Electric cars are so heavy that a gasoline car doesn’t have a chance against it in a car crash, making electric cars a safety hazard. Batteries are heavy.
Take the GMC Hummer EV as an example. The Edition 1 version, which has several batteries for additional driving range and power, weighs over 9,000 pounds. That’s roughly three times the weight of a Honda Civic.
According to insurance claim statistics, in terms of crash safety, that extra weight actually helps people inside electric vehicles. They don’t have large metal engines, giving passengers in the cabin more cushioning, but it’s bad news for people they hit, says CNN based on insurance reports.
THEY ARE MORE DANGEROUS
Global Insurance Company says electric cars are more dangerous than gasoline-powered cars. They blame the incredible damage they cause on incredible acceleration and the increased weight. They will lead to increased pedestrian deaths says a Swiss insurance company. This was determined during crash tests.
“A look at the accident statistics of AXA Switzerland shows that drivers of electric cars cause 50 percent more collisions with damage to their own vehicles than those of conventional combustion engines,” the insurance giant said in a German-language statement titled, ominously, “AXA Crash Tests 2022 — More collisions and new risks from e-cars.”
The company attributed the higher damage from crashes to what it called “the overtapping effect” that causes electric cars to accelerate far faster than their conventional counterparts using the same amount of force on the acceleration pedal. The “overtapping effect” is “likely to be the reason for the increased claims frequency for high-performance electric cars,” the company added.
“Most electric cars, especially the powerful ones, have a very high torque, which is immediately noticeable when you tap the power pedal. This can result in unwanted, jerky acceleration, which the driver can no longer control,” said Michael Pfäffli, head of accident research at AXA Switzerland.
An article in the Atlantic expresses concerns for bicyclists and walkers.
Deaths among both pedestrians and cyclists recently reached 40-year highs in the U.S., and researchers have found vehicle size to be a cause. Bigger cars pose greater danger because of their height, which expands blind spots and makes the vehicle more likely to strike a person’s torso instead of their legs, and because of their weight, which adds force in a crash and elongates braking distances.
Autoblog said researchers had found a direct correlation between pedestrian fatalities and the weight of the offending vehicle. Equally troubling, the blind spot in front of hulking pickup truck hoods can be up to 11 feet longer than that of sedans, according to a recent Consumer Reports study.
The insurance industry, however, sees EV pilots tending to have cleaner driving records than their petrol-powered peers; specifically, they speed less and log fewer miles. A 2020 study from the Highway Loss Data Institute found that electric vehicles were tied to roughly 20% fewer claims than similar vehicles running on gas. However, the severity of their claims was slightly higher.
But what happens if everyone has an EV, as is the plan? That will take in people with bad driving records.
SO WHAT?
However, the findings don’t stop the push since they cause lower emissions. [If you die for lower emissions or have higher insurance costs, so be it?]
Roads will also need to be restructured to handle the weight.
Doug Mensman, Director of Transportation for the City of Los Angeles, said to include that in the budget.
“If it is going to have to be just additional or more frequent infrastructure maintenance or reconstruction,” he said, “then that may be the price that we, as a society, decide that we’re willing to factor into future budgets to get these benefits.”
Is the science settled? Do people really know that reduced carbon emissions will mean a hill of beans? We’ll have to wait a hundred years to see. Since we’ll all be dead, we won’t be able to hold anyone accountable. The fact that electrifying everything means we are wholly reliant on Maoist China doesn’t seem to bother anyone, and that bothers me.
That being said, EVs are very cool, but maybe we shouldn’t try to force everyone to have one? The one-size-fits-all could be the problem here.
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