Ultra-Heavy EVs Will Easily Demolish Nation’s Unprepared Guard Rail System
from the once-again-we-aren't-prepared dept
The U.S. is a global leader in traffic-related fatalities, with a thirty-percent jump in the last decade. That’s in contrast to every other developed country, which saw a decline.
So, of course, it’s a perfect time to flood American highways with a parade of extremely heavy EVs with unprecedented acceleration. Some of which are extremely pointy and feature half-cooked automation technology with a growing body count.
The dual-motor Cybertruck weighs 6603 pounds, while the three-motor Cyberbeast weighs in at 6843 pounds. The electric Ford Lightning weighs 6,500 pounds. The Hummer EV is even heavier, clocking in at 9,000 pounds, with a battery alone weighing more than a Honda Civic.
Experts have pointed out the significant safety ramifications of this transition for a while, but U.S. officials have yet to prepare the regulatory and policy landscape.
There are steps that regulators could take to get ahead of the problem and minimize fatalities, such as a scaling tax on vehicles over a certain weight. Or regulations designed to limit the ever-growing grills on giant vehicles (even big truck owners think trucks have gotten too big).
The U.S. is, of course, doing none of that. We’re also not preparing the road infrastructure — including basic things like guard rails — for our new daily driving reality.
The University of Nebraska was recently the latest to conduct a study on what ultra-heavy EVs do to our existing guard rails, which aren’t really designed to handle impacts beyond 5,000 pounds. As it turns out, when vehicles that weigh more than 7,000 pounds impact guard rails not designed for anything over 5,000 pounds, bad things happen:
“Last October, the researchers directed a passengerless 2022 Rivian R1T truck weighing around 7,000 pounds toward an MGS guardrail at 62 mph and a 25-degree angle, reflecting common highway crash conditions. The Rivian demolished the guardrail, passing through it before striking a concrete barrier that the researchers had installed as a backstop.”
The rush toward heavier EVs will result in everybody upgrading to bigger, heavier, and less efficient vehicles in an act of family and self protection. Add badly constructed and poorly regulated automation into the mix, and things get messier still.
It would cost $8 billion to upgrade the nation’s MGS guard rail system to protect public safety, so we aren’t going to do that because getting out ahead of obvious, avoidable problems isn’t really our thing. We’re going to wait until long after a parade of people die, at which point we might start thinking about implementing more meaningful physical and regulatory safeguards. Maybe.
Filed Under: auto safety, consumer protection, consumer safety, electric vehicles, EVs, regulators, vehicles, weight tax
Comments on “Ultra-Heavy EVs Will Easily Demolish Nation’s Unprepared Guard Rail System”
??
most US roads have no guard rails at all
US roads have always been loaded with Heavy vehicles — trucks, buses, etc
Re: YEP
its told on the sides, Max weight.
15,000.
Im sorry to say this, but UPS and 90% of all the trucks on the major freeways, the trailers are Heavier then mentioned above.
And if you have never seen What a trailer can do to the Cad/truck section. DONT WORRY, as you arnt missing much, as there isnt Much left of Anything in that cab.
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Apparently Karl is a shill for Big Oil and will take any chance to write an Anti-Tesla/EV hit piece.
You’ll note the negative characterization of driving assistants and their “growing body count” instead of giving proper credit for the number of lives they have saved. Mile for mile, AutoPilot is 1/3 as likely to be involved in a deadly accident, and FSD has only been involved in a single fatality despite being used for over 500 million miles (meaning statistically, it should have been involved in about 7 fatalities).
But, why let facts and actual statistics get in the way of anti EV FUD! Facts and statistics don’t pay as well as big oil.
Re: Re:
If Karl is shill for Big Oil, you’re just as much a shill for the automotive industry in general.
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More.of a Tesla fanboy (from before we knew Elon was bonkers) who, despite Elon’s current rhetoric, is still sick of all the FUD being spread by Big Oil, and the negative statistics that ignore all of the benefits of driving assistants.
