Electric car safety ratings
Every car manufacturer runs every model through a series of safety tests. This is no different for electric vehicles. Safety ratings tend to show that electric vehicles are at least as safe as their internal combustion counterparts – be it either the same models fitted with gasoline or diesel engines, or other models by the same manufacturer, comparable in terms of size and weight. When we take a look at the actual safety ratings, we can see many electric vehicles in the top ratings tier. Keep in mind, when designing an electric vehicle, the manufacturers have to take into account all the safety considerations they would when designing a traditional car. And they do have a lot of experience with that. Brakes, headlights, seatbelts, airbags, active safety systems like stability control, anti-lock brakes, autonomous emergency braking, proximity warning, lane departure warning – all those systems have been with us for years. If anything, one can expect more refined and better-tuned versions of them to end up in electric vehicles. And all of those systems, combined with car equipment – seatbelts, lights, warning systems and the like – constitute a specific vehicle’s safety rating. And, as mentioned above – the fact that you can find numerous electric vehicles in the upper portions of car safety ratings only proves that you should feel at least as safe as in a regular car, when travelling in an electric vehicle. When looking at some test results and electric car safety ratings from Euro NCAP – the European program that crash-tests all new cars, we can clearly see that most new electric cars receive the top rating of five stars – meaning, in case of a collision, these cars protect the driver and passengers extremely well. The five-star seal also means that in the case of the car hitting a pedestrian, the latter also is protected by some of the car’s active and passive safety systems.