2014 LEAF gets "Poor" rating in Small Overlap IIHS test

[TomT]

But conversely, a lot of other cars did well in this "new" test... This means that they were either lucky (unlikely) or that they were originally designed with other crash scenarios in mind as well, such as what this new test emulates, rather than just designing to pass the existing tests...

The salient point is that this tests simulates the type of crash that often occurs in the real world and thus a vehicles ability to protect the occupants from such a crash is highly relevant.

Fair enough. Consider, though, that this happens every time a new test is introduced.

 

[camasleaf]

I am glad they are doing the new test. It will just get car companies to consider other types of crashes besides the normal head-on, side and back. In reality there are a plethora of accidents that occur of this corner overlap type, so its nice to see it being addressed.

I am wondering how close to real life these tests are. Unless asleep, in most cases the driver will try to avoid the colision. How will that change the impact? There were some pictures here on the forum of a Leaf that hit a school bus, pretty close to what the test tries to simulate. The damage was a lot less than what the test shows.

I am still going to get a Leaf in October when the lease expires. I am not woried much about these test results. I am woried that the insurance will go up.

 

[bbrowncods]

I am woried that the insurance will go up.

Marginally less resale value and higher insurance will be the result. Maybe a slight decrease in new car sales for a month then back up to normal.

 

[pkulak]

I was seriously considering buying a leaf until I saw the news this morning. They said the dummies in the leafs had their faces broken. Ouch! I Don't feel like dying to save a few bucks on gas. If I want to live that dangerously, I'll buy another motorcycle.

I do love the concept of the car though. I'll consider it if they ever get their safety ratings back up.

You are out of your freaking mind if you think a "poor" rating on one test makes a Leaf even in the same league as a motorcycle. They don't call those things "donor bikes" for nothing.

30,000 people die every year on US roads. Driving is the most dangerous thing you can do unless your a soldier or a gang banger. This means the Leaf is some tiny fraction of a percent more likely to get your killed. Drive 20 less miles a month and it will probably even out.

 

[CmdrThor]

I wonder how much of the poor rating is based on safety of the human occupants, and how much is based on the $$ property damage caused by this type of wreck. This is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety after all and two of the categories the LEAF got a poor in don't seem to have anything to do with injuries.

 

[cgaydos]

I wonder how much of the poor rating is based on safety of the human occupants, and how much is based on the $$ property damage caused by this type of wreck. This is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety after all and two of the categories the LEAF got a poor in don't seem to have anything to do with injuries.

They test for both and do ratings on both. Keep in mind that payouts for injuries, while less frequent in number than for car damage, can be 10x or even 100x the cost of the payout for the car. So both are factors insurance cares about.

In answer to other questions, the tests are designed to create apples-to-apples comparisons between all cars using a few tests that best represent the majority of types of crashes. In actual crashes the damage may be more or less depending on vehicle speed, angle, flexibility of the object being hit, etc. It also makes sense that auto makers design to the specific conditions of the tests, which is why tests need to be revised periodically - to avoid the situation where the car does great in the test but not so well in similar crashes.

 

[Nubo]

Other factors aside, future model year sales will be difficult if a poor rating is continued forward. Surely some redesign will be needed. I'm wondering if this might hasten arrival of LEAF version 2...

 

[TomT]

It is based almost entirely on how badly injured the occupant would be. Vehicle damage only enters in to the equation when it would have some impact on the occupant.

I wonder how much of the poor rating is based on safety of the human occupants, and how much is based on the $$ property damage caused by this type of wreck. This is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety after all and two of the categories the LEAF got a poor in don't seem to have anything to do with injuries.

 

[bbrowncods]

Would this be considered a defective vehicle that would require Nissan to fix or replace?

 

[LeftieBiker]

Would this be considered a defective vehicle that would require Nissan to fix or replace?

No, not unless it was sold with the assertion that it had gotten a high score on that test, and it wasn't. It might be possible to add impact-absorbing foam inside the front fenders to maybe improve the offset impact performance, but Nissan isn't going to do that with existing Leafs.

 

[bbrowncods]

No, not unless it was sold with the assertion that it had gotten a high score on that test, and it wasn't.

But it was sold under the assertion that it is a safe vehicle. The score on the test is irrelevant. The results of the test proves the vehicle is not safe in a partial front collision and will cause severe injury in that type of collision. Which, by the way, causes 25% of all frontal collision deaths.
It should be corrected as a safety recall (in my opinion).

 

[mctom987]

No, not unless it was sold with the assertion that it had gotten a high score on that test, and it wasn't.

But it was sold under the assertion that it is a safe vehicle. The score on the test is irrelevant. The results of the test proves the vehicle is not safe in a partial front collision and will cause severe injury in that type of collision. Which, by the way, causes 25% of all frontal collision deaths.
It should be corrected as a safety recall (in my opinion).

Maybe you should buy this SUV

 

[GRA]

No, not unless it was sold with the assertion that it had gotten a high score on that test, and it wasn't.

But it was sold under the assertion that it is a safe vehicle. The score on the test is irrelevant. The results of the test proves the vehicle is not safe in a partial front collision and will cause severe injury in that type of collision. Which, by the way, causes 25% of all frontal collision deaths.
It should be corrected as a safety recall (in my opinion).

Safe from what? A meteor strike? Hellfire missile? Tsunami/earthquake? No, it was sold as having passed at least the minimum safety tests required in each of the countries it was sold, and maybe exceed some or all of those tests by a healthy margin. That it does poorly on a test introduced after the car was designed is hardly the fault of the car or the designers. It's just as safe as it was when it was introduced, there's just a new test that shows that its less safe in those particular conditions than some other cars.

