Elon has mentioned how much they prioritized safety in designing the Model S. I'm glad to hear that their efforts have paid off.
This is great news for Tesla as it opens their market even larger as the car can appeal to those seeking safety and not just performance or lower carbon footprint.
> Elon has mentioned how much they prioritized safety in designing the Model S.
Definitely a smart move. If nothing this gives them a smaller attack surface against attacks from Tesla's competitors. You can bet they would have attached like leeches to any minor safety flaw. For example, say, a Tesla car caught on fire and its batteries ended up electrocuting a fireman -- there would be no end in sight to the letters to the editor from "concerned citizens" about fireman's family and how we won't think of his children.
Extra effort for increased safety is definitely worth it, if anything at least for marketing purposes.
>Extra effort for increased safety is definitely worth it, if anything at least for marketing purposes.
More to the point, traffic deaths are a /real danger/ - more people are killed by falling appliances than by terrorism, and we seem to think it's worth spending huge amounts of money, going to war with the rest of the world, and giving up many of our own rights to fight terrorism. For most of us? Terrorism is not a real threat. For most of us, especially us middle-class Americans, If we die before we get old? there is a pretty large chance that death will be in a traffic accident. If we want to increase safety, we should be spending thousands of dollars on auto safety for every dollar we spend "fighting terrorism"
I'd sooner spend the money on preventing night time rage from standing on Lego than on preventing terrorism. So much of the effort is utterly counter productive. I guess ago safety is probably a better use than my suggestion though.
I know what you and Elon mean here with the word "prioritized," but it's impressive just how many things on the Model S were a priority. Safety, performance, style, technology, experience, efficiency, etc. Where it seems most manufacturers set a few priorities and then fail to deliver on some of those, it seems the Model S had several and met them all. Of course, I end up sounding like an evangelist saying that.
This is great news for Tesla as it opens their market even larger as the car can appeal to those seeking safety and not just performance or lower carbon footprint.