Tesla get a lot of credit for the work they did in developing the Model 3 and it famously achieved a 5-star ANCAP safety rating. Now the Model X joins that same list of ultra-safe vehicles.
While Tesla doesn’t divide their cars up into annual releases, they do still improve them over time. Thanks to new upgrades in the December 2019 version of the Model X, it has now achieved the top rating.
This ANCAP safety rating applies to all variants (Standard Range, Long Range and Perforamnce), on sale from December 2019 (built from October 2019).
The breakdown of the 5-star rating includes a score of 98% for adult occupant protection, 86% child occupant protection, 72% for Vulnerable road user protection and 94% in safety assists.
Those safety assist technologies include:
- Dual frontal, side chest-protecting (1st & 2nd row) and side head-protecting (curtain) airbags are standard.
- Autonomous emergency braking (City, Interurban & Vulnerable Road User) as well as lane keep assist (LKA) with lane departure warning (LDW) and emergency lane keeping (ELK) are standard.
Given we all kind of expect airbags to just work now, the most interesting part of the test are the multiple pieces of technology used to create a safer vehcile.
The breakdown of the Safety Assist systems shows a perfect score for Lane Support System. As we know, the lane-keeping on Tesla’s is brilliant. The total score is seriously impressive in this area, 12.3 out of 13, making it one of the safest cars on the road. By comparison, the Mercedes-Benz GLE scored just 79%, compared to the Model X’s 94%.
| Safety Assist: | 12.3 out of 13 |
| Speed Assistance System: | 2.93 out of 3 |
| Seat Belt Reminders: | 3.00 out of 3 |
| Lane Support System: | 4.00 out of 4 |
| AEB (Interurban): | 2.40 out of 3 |
We can see from the photos of the crash testing that although some of the vehicle impacts are dramatic, the area inside the cabin remains largely unimpacted.
In the detailed report, it reveals Tesla do still have some room for improvement.
- Automatic emergency call (eCall)
- Rear cross-traffic alert (RCTA)
- Fatigue detection
What I think is unfair is to ping Tesla for not having technology that isn’t necessary if you have a technology stack that fully understands the environment around you.
- Vehicle-to-infrastructure communication (V2I)
- Vehicle-to-vehicle communication (V2V)
These two pieces of technology are hot topics for other automakers, but the reality is, we’re never going to have every traffic light and every other vehicle on the road using that technology. If your vehicle depends on V2x, it’s likely lacking in the on-board sophistication to navigate the world.
You can read the full safety report on the Tesla Model X (Dec 2019 onwards). right here.
