- Porsche's Taycan received top marks from safety expert Euro NCAP.
- The tests indicate overall good performance in crash protection and that the car is equipped with robust crash-avoidance technology.
- Marginal whiplash protection in the event of a rear collision caused Euro NCAP to rate the Porsche Taycan less safe than some other plug-in electric cars, like Tesla's Model 3.
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Following is a transcript of the video.
Narrator: 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.