by the cops or anyone, and had assumed I was in crit-condition in the hospital.
Subaru saved my life, and for that I am extremely happy.
I swear the longer I drive the more freaked I get by it, even with all the tech a well-designed vehicle can wrap you in.
You are wrong. At least in the perspective of crash tests.
In a crash test against a wall (equal amount of kinetic energy transferred to the wall and to the vehicle), a lightweight vehicle does better than an otherwise identical but heavier vehicle. This is because its mass is less, therefore there is less kinetic energy to dissipate.
However in road crashes, heavy vehicles fare better because the heavy vehicle transfers more kinetic energy to the more lightweight vehicle.
NHTSA crash ratings are well known to not reflect this difference. But the point remain that heavy vehicles are disadvantaged compared to lightweight vehicle, and the fact the Model S does so well despite its weight is a testament to its good crash resistance.
Just checked - yep - the battery weighs an estimated ~ 545kg or 1200 lbs [1].
I'd expect the structural components to actually be lighter than competitors, given that they're fabricated with aluminum vs steel.
[1] http://www.teslamotors.com/fr_CA/forum/forums/model-s-batter...
Engine: 300 to 450 pounds Transmission: 120 to 140 pounds Gas Tank: 20 to 25 pounds Radiator: 20 to 30 pounds
So, roughly 460 to 645 pounds. Add 110 pounds for 15 gallons of gas. The comparison is a little more difficult than this though, because the batteries just store energy. The Model S still has a (416hp) motor, there are a few other differences (regenerative vs standard brakes) and equivalencies (inverter vs alternator).
The Model S curb weight is 4,647 pounds. A Cadillac STS, which is 5" narrower but very nearly the same in every other dimension as the Model S is only 3,922 pounds. That leaves the Model S 725 pounds heavier, still quite a bit of difference.
My old (still current gen) Volvo S80 T6 weighed 4,400lbs IIRC. I assume that's "dry" weight. Since a Model S is always "dry" aside from a gallon of wiper fluid or the like they probably weigh just about the same on the road. And the Model S is a bigger, faster car.
My Jeep Grand Cherokee (with the panoramic sunroof option I didn't actually have) weighed 5,500lbs. Again, I assume like motorcycle manufacturers that car manufacturers are listing the "dry" weight. So that baby is probably over 3 tons wet when optioned up.
The Cadillac seems on the light side for it's class. Even so, "wet" the difference in weight is probably one passenger. Despite it being a smaller car (5" actually seems pretty significant IMO, that's 5" less wiggle room to stay in your lane!).
That's (I assume) the worst-case-scenario highest capacity Tesla. Performance is far in excess of most cars on the road already. Capacity with smaller battery packs will surely improve. It seems like weight can only go down from here, and it's not out of line with it's competition as is.
Safety is engineering and materials. More materials help, of course, but more materials without the engineering simply equals more kinetic energy. There are vehicles from big SUVs to tiny SMART cars doing superbly on crash tests now.
http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr041409.html
ARLINGTON, VA — Three front-to-front crash tests, each
involving a microcar or minicar into a midsize model from
the same manufacturer, show how extra vehicle size and
weight enhance occupant protection in collisions. These
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests are about the
physics of car crashes, which dictate that very small cars
generally can't protect people in crashes as well as
bigger, heavier models.
"There are good reasons people buy minicars," says
Institute president Adrian Lund. "They're more affordable,
and they use less gas. But the safety trade-offs are clear
from our new tests. Equally clear are the implications when
it comes to fuel economy. If automakers downsize cars so
their fleets use less fuel, occupant safety will be
compromised. However, there are ways to serve fuel economy
and safety at the same time."
Large vehicles have historically been more stable and
provided more protection for their own
occupants than small ones, but they presented a greater
hazard to other road users. Between 1985
and 1993, the population of light trucks - pickups, sport
utility vehicles (SUV) and vans - increased
by 50 percent in the United States. Since the major
downsizing of passenger cars during 1975-82,
light trucks have had a substantial and growing weight
advantage over cars. By 1992, the number
of fatalities in collisions between cars and light trucks
exceeded the number in car-to-car collisions
In car-light truck collisions, 80 percent of the fatalities
are occupants of the cars. That raises the
question whether the growth in the number and weight of
light trucks is having an adverse impact
on the safety of passenger car occupants and other road
users, possibly exceeding any safety benefits
of the vehicle-weight increases for the occupants of the
trucks.
But all things being equal, in a head on collision between two identical vehicles, save that one weighs a thousand pounds more than the other, the heavier car is going to win.
Rater irrational requirement, given that we're talking about engineering. It short circuits the entire conversation.
In any case, I find it odd that you find my reference of the Smart "humorous". While the IIHS held their results as demonstrating bigger versus smaller, in actual reality it primarily demonstrated more expensive versus less expensive -- there is no great confusion that less expensive cars often sacrificed safety, and this was true at all vehicle sizes (e.g. some early budget Kia minivans and SUVs were deathtraps). It seems to have mostly passed now that even economical cars like the Cruze are posting stellar results.
But let's assume that a greater weight, by itself, equals better safety. So would that Volvo do better than the Tesla if they filled the trunk full of concrete blocks?
Note that I didn't say that weight doesn't correlate with safety, but that it doesn't correlate nearly as strongly as you seem to imply -- e.g. saying that a large sedan is 1000lbs heavier than another large sedan in no way, I would guess, leads to a conclusion that it will also do better in safety tests.