Preliminary test crashes indicate the nation's guardrail system can't handle heavy electric vehicles
ABC News
Preliminary tests by a University of Nebraska road safety research facility and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers point to concerns that the nation’s roadside guardrails are no match for new heavy electric vehicles
LINCOLN, Neb. -- Under an overcast sky last fall, engineers with a University of Nebraska road safety facility watched as a electric-powered pickup truck hurtled toward a guardrail installed on the facility's testing ground on the edge of the local municipal airport.
The test crash was to see how the guardrail — the same type found along tens of thousands of miles of roadway in the United States — would hold up against electric vehicles that can weigh thousands of pounds more than the average gas-powered sedan.
It came as little surprise when the nearly 4-ton 2022 Rivian R1T tore through the metal guardrail and hardly slowed until hitting a concrete barrier yards away on the other side.
“We knew it was going to be an extremely demanding test of the roadside safety system," said Cody Stolle with the university's Midwest Roadside Safety Facility. “The system was not made to handle vehicles greater than 5,000 pounds.”
The university released the results of the crash test Wednesday. The concern comes as the rising popularity of electric vehicles has led transportation officials to sound the alarm over the weight disparity of the new battery-powered vehicles and lighter gas-powered ones. Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board expressed concern about the safety risks heavy electric vehicles pose if they collide with lighter vehicles.
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