Is it me, or do they appear to be cheating a little on this test...?
The test is designed to test the case where a small overlap causes a traditional crumple zone (designed for full frontal collision) to completely crush and intrude into the passenger compartment. Tesla has solved that by causing the car to deform in such a way to bypass the obstacle.
But I bet if they did a test with slightly more overlap, but not full frontal overlap, it would do really badly.
Really, this is a case of engineering to pass some very specific tests, rather than engineering something that's good for use in the wider world. cough dieselgate cough.
The test is designed to test the case where a small overlap causes a traditional crumple zone (designed for full frontal collision) to completely crush and intrude into the passenger compartment. Tesla has solved that by causing the car to deform in such a way to bypass the obstacle.
But I bet if they did a test with slightly more overlap, but not full frontal overlap, it would do really badly.
Really, this is a case of engineering to pass some very specific tests, rather than engineering something that's good for use in the wider world. cough dieselgate cough.