Recently, some media exposed that the Model 3 and Model Y models produced by Tesla's Shanghai factory were not equipped with knee airbags, which triggered a large number of netizens who did not know the truth for a time, and Tesla was once again buckled with the hat of "simple match".
Perhaps in the eyes of most consumers, the number of air bags is basically equal to the level of safety factor, but is this really the case?
Public information shows that BBA brands in the Chinese market, and even the mainstream models of the Volvo brand, which is known as the "safest in the world", are not equipped with leg airbags, the main reason is that leg airbags are not necessarily really safe!
A 2019 study published by the National Association of Highway Safety Insurance (IIHS) showed that the impact of knee airbags on injury risk is negligible and may actually even increase the risk in some cases.
It is understood that knee airbags are usually deployed from the lower dashboard, and they are designed to distribute the impact force to reduce leg injuries, while helping to reduce the strength of the occupant's chest and abdomen by controlling the lower body movements.
To determine whether knee airbags improve safety, IIHS researchers examined crash test data and real crash reports.
In the IIHS driver's side small area offset impact test and the forward offset impact test, the knee airbag had little effect on the dummy recorded injury measurements. In small-area impact tests, knee airbags were associated with an increased risk of injury from calf injuries and right femur injuries, but a slightly lower risk of head injury. However, there is no impact on the risk of injury in a forward offset impact.
The researchers looked at collision reports from 14 states and compared the risk of injury to vehicles with knee airbags to the risks of vehicles without knee airbags. In an analysis of real-world collisions, knee airbags reduced the overall risk of injury by half a percentage point, from 7.9 percent to 7.4 percent, but this result was not statistically significant.
Ultimately, IIHS concluded that in some accidents, knee airbags not only fail to reduce the safety risk caused by traffic accidents, but actually increase the risk of occupant injuries, there are many different design strategies to prevent the knee airbags to solve the leg and foot injuries, other options may be equally effective, in the real crash accident knee airbags may be helpful to the crew who are not wearing seat belts.
At this stage, the main reason why automakers are equipped with knee airbags is actually to help vehicles pass the statutory tests conducted by dummies without seat belts in a few countries, while creating a "safer" and "higher match" product image, the United States is a typical representative.
There is no legal test of "not wearing seat belts" in China, and Tesla does not need to add this inverted configuration in order to pass the test. As suggested by IIHS, Tesla uses different design strategies to prevent leg and foot injuries, with pre-tensioned seat belts as standard to improve safety without increasing the risk of injury to the driver.
In fact, Tesla's cars have received five-star ratings from many mainstream safety agencies around the world, including NHTSA and IIHS, and in euro NCAP's 4 safety index scores, model 3 is better than the Volvo S90, which is known for its safety, and is already "the safest car in the world", at least one.
But even a configuration that was cancelled for safety and was not available in mainstream domestic luxury models has put Tesla on the cusp of the storm again. Therefore, when netizens "eat melon", they still need to understand the truth of the event in multiple dimensions, think rationally, and avoid being misled by public opinion on the Internet.
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