Featured New Crash Tests - Prius Prime and Chevy Volt top picks

Some components and features of the car were innovative and ahead of their time. The most recognizable feature of the Tucker '48, a directional third headlight (known as the "Cyclops Eye"), would activate at steering angles of greater than 10 degrees to light the car's path around corners. At the time, 17 states had laws against cars having more than two headlights.Tucker fabricated a cover for the cyclops center light for use in these states.

From: Tucker 48 - Wikipedia

 

The earliest Citroen DS, I think in the 50s, had fixed lamps. Later models possibly Pallas had the swivellers. I am open to correction on that, but remember some variants had tail/brake lights that got progressively brighter the harder you braked.

Mais, ou est tous les hommes?

 

The 4 led matrix adoptive headlights of the 2017 Prius PHV spread the light when cornering, not swivel.

The Prius Plug-in Hybrid’s energy-conserving four-lamp matrix LED headlights incorporate unique, speed-sensitive, adaptive beam technology. Using a light-sensing camera to detect the headlights of oncoming vehicles and tail lights of those ahead, it automatically adjusts your headlight beam so as not to dazzle drivers ahead. It even varies the angle and depth of the light beam to match your vehicle’s speed and help spread the light when cornering.
From EU site.

 

[quote".... ]While the IIHS scoring is extremely helpful when choosing a vehicle, and provides telling information about the vehicle’s strengths and weaknesses, sometimes you have to read carefully. Other vehicles that actually fared worse than the Model S in crash tests ..." [/quote]

Driver Walks Away Unharmed After Big Rig Rear Ends Tesla Model S

Fortunately, even the truck drive walked away. So you gotta pause in awe ... a tesla damaging a semi as much as the semi damages it ... I hope the volt or prime never have to face the same real circumstance. I'd guess it's a bit differeny between a society's test - driving into an unmovable block of concrete or steel, versus the real world where all elements may be on the move. Time will tell.
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IIHS tests front collisions. Their tests are meant to simulate a collision with the same size and weight vehicle. They do not test for rear collision damage.
In this case the test designation is immaterial to the collision event.

 

Aren't their tests simulating a collision with an incompressible stationary object?
If colliding with another vehicle you would have twice the crumple zone distance.

 

They do a side impact crash test too.
Model S results are at Vehicle details

 

Thanks for the link.
Very impressive detail about the tests.
So some of the tests do simulate a vehicle to vehicle collision (although not necessarily the same sized vehicle).
According to their site, the small overlap test simulates collision with a rigid body and not a vehicle.

Odd that they say it simulates a collision with a tree, post or car, as the car would behave differently, wouldn't it?

 

True, but how would you standardize the test to be as fair as possible?
IIHS noted this in a news article mentioning the Tesla:

Although the i3, the Volt and the Prius all did better in the small overlap evaluation than the Model S, the results can't be compared because the Model S is larger than the others. Since the kinetic energy involved in a front crash depends on the speed and weight of the vehicle, the Tesla's acceptable rating is based on a more severe crash than the good ratings of the lighter cars.

From: Two electric cars miss IIHS awards

 

That makes sense. And don't misunderstand me, I am not suggesting we standardize the tests for size, as larger and smaller vehicles behave differently in crashes.
I was simply disagreeing with the statement that the tests simulate a collision with a vehicle of equal size.
That is not the case.

Thanks to your link, I discovered some of the collisions do simulate another vehicle, while some do not.

 

Read this in the latest What Car magazine reference the Euro NCAP. Hope this helps in the discussion...

Euro NCAP's car testing saves 78,000 lives in 20 years - February - 2017 - Which? News

 

actually - no i'm not talking 20yr difference issue. No denying new cars are safe. But my point got lost via my disjointed writing - so i should have linked to what i was getting at. It's really kind of a common sense thing, too;

Heavier, pricier vehicles are safer, research finds
So yea ... in short, whether your Honda is 20yrs old or 20 days old ... mass invariably wins. That 2017 - winning 5star NTSB rating is not to be discounted ... but that lighter/new 5star winner - realistically is still no match for a dirty heavy 13mpg' 71 Olds Cutlass, in many real world accident scenarios not covered by the accepted tests.
The trick is to make that 5,800Lb-6,200Lb car get around 90-100mpg(e)
... if only there were such a car

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