Real World Crash Testing – Lessons Learned

This wasn’t the plan for today’s blog but sometimes you just have to go with the flow, and I didn’t have much option today but to refer to an incident that I was involved in yesterday.  Not sure that there are huge research insights to be drawn from this, but the experience does offer up a few interesting points about the crashworthiness of modern cars, the opportunities offered by autonomous and connected cars, and the challenges of providing a truly excellent customer experience.

Final conclusions will not be for me to decide, but as far as I can understand the situation from witnesses, another car was travelling along an urban road towards me, somehow lost control and drove into the back of a parked car which was the last in a line of five or six, punting that four or five metres down the road, and then the driver appears to have belatedly put a hard steering correction in, sending her across the road towards me.  As far as I recall and can tell from the damage, she was actually on two wheels, so the damage caused to the Tesla is an arc up from the back of the front wing, then up and along both doors before descending back to the ground over the rear wheelarch.

Although the damage to all three cars is extensive – I suspect both the others will be written off – no airbags deployed, suggesting that the force and/or angle of impact was not massive.  However, the initial impact on the Tesla was taken on the A-pillar, and the doors have then taken most of the force there as the B-pillar appears undamaged.  On the other hand, the other car at first appears to have only light damage to the front wing and door, but the shell appears distorted at the top of the C-pillar.  In a collision it provides proof that weight matters – 2+ tons of low centre of gravity Tesla will always beat 1 ton of A-segment hatchback.  It also highlights how the prescribed barrier tests are a poor substitute for the real world variety of what actually happens, and how NCAP testing is only one of the relevant measures to consider.

In respect of autonomous and connected cars, I have mixed news.  If my Tesla had been six months later build, it would have had Autopilot 2.5 hardware which would apparently have allowed me to access camera footage from the front facing and two driver side cameras, one forward, one rear facing.  The latter two would certainly have provided some interesting shots for YouTube.  Unfortunately, all I can get is digital data in terms of speed and sensor readings, which will be provided to me in the next couple days.  However, the availability of this type of data on current cars and those built in future will certainly reduce the number of disputes were liability is being contested.  You could see the delight on the face of the traffic police when I told them that it might be available.  “Job done”.

The third area of immediate interest is how Tesla coped with this.  We talk extensively in our research about franchise vs agency dealer models, but don’t give much space or time to company-owned networks like those operated by Tesla.  My experience throughout over three years of Tesla ownership has been sales scoring poorly and aftersales (what little I have used) scoring well.  This incident reinforced the latter view.  I was able to speak directly to a customer service representative on Sunday afternoon who, although not technically trained, was able to tell me whilst still at the accident scene how to go about requesting vehicle data.  When I followed up today, the service was polite, rapid, and although ultimately constrained by the vehicle hardware, helpful.

So what are my takeaways from this random incident that has intruded into my blogs?  The first is that I will pay more attention to safety ratings when choosing my next car.  The Tesla was due to go back to the lease company this week, and I had held off making a decision on a replacement until we find out what the new normal really looks like.  My partner and I (and Tara the dog) all got out of the car with nothing more than some glass cuts and muscle strains.  When I do choose a replacement, NCAP and real world injury reports will get more attention than they would have done.  Secondly, there is huge potential benefit now in speed of claims processing, repair management and customer experience if OEMs allow their customers to get the full benefit of any installed cameras, data capture and communication capabilities.  Finally, I would like to understand why Tesla can manage to deliver a great customer experience directly through aftersales, yet fail so consistently in my experience on sales.  I suspect it is related to the ever-present sales push (regardless of business model) and the process discipline typical of good aftersales departments.

In the meantime, drive safely – and keep an eye out to the side for incoming!