I don’t know about you, but I’d much prefer to have a 1/500,000,000 chance per mile of being killed by a half-baked autonomous vehicle than the current 1.7/100,000,000 chance per mile of being killed by another random idiot behind the wheel (including myself in that statistic), but all anyone ever talks about is how horrible it is that it killed a person, and “how dare we let a Beta operate on the roads!!”.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
self driving, remember, the software that controls that was written by a half baked autonomous idiot, ones that gave us the blue screen of death and who knows what else..
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:2 Re:
Most drivers are already half baked.
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FTFY. YW.
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Yes. Something you seem to be missing the standards they are held to over regular car drivers.
Re: Re:
As a point of reference: historically, few people with ordinary driving licenses would regularly operate anything heavier than a pick-up truck. The Ford F-150 is a popular model, and most versions are in the 4000-5000 pound range; one would have to be pretty heavily laden to exceed 6000.
(Rental trucks, such as U-Haul moving trucks, might weigh more, but most users rent them only rarely. As such, smart road users will try to stay away from those trucks—and we now know that this applies even if they’re on the other side of a guardrail.)
I don’t think the Hummers are worth mentioning here. Yes, they’re absurdly big, but hasn’t that always been their main selling point? They’re not fooling anyone, any more than RVs or converted school buses.
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I can only address US road design and vehicle operations because that is what I am familiar with.
TLDR: Guard rails only are placed where the risks are deemed high enough. Unlike operators of traditional heavy vehicles, EV operators are less likely to understand that guard rails are not adequate for their vehicles. The common understanding has not been updated to reflect the new conditions so people are more likely to make bad risk calculations and needs to be revised.
First, many public roads do not have guard rails because they are simply not necessary enough to justify the costs (money is king, especially in the public sector where the money comes from taxes). The risks of going off the road have to exceed certain guidelines to justify the costs. This varies by the location as roadway design has to be compliant with federal, state, and sometimes county, local municipality, and other regulations. If the worst that is likely to happen is that you may need to call a tow truck with a winch to get you out of the mud, no guard rail will be installed.
To address your second point, you are correct that there are many vehicles over 5,000 lbs GVW on the roads but the biggest difference is who is going to be operating the vehicle. Most heavy vehicles require a CDL or some other form of specialty license. Part of the training for a CDL trying to change the risk assessment values of the operator. Heavy vehicle training includes things like if a small to medium-sized non-human animal jumps in front of the vehicle, just go through it because that is less dangerous to both the driver and everyone around the vehicle compared to trying to do an emergency maneuver that induces loss of control of the vehicle. One of those risk factor adjustments they get taught is that guardrails will not help them. So typically the operator is driving more cautiously when guard rails are present because they know there are increased risks and the protection is not going to help much. The problem is most EVs do not require any training above a standard license, which means that the majority of the people driving EVs are relying on training on risk factors of a lighter vehicle. They are operating with an understanding that guard rails have a good chance to save their lives. They may not drive as cautiously as they should because they are relying on this faulty understanding of the risks. There is also the possibility they are less than familiar with the acceleration and stopping characteristics of their EV.
Heavier then a Honda Civic???
Consider all the ROADS in the USA being upgraded to handle HEAVY vehicles.
How much is that going to cost? And ITS YOU paying for it.
And if not Done RIGHT, will need to be done on Major freeways YEARLY.
Is this really as important as someone getting to drive their penis replacements around?
Re: 25% chicken tax
Go look this up Bob. Some great video on Youtube about this. ITS FUNNY.
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What does this have to do with trans people?
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Our question to you, derailing dickhead. Are you the one taking out guardrails in super-heavy SUVs?
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No I would use a tractor of one sort or another. I would only use a super heavy suv if it was old and not worth anything, like a one year old EV.
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Plus I wasn’t the one who mentioned penis replacements
The problem isn’t specifically EVs though. EVs, because their batteries are currently heavier than gas tanks, just exacerbate the existing problem of Americans thinking they “need” larger and larger vehicles.
Which they don’t.
The root cause, however, can be traced to Detroit automakers who, when fuel economy standards started being imposed on cars, put passenger compartments on truck chassis. The latter were also not (initially) subject to the same safety requirements as passenger cars. The profit margin on these was HUGE and automakers promoted the fuck out of them. The money they made saved the companies.
