Recently, we wrote that Tesla's director of communications enjoyed crashing the company car in Project Gotham Racing 4. How about a taste of the real thing? Below the fold is a video from Gadgetoff 2007 of co-founder and ex-CEO of Tesla, Martin Eberhard, showing crash tests of the Tesla electric sports car. At the beginning of the video, Martin says these videos are the difference between Tesla and companies that make a "three wheel imaginary car that would never be safe on the highway." Could Martin be talking about Zap?

So how much does all this fun footage cost? Martin says the cars cost $350,000 to build and the tests cost another $100,000. The Tesla sells for $100,000 but the cars in the crash tests have equipment added to measure the damage done to the crash test dummies. Martin says Tesla has done about 8 tests; So the video is about a million dollars a minute, give or take a million. These are, of course, hand picked videos done by Tesla but the car looks amazingly safe. Air bags are "freaking amazing" as Martin points out.

[Source: YouTube]

Several months ago we reported on an Indian-built Reva electric car that was crushed in Australia because the vehicle had never been crash tested. The same vehicles are sold in England as the G-Wiz and like the Zap Xebra sold in the United States it is exempt from crash testing. The three wheeled Xebra is classed as a motorcycle and in Europe there is a classification called quadricycles for light weight four wheeled vehicles.

Quadricycles are also exempt from the central London congestion charge and have become increasingly popular lately. British car magazine Top Gear decided to have one of the little battery powered vehicles put through the EuroNCAP (new car assessment program) crash test to see how well it does. The car was crashed into a barrier at 40 mph and the likelihood of the driver surviving was slim as shown in the photos above. The British government also tested a G-Wiz at 35mph and was so concerned with the results that they are now going to the European Commission to review the regulations for quadricycles, as we mentioned the other day.

The Top Gear site also has a video of the crash test. Fortunately some electrics, like those from Tesla and Phoenix, are being built to car safety standards and even NEVs in the US are subject to 25 mph crash tests.

Related:

• Tiny all-electric quadricycles might get redone safety test in the EU

[Source: Top Gear, thanks to Gordon for the tip]