Tesla Model 3 Gets 5-Star Safety Award

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Tesla Model 3 Gets 5-Star Safety Award

© Courtesy of Tesla

It is very rare when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) division of the Department of Transportation gives a vehicle its highest safety rating, which is five stars, across its eight tests. The Model 3 from Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) now has that distinction. It extends a series of tests that have lauded all Tesla vehicles for their safety.

The version of the car tested was the 2018 Model 3 four-door with rear-wheel drive. It received five stars for “front driver side” and “front passenger side” collisions, which are measured when two vehicles of similar size crash at 35 miles per hour.

Tesla also received five stars for the “overall side star rating,” which “Combines Side Barrier and Side Pole Star Ratings into a single side rating.” In the subcategory “side barrier rating,” it received five stars. This “simulates an intersection collision between a standing vehicle and moving barrier at 38.5 mph.” The Model 3 also received five stars in the subcategories of side bar and poll ratings for its front and rear seats. The “side bar” rating for front and rear seats received five stars, as did for the “overall side bar rating,” which stimulates a crash into a fixed object.

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Finally, it won five stars in the “rollover rating,” which “measures the risk of rollover in a single-vehicle, loss-of-control scenario.”

While the measurements are complex, they give another reason why Tesla is considered the safety gold standard. All Tesla models have been built with features to protect passengers better than any other cars on the road. Demand for the Model 3 has been impressive. Tesla, as a matter of fact, cannot make enough of them to suit demand. Current production of the Model 3 is about 6,000 vehicles a week. Part of the attraction of the car is that its price is well below other Tesla models and eventually will be as low as $35,000. Tesla has another reason to say the Model 3 is too good to be true, perhaps because it is.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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