There’s no reason these companies could not manufacture and market smaller cars–except that they don’t make as much money on them per unit, so they won’t. They could make smaller EVs too, especially once we start developing batteries with higher energy density.
My Chevy Bolts averaged about 4.0 miles/kWh. My Ford Mustang Mach-E “only about 3.3-3.4 miles/kWh. (It’s size is the one thing I’m not a big fan of.) Meanwhile, the upcoming MINI EVs are expected to hit 200 miles of range, which would be just shy of 4 miles/kWh.
What we need are CAFE standards for EVs. Standards with teeth in then, for individual vehicles and for fleets. CAFE standards with teeth should be a fairly effective counter against the tide of monster vehicles invading our public spaces.
Re: EV effeciency
Agree with your comments. When I was shopping around my main focus was on miles/kWh as this would result in the lowest charging cost and quickest charging time per miles driven. I went with a Tesla Model 3 RWD with the no-upcharge Aero wheels and have been getting slightly better than the rated 0.25kWh/mile.
Most EV articles/reviews focus on the range and very little on the efficiency. This leads to installing bigger battery packs in less effecient cars.
Re: Anecdote time!
The proper response to this is: Your Mileage May Vary.
A few years back, I was in need of a new car to replace my 25 year old Chevy Cavalier (ie Second Generation).
I’d a friend at the time, who was both tall (6’6″ or so) and portly. He was big, but not at “stare as he walks by” levels. As he was the passenger I most often had, I was looking for a car he could get in and out of comfortably. He’d had only a very little difficulty with the Cavalier.
Took him with me, car shopping. Some of the makes we tried had not a single vehicle he could enter, even going to SUV sizes. Sometimes the roof was too low, or the door frame too narrow. Some, the space between the dash and the seat back (or the seat front!) was too small.
I finally found something he could get in and out of: A used Crown Victoria. … which by that time was already perhaps 6-8 years old. It does not get great gas mileage, but it did meet an important criteria for me: my friend could enter, exit, and sit in comfort.
Sure. Anecdotes are not data. Exceptions apply in everything. But sometimes you really, honestly do need a bigger car than is being widely offered.
Re: Re:
Definitely agree with the YMMV; both the situation you describe and people who actually need, say, work trucks. Like my did who owned his own drywall business and hauled around not only a truckbed-full of tools but often several sheets of sheetrock anywhere from 8-to-12 feet long.
That said, I’m 6’0″ tall and…not small…and I had several inches of headroom in my MINIs that I owned before my EVs. Yet a Honda that I sat in once that was praised for its roominess my legs were cramped in the driver’s seat. Interior design can really make a difference when it comes to the safety and comfort of differently sized people.
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Chicken Tax also needs to piss off too. That’s another part of the reason why there are so many huge cars in the US.
So many men with small penises walking around looking for ways to compensate.
I was reading just today about folks with EVs who found that they needed to replace their tires at 5,000 to 7,000 miles, less than 10% the normal wear time.
This may, though have been “EV using normal tires” vs “EV using EV specific tires”. There was insufficient context to be able to tell.
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The traditional model to pavement design stress on roads is relative to the fourth power of the axel weight of a vehicle (pavement design, Fourth Power Law). If that relation was 1:1 to tire wear the same vehicle with double the weight should be wearing the tire 16x (2^4) faster, so around a 6% normal wear time.
Re: Only if you drive like an asshole
I JUST replaced my tires on a 2022 Model Y LR AWD, at 60,000 miles. If you are driving FAST, or accelerating at max every single time, yes, you will get more tire wear. If you drive like a normal person, the tires last just fine!
An associated problem is that many of the nation’s guardrails are already improperly installed and maintained. Not just a lack of maintenance, but bad maintenance.
FUD. Pure FUD. Knock it off.
The curb weight of a REGULAR F-150 is from 4,021 pounds to 5,740 pounds. Not THAT much lighter than the Cyberbeast you quote in your article.
Yes, the Hummer EV is a pig, but everyone knows that…it’s bad engineering. But most of the other EVs aren’t that much heavier than normal “light duty” trucks!
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Is it? Remember that it’s engineered as a light military vehicle, and seems pretty well respected in that role.
Yeah, there’s a civilian version that some people are using as a heavy car, but I don’t think it was re-engineered for that (just some minor cosmetic re-design).