 

[kubel]

I wonder how much of the poor rating is based on safety of the human occupants, and how much is based on the $$ property damage caused by this type of wreck. This is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety after all and two of the categories the LEAF got a poor in don't seem to have anything to do with injuries.

Repairing the LEAF after a collision is expensive, but it's nothing compared to repairing a human body.

Also, consider that any car that's in a small overlap, moderate overlap, or side impact collision similar to these tests will almost certainly be totaled. So if the rankings were biased based on repairs and not just humans, they wouldn't be ranking cars like the Mercedes E-Class as a TSP+, because they would have a significantly higher replacement cost than the LEAF.

 

[bbrowncods]

Wild exaggerations are immature and add nothing to the discussion.

GRA, you are correct that the vehicle has met minimum certification requirements under U.S. regulations. Nissan can do better than that, and should do better than that. Other car companies have "Good" ratings with their cars on this "new test". Why can't Nissan?

I did look at Consumer Reports and the safety data prior to purchasing. I don't expect a bomb proof car, but I expect that when a safety flaw is discovered (as this test has), that it be corrected. A manufacturing flaw, or a design flaw are both the same in seriousness. Ask GM.

If Nissan will crush 200+ cars over 6 spot welds, I expect no less concern on their part over this.

The Leaf performed at a level just above the Mazda5 whose side airbag failed to deploy - next to last out of 12. Pitiful!

 

[TomT]

No, it passed all the required DOT safety tests at the time of manufacture. These IIHS tests test at a level beyond what the manufacturers are required to meet.

Should the minimum level that manufacturers are required to meet be raised? Probably, but that is a topic for another conversation...

Would this be considered a defective vehicle that would require Nissan to fix or replace?

 

[LeftieBiker]

There seems to be a misunderstanding here: that because the salescreature can say "Look, this is a safe car! It got four stars (or whatever) on the Front impact test!", that this equates to a legal standard being met. Alas, no. Not only are individual salespeople not held responsible for claims that they make, but the IIHS tests have nothing to do with US government safety standards. It isn't good, but it isn't illegal.

That it does poorly on a test introduced after the car was designed is hardly the fault of the car or the designers.

Here we have the opposite extreme - asuming that Nissan had nothing but the best intentions. Gods forbid that Nissan try to make the car safe by Real World standards (as Mercedes and Volvo once did), rather than design it to just do well on IIHS crash tests! That would cost serious money! What we will see next is a redesign, of the next version of the Leaf, to improve its score on this test, specifically. Then maybe yet another test will come out that it will fail...

 

[roperld]

The overlap tests made me think about the fact that BEVs have a large mass behind the front seat with inertia that pushes forward during crashes. BEVs are going to need more crumple zone in front than ICEs.
Surely the 2017 new LEAF will have a better crumple zone in front than the current LEAF.
The LEAF overlap results make me lean more toward the MBCED, with the crash-prevention options, when my LEAF lease expires in May 2015.

 

[RonDawg]

Wild exaggerations are immature and add nothing to the discussion.

GRA, you are correct that the vehicle has met minimum certification requirements under U.S. regulations. Nissan can do better than that, and should do better than that. Other car companies have "Good" ratings with their cars on this "new test". Why can't Nissan?

I did look at Consumer Reports and the safety data prior to purchasing. I don't expect a bomb proof car, but I expect that when a safety flaw is discovered (as this test has), that it be corrected. A manufacturing flaw, or a design flaw are both the same in seriousness. Ask GM.

If Nissan will crush 200+ cars over 6 spot welds, I expect no less concern on their part over this.

The Leaf performed at a level just above the Mazda5 whose side airbag failed to deploy - next to last out of 12. Pitiful!

As mentioned already, but I think that this needs to be repeated, ALL cars that are sold new in this country must meet the NHTSA (government) crash tests. It is illegal to sell a new car here that does not meet that model year's safety and emissions standards.

The IIHS tests are sponsored by the insurance industry, and are above and beyond what the government requires. The insurance companies do that to help set rates for new cars by predicting repair and injury costs. Car companies will often go out of their way to advertise a good rating, but it is not required.

I was at my local Nissan dealer yesterday and a service technician spent perhaps 30 minutes trying to reassure the owner of a new Leaf whom I could see holding a printout of the recent IIHS tests. The owner claimed what you are, and that the car is no longer safe. Well, it is safe as of the standards in place at the time of its design. It is not "defective" as you claim.

No carmaker will ever tell you that their cars are "safe" because that is a relative term. If a cement truck full of concrete topples onto you, there is no car in existence that will protect you. They (under the watchful eye of their lawyers) will only state how the car did in certain tests.

As far as the 6 welds being missing from 200 cars, the reason that there was a recall lwas because with those welds missing, the car no longer met the safety parameters in place at the time the car was designed. It may still have met the NHTSA standard, but not the standards Nissan has intended for the car.

I personally think there's a bad side to designing a car to meet the ever increasing standards of IIHS. All those safety structures and active safety systems like air bags and stability control add cost and weight to the car. Has anybody noticed how roof pillars are getting massive? I have, and it makes seeing out of the car much more difficult. The visibility (especially when backing) out of my 2006 Audi A3 is far superior to that of the Leaf.

It seems like we are slowly replacing being able to drive safely and actively avoiding accidents with an expectation that the car take care of it for us. I'm not sure I like that.

 

[LeftieBiker]

No carmaker will ever tell you that their cars are "safe" because that is a relative term.

Their salespeople, OTOH, will do it at the drop of a hat. As for cars getting heavier and more complex, I'd rather have a slightly heavy car that gets 40MPG *and* provides adequate protection in a crash than have a car that gets 43MPG and doesn't. The roof pillars are indeed annoying, but then so is having your roof collapse in a rollover. What I would like to see is less 'building for the tests' and more 'building for real life crashes'.