Tesla has the highest fatal accident rate of all auto brands, study finds

> You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy

Being heavy is actually a safety feature of sort (but just for the people inside the car, it increases overall fatality).

Trees are anchored to the ground. Being heavier just reduces your ability to stop.

Maybe that's good when hitting a tree? Slower deceleration, less force.

It ain't working then because these heavy cars tend to have more fatalities.

Decreases your tendency to flip over. I'm astonished by all the dashcam videos out there showing collisions, usually the first thing an ice car does is flip over. Not EVs though.

I think they meant that it's more difficult to stop before beginning to impact the tree.

In insurance they call it the "law of lugnuts" - bigger cars have better survivability in direct collisions.

However, most traffic fatalities do not come from direct collisions. They come from driver hitting immobile objects.

Smaller, lighter cars take less kinetic energy with them around corners, are easier to steer and avoid obstacles, and are more likely to stay upright when leaving the road.

The study seems to contradict this: "When broken out by size, small cars have the highest fatal accident rate while midsize and full-size cars are both below average."

And later in the study, “When two small cars collide the forces are equalized and both vehicles tend to hold up well. But if a compact hatchback and a full-size pickup truck try to occupy the same space at the same time, the smaller car always loses.”

Still. If I'm going to hit a tree, I'd rather drive a tank than a motorbike.

That's more a factor of weight distribution rather than weight itself.

EVs carry their weight lower to the ground. SUVs and pickup trucks are more top heavy. Passenger cars have a higher probability to rollover, but not that much greater than an EV.

Cars have crumple zones which a motorbike does not.

A lighter car requires less work from the crumple zone to decelerate the car into non-fatal territory than a heavy car.

Ice cars have a much higher rollover risk compared to EVs. All the data supports that along with physics. Absolutely weight distribution. Compare the heavy battery in an EV vs the heavy motor that's up a bit higher in an ice car. Pretty much any hit over around 20mph to the front quarter panel of an ice car, truck, or SUV will flip it over.