Re: Re:
To correct myself, it appears that the electric version, specifically, was first created as a civilian vehicle. Still, I suspect most of the aspects we might consider “bad” for civilian use, such as the weight and the giant chassis, were mostly military engineering.
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There is no “military engineering” in the Hummer EV, it was never designed for any military application.
Re: Re: Re:2
Do you have a reference for that? My assumption was that they took the basic shape of the vehicle, at least, from the original civilian Hummer, which was directly descended from a military vehicle. But I couldn’t easily find a statement either way.
Re: Re: Re:3
Huge difference between the H1 (civ ver of mil) and the H2.
Re: Re: Re:3
There have been countless articles written and videos made about it, none of which I’ve seen mention any connection to or influence from the military.
Correct, it’s a styling and marketing exercise for the under-endowed, the same way the old H2 and H3 were.
Re: Re:
Yes, it’s objectively engineered like crap. See videos below for more detail on why:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB_vDkaO3hU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpxxLHoVlDU
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The Fords are from 16% to 41% lighter. Even if we say the 16% difference is minor, 41% really isn’t. Particularly when the Cyberbeast is 37% above the maximum guardrail-spec weight, and the lightest Ford is 20% below the maximum.
If 1% below means I’ll stay on the road, and 1% above means I’ll fall off the cliff, it doesn’t really matter that it’s only a 100-pound difference.
EVs aren’t necessarily appreciably heavier. I had an Audi A4 that weighed just under 2 tons. Now I have a Tesla Model 3 that weighs just over. It’s a bigger car and the weight difference is small. Unfortunately Americans like gargantuan trucks, which weigh a lot.
All in all, though, it’s still not the car’s or the carmaker’s fault that so many drivers just plain suck at driving. It’s not so much that there are cars that are “unsafe at any speed” but that there are drivers who just can’t seem to pay attention or think straight once they get behind the wheel.
Wear and tear on roads
Years ago I read an article, back when trucks were becoming bigger, which talked about the wear and tear on roads, especially the historic cobblestone streets. Yet car makers are making even heavier trucks, which will further damage the roads.
So, forget about guard rails- what are we doing about ordinary roads that weren’t designed for so many too-heavy vehicles?
And who’s to blame?
Customers who want bigger and heavier cars because they seem safer?
Or car makers (such as Ford) who think customers want big trucks, so that’s all they make, forcing customers to think that’s the only choice available?
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Probably the same thing we always do: basically nothing. When the potholes get big enough to start damaging vehicles, haphazardly throw a bit of asphalt into most but not all of them. Complain about the lack of funding for “our crumbling infrastructure”.
Truck Epidemic
Sure, lets talk about heavy vehicles. This table from the BTS says from 1992-2002, we increased “light” trucks weighing between 6,001-10,000 lbs by 268%. There were 17 million of them on the road.
https://www.bts.gov/content/number-trucks-weight
This chart shows that after years of staying competitive, light truck sales exploded in 2015 and in 2022 there were 3.7 times more trucks sold than cars.
https://www.bts.gov/content/new-and-used-passenger-car-sales-and-leases-thousands-vehicles
Parking structures?
Parking structures are built with assumptions about average vehicle weight. Will the move to EVs require retrofits or replacement of many parking structures?
Where I live, guardrails frequently are in place to keep people from plunging over cliffs. And drivers are used to the idea that there’s a guardrail, making the blithe assumption that they can drive like idiots and the guardrail will protect them. EVs will be a good way to reduce to population of idiot drivers, I guess.
I Blame the EPA
To the point that we should disincentivize larger vehicles, efficiency regulations are doing the opposite.
https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM?si=ZcBoykdvzsrvoTqn
Load of fake nonsense!!!!
The guardrails in most states and across the majority of the interstate system are rated for over 100k lbs of impact.
If they are less than that take it up with the state or county or town who is ignoring the basic facts of commercial transportation.
My petrol fired hemi powered suv has a curb weight of 6932 empty. Heavier than most EVs. I’ll bring that to 15-20 with a load without trailer. And close to 40 under full load.
Evs have nothing on the weight of work trucks and a semi will laugh at it.