hot-airbags

I'm amazed at how much coverage has been given to the fact that Tesla received a waiver allowing the Roadster to be produced without advanced airbags that vary deployment based on the weight of the passenger. The waiver is no different than what other small manufacturers including Lotus, Ferrari, and Bugatti have received. Interestingly, the slant of most of the reporting has been that Tesla is being exempted from this requirement because we are an EV company, which has nothing to do with it. For crying out loud the Bugatti Veyron received the same waiver. What is worse is that some reporters did not take the time to understand what the waiver is about and implied that the Roadster is unsafe, or worse that it doesn't have airbags at all (!)

I have to give credit to Automotive News and Bernadine Williams, the only reporter who bothered to do any real reporting on this and called me to ask what our perspective was. The original AP report was derived from the federal register that recorded the decision (a reasonable source) but did not call for comment.

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NHTSA grants airbag waiver to Tesla


Bernadine Williams

Automotive News | February 1, 2008 - 2:58 pm EST

DETROIT — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration granted Tesla Motors a temporary exemption from complying with airbag standards imposed in 2006. The electric-car manufacturer filed a petition for exemption in July 2007, according to the federal register.

The amended standard requires automakers to equip their vehicles with advanced airbag systems that deploy based on the size of the passenger. The standard was put in place to protect smaller passengers from injuries caused by airbags.

The waiver gives Tesla three years before it has to equip the Tesla Roadster with the advanced airbags. The Roadster still will have standard airbags for all passengers.

“We want to include the airbag technology three years from now. We are planning to continue to develop technology that meets safety standards,” said Darryl Siry, Tesla’s vice president of marketing.

The California-based company received the exemption after NHTSA determined that forcing the company to comply with the standard could put it out of business. Tesla suffered $43 million in operating costs in 2002 to 2006, according to the Detroit Free Press.

NHTSA also determined that Tesla displayed substantial effort to comply with the airbag standard. According to Siry, the waiver is the same as those received by Ferrari and other sports car manufacturers.

“There is a prohibitive cost in developing the system. This saves us millions of dollars,” Siry said. “If we were a larger corporation like your GMs and Fords, we could put the cost into the price of the car.”

In a letter from Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the organization noted: “NHTSA demonstrated that fatality risk to drivers and adult passengers in frontal crashes did not change significantly with the airbag redesign.”

Siry told Automotive News: “The Roadster is very safe. It has passed all federal safety tests.”

To ensure safety, Roadster owners will be warned, upon delivery of the vehicle, about allowing children to ride in the front seat. “But it is not too often that you see children in the front seat of a sports car,” Siry said.

The Tesla Roadster goes into production March 17 with a base price of $98,950, including delivery. Siry said the company is working on a sedan, code-named White Star, for 2011 that will have the advanced airbag system. The automaker has yet to release an official name or pricing information for the sedan.