Photo: Bimmertoday.de
Today, when I found out about the crashed i8 on the autobahn, I immediately thought about the 4-star rating the BMW i3 received in the EuroNCAP tests and how everybody hurried up to claim it’s ‘unsafe’ and ‘dangerous’. So, I started digging.
The i3 was designed for inner city usage and therefore (looking and the average speed one does inside a crowded city) I think the tests it went through weren’t actually fair. In real life, the i3 will be involved in fender benders more than in anything else. That’s where we need to see how it fares.
As it turns out, back in November, one unlucky i3 was involved in a such an accident in the Netherlands. It was a Seat Altea XL (a pretty big car by the way) that crashed into its rear end at a relatively low speed. The result?
The Seat was seriously damaged, whilst the i3 drove away almost unscathed. From the photos it seems like you’d have to look very hard and long at the Bimmer’s rear end to see exactly where it was hit and how damaged it was.
So, as it turns out, the i3 handles fender benders a lot better than conventional vehicles partially because of its CFRP body (it’s considerably more elastic than conventional steel) and because of the way it was designed, just as the designers promised. Still unconvinced?
Via: Bimmertoday
As it turns out, back in November, one unlucky i3 was involved in a such an accident in the Netherlands. It was a Seat Altea XL (a pretty big car by the way) that crashed into its rear end at a relatively low speed. The result?
The Seat was seriously damaged, whilst the i3 drove away almost unscathed. From the photos it seems like you’d have to look very hard and long at the Bimmer’s rear end to see exactly where it was hit and how damaged it was.
So, as it turns out, the i3 handles fender benders a lot better than conventional vehicles partially because of its CFRP body (it’s considerably more elastic than conventional steel) and because of the way it was designed, just as the designers promised. Still unconvinced?
Via: Bimmertoday
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