Watch Tesla's Active Safety System Get Tested: Will A Tesla Hit A Cat?

Will it hit another car, a pedestrian like Elon Musk, or a cat?

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Mark Kane

By: Mark Kane

Mar 10, 2022 at 10:58am ET

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Tesla's electric cars are considered among the safest since they have successfully passed crash tests and received 5-star ratings. Not only passive safety but also active safety systems (the ones that help to avoid a collision entirely) are a strong point for Tesla cars.

Today, we will take a look at an interesting test of a Tesla Model 3, performed in a humorous way by carwow, which shows whether the car is able to stop on its own, thus avoiding a collision with various stationary obstacles when driving at 20-30 mph (32-48 km/h).

For reference, the video includes also the same tests with a Volvo V90, as Volvo is also considered a brand with a high focus on safety.

The first demonstration of the active safety systems includes a stationary car (actually a blow-up object that visually represents a car). As it turns out, both cars applied the brakes automatically, stopping in time. There were some small differences in the distance (longer in the case of Tesla). Carwow noted also that Volvo applies some force to the belts before braking, which helps to keep the driver in place during and after braking.

The next test was with a cardboard pedestrian, which happens to look like Elon Musk. Also this time, both cars were able to detect the obstacle and stop.

When it comes to smaller objects, things started to be more difficult. The fabric kangaroo toy was hit by the Volvo car, while Tesla managed to detect it and stop.

In the case of "a dog," both cars failed, although it's an open question whether the tested objects were proper equivalents of real-world things.

What do you think?

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The stuffed cat, mentioned in the title of the video, also did not survive the meeting with the Tesla car.

The final part was a little bit of a joke, as Mat Watson took the cardboard Elon Musk inside and tried to repeat the automatic braking test with the cardboard Jeff Bezos. The purpose of this test was to see whether the driver can override the automatic braking and run over a pedestrian. Well, for the sake of science, it was confirmed that it's possible.