This is Porsche's
$103,800 all-electric Taycan.
And this is Euro NCAP's side-pole test.
Taycan, meet side-pole test.
The side pole is one of safety expert
Euro NCAP's most challenging tests.
But check out how rigid the structure of the Taycan is.
The roof barely deforms. And the A pillar,
the metal support on the side of
the windshield? It doesn't even flex.
A rigid structure, though, isn't the only thing
that Porsche did to try to make the Taycan safe.
With help from safety expert Euro NCAP,
we broke down some of the features that
put Porsche's all-electric sports car
in the company of the safest cars of 2019
and also identified some improvement areas for the Taycan.
We talked about how rigid the structure of the Taycan is.
Well, that shows itself again in crash tests like
the frontal offset deformable barrier
and the frontal full width test.
In this test, where Euro NCAP sends the Taycan
at 40 mph into a barrier representing another car,
you can see how stable the Taycan's cabin is.
In this diagram, the dummies representing
the driver and passenger were green across the body,
sustaining only slight injuries to the knees and femur.
Euro NCAP reported this as "adequate"
protection, a good result.
Now, while the rigidity of the Taycan may mean
a more stable cabin, we've seen how passengers
benefit in crashes where certain parts of the car
around them actually give way or crumple,
like a piece of paper.
In crashes, these "crumple zones" dissipate
the energy of a crash instead of passing it
on to the passengers inside.
For the Taycan, in the full-width barrier test,
the protection of all critical body areas was "good"
or "adequate" for both occupants, with the exception
of the rear passenger's chest.
The forces on the chest indicated a "marginal" level
of protection, one step down from "adequate."
The Porsche crumples, but perhaps how it crumples
could be tweaked to improve the safety of
the rear passenger in this type of collision.
In these seat and head-restraint tests,
Euro NCAP propelled a dummy with a realistic
spine on a sled at both 10 and 15 mph,
mimicking a rear collision.
This is the type of crash most likely to inflict a neck
sprain or whiplash injury.
In general, manufacturers design seats so
the headrests are as close to the back
of an occupant's head as possible.
As you can see by the orange in these diagrams,
Euro NCAP assessed only "marginal" protection for
the seat and head restraints
in both the front and rear seats.
We talked about how Euro NCAP assesses
how safe the occupants of the Taycan are.
But Euro NCAP also assesses how safe
"vulnerable road users," your pedestrians
and cyclists, are if a Taycan hits them.
One of the ways Euro NCAP tests this is by
dropping a weighted ball with sensors on it,
which is meant to simulate a pedestrian or
cyclist's head, on different parts of the hood.
Euro NCAP rated protection as "good"
or "adequate" at almost all test
locations on the hood.
Part of the assessment of the Taycan's ability
to keep people safe is the car's
ability to recognize a dummy on the road
and stop automatically.
How did the Taycan do?
Well, in these tests, the Taycan's autonomous
emergency braking detected cyclists well
and avoided or mitigated crashes in most cases.
However, with pedestrians, the Taycan didn't do so well.
In some tests at both night and day,
the Taycan detected pedestrians and slowed
but still injured the pedestrians.
Overall, Porsche's Taycan received a five-star
rating by Euro NCAP, the same rating as Tesla's
Model X, Ford's Explorer, and BMW's Z4,
other cars in Euro NCAP's Executive class.
While the Porsche Taycan scored five stars,
it only scored in the eighth percentile
of all five-star cars in its class tested in 2019,
a group of 43 cars in total.
While Euro NCAP assigned the Taycan "good" protection
scores for many of the crashes simulated,
a "marginal" whiplash rating in rear collisions for adult
occupants and average detection of pedestrians
are issues that Porsche can and should take a look at
to improve the safety rating of the Taycan.