Tesla Model X & Porsche Taycan Receive 5-Star Safety Ratings In Europe

Euro NCAP has published safety tests granting 5-star ratings to both the Tesla Model X and Porsche Taycan. The Model X had higher scores: 94% for Safety Assist and 98% for adult occupant protection. Its safety assist score was the same as the Model 3’s, which received one of the highest overall Euro NCAP scores ever given.

Image Credit: Tesla

There were two components of the adult occupant protection evaluation. On the Frontal Offset Deformable Barrier test, the vehicle scored 8 out of 8. The score was 16 out of 16 on the side impact tests. The child occupant test score was 81% and the Vulnerable Road Users score was 72%.

That the Tesla SUV had such high scores should probably come as no surprise. In the US, it also earned 5 stars from NHTSA and according to Tesla received the third best score of the decade (a detailed score that NHTSA does not use for ranking vehicles publicly), only trailing the Model 3 and Model S.

On the Tesla blog, the company made this statement about the rating: “All of these results are made possible by our all-electric architecture, which provides a low center of gravity, rigid passenger compartment, and large crumple zone. And, with our over-the-air updates, Model X (like all Tesla vehicles) continues to get even safer over time.”

The Taycan also had a 5-star rating, but its scores were not as high as the Model X’s. For example, the Safety Assist score was quite a bit lower at 74%, as was the Adult Occupant score at 85%. The Vulnerable Road User score was 70% and the child occupant score was slightly higher at 83%.

It’s only reasonable that consumers are concerned, or very concerned, with vehicle safety because of high mortality and injury risk while using personal transportation. Vehicle safety ratings help consumers make important decisions about which vehicles to buy and not to purchase.

In particular, when it comes to EVs, there is so much anti-EV bias and misinformation that there appears to be quite a bit of confusion on the part of some people who think or believe EVs are problematic. In fact, in more than several ways, there are EVs that are superior to similar gas-powered vehicles, as we see with the Tesla ratings. Safety is one of the areas where EVs have an advantage.

In case you’re wondering who Euro NCAP is, here are some of the organization’s members: Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club e V (ADAC), Germany; Department for Transport (DfT), UK; Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat, Netherlands; Ministère de l’Economie, Luxembourg; Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain; International Consumer Research and Testing, UK; FIA (Represented by FIA Region 1), France; Swedish Transport Administration, Sweden; Thatcham Research, UK.