2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.comEdmunds.com Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 10,135
edited September 2014 in Tesla

image2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

Tesla claims that the Model S not only gets a five-star rating, it has the best scores of any car sold, period.

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  • mercedesfanmercedesfan Member Posts: 365
    Tesla's side-impact crash structure is pretty darn cool and I think it probably is better in that regard than anything else. However, the rest of it struck me as just marketing mumbo-jumbo. Besides, NHTSA hasn't even formally tested any other $50k+ luxury car so the Model S can't even be compared to anything else it competes against. Having said that, despite the numerous issues I have had with my Model S I have never questioned the integrity of its structure. It feels every bit as solid and impenetrable as my S550.
  • quadricyclequadricycle Member Posts: 827
    "Tesla's claims are unverifiable." That's the heart of it. How about revealing some details from this report that support their conclusion. Otherwise, this might as well be a junior-high research paper.
  • jim_in_nj_jim_in_nj_ Member Posts: 15
    @quadricycle, " How about revealing some details from this report that support their conclusion." Um, you just have to click on the link at the end of the article. Here are a few details: NHTSA does not publish a star rating above 5, ho
  • longhorn1992longhorn1992 Member Posts: 2
    The Honda Odyssey does not get five stars across the board; it only received four stars on the rollover test.

    One verifiable point (all public data posted on safecar.gov) is that there are only four production vehicles that get five stars in ALL subcategories AND in ALL seating positions: Tesla Model S, Cadillac ATS, Chevy Camaro, and Volvo S60. And, of those four cars, the Tesla Model S has the lowest Risk of Rollover at 5.7% (versus 8.7%, 10% and 10.1% for the others). Therefore, even without the non-published VSS, I think it is safe to say that it is currently the safest car being produced (by NHTSA standards).
  • quadricyclequadricycle Member Posts: 827
    @jim_in_nj: Ah, thanks, I was completely wrong there. Those are definitely some impressive numbers, although I'm sure Tesla selected the best for the press release. I would love to see the full report released to them though, but its not like any other ma
  • zimtheinvaderzimtheinvader Member Posts: 580
    kudos to Edmunds for being the only outlet I found that actually said that the 'news' came from a Tesla press release. Everyone else, that I saw, made it sound like the NHTSA put the news out there.--- And now the NHTSA are saying "you can't say you scored better than a 5" -- But Tesla learned from Hyundai and Ford that if you get the really good numbers out there it doesn't matter if they change a little later :)
  • awakeinwaawakeinwa Member Posts: 4
    if you're a numbers guy, Tesla's presser made a lot of sense. Passenger volume remaining after pole intrusion is a good proxy to compare one 5 star rating with another
  • awakeinwaawakeinwa Member Posts: 4
    The thing is, once you try one, you know how well built it is, down to its 1mm tolerance, which nobody reports on anymore. Use to be a popular speclet.
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