Elon Musk took a jab at Volvo while talking about the Tesla Model 3’s crash test
Videos shown at an event of Model 3 and Volvo S60 crash tests
By Bryan Logan
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took a jab at Volvo while talking about safety features on the Tesla Model 3, his company’s new entry-level electric car.
During a handover event at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, Friday night, Musk showed a video that he said displayed side-by-side clips of a Model 3 and a 2016 Volvo S60 undergoing the same crash test.
The test is a type of side-impact crash simulation that mimics a car colliding sideways into a pole at 20mph which, in this test, would typically cause major damage to the driver-side door and a portion of the roof.
The video appeared to show that the Volvo S60, which achieved a five-star crash safety rating in all categories according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was damaged more severely than the Model 3.
“There’s a lot of cars that say they’re five-star — they are five-star— though that’s not a scientific metric,” Musk said. “Even something like the Volvo — great car. By normal standards, very safe. The Volvo is arguably the second-safest car in the world,” he said, eliciting laughs and applause from the audience.
“It is obvious which car you would prefer to be in, in an accident.”