The REAL reason guardrails can't stop EVs in a crash

The video is shocking. An electric pickup plows through a steel guardrail like wet paper, proving that EVs are dangerously heavy in a crash. But is that true? Take it from the guy behind that test: there’s a lot more to the story.

Guardrails don’t get a lot of attention, but they’re one of the most important pieces of safety infrastructure in America, developed over decades in conjunction with cars. As vehicle weights have increased, guardrails have had to get stronger and smarter. Simple math, and it’s worked. Until now.

Thing is, guardrail design isn’t just about keeping up with cars getting heavier. For a guardrail to work, it needs to catch a speeding car at roughly its center of gravity, and that’s how we’ve built them for over 60 years. EVs present two problems here—they weigh a LOT more, up to 4,000 pounds more than an equivalent gas model, and their floor-mounted batteries mean their center of gravity is lower than we’ve ever seen.

This shift would be manageable if it was happening over the decades, like it has been up to this point. But the sudden arrival of EVs has changed the game overnight. Add in the fact that they’re built stiffer than gas cars to protect the battery (among other reasons), and you get a 4,000-pound Tesla Model 3 blowing through a guardrail that would stop a 6,000-pound Ram 1500 pickup.

There are a few ways we can fix this. We already have roadside barriers that can stop a tractor trailer from going off, though lining every road in America with them is financially unworkable. We can strengthen the current standard design, like with thicker steel, but that’s also expensive and would take too long to trickle out into the world. But we have to figure out something here.

At the same time, experts believe any solution has to involve stopping crashes before they happen. Is that any more realistic? You be the judge.

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