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NHTSA Discounts Tesla’s “Safest Car” Claim for Model 3
Tesla Inc. has no basis for describing its Model 3 electric car is the “safest car ever built,” says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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Tesla Inc. has no basis for describing its Model 3 electric car is the “safest car ever built,” says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Tesla made the claim on Sunday after the Model 3 scored 5-star ratings in NHTSA’s crash and rollover tests. Several other cars also have achieve the same top scores. Without mentioning Tesla specifically, the agency emphasizes that it does not further rank 5-star vehicles among themselves.
Tesla also declares the Model 3 has “the lowest probability of injury of all cars” ever tested by NHTSA. Other safety experts say the company misinterprets safety data to reach that conclusion.
Bloomberg News notes that NHTSA guidelines for referring to its test results in ads and other communications cautions that it would be misleading to use such terms as “safest” and “perfect.” NHTSA issued a similar warning five years ago when Tesla created its own 6-star rating system based on NHTSA results and awarded itself a safety score of 5.4 stars.
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