Electric vehicles are naturally heavier than ICE cars due to their battery packs. It is accurate for most of the market’s most prominent EVs, which have a range of at least 300 miles.
However, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) claims that this could be an issue, as reported by Reuters. NTSB Chair Jennifer L. Homendy voiced her safety concerns about heavy EVs on January 11, referring to GMC Hummer and Ford F-150 Lightning in particular.
Risks of heavier EVs
Homendy articulated that the GMC Hummer EV’s weight is more than 9,000 pounds, compared to its gasoline-powered counterpart with just 6,000 pounds. Its battery pack alone weighs 2,900 pounds (1,300 kilograms), which is roughly equivalent to the weight of a standard Honda Civic.
Meanwhile, the Ford F-150 Lightning EV weighs 2,000 to 3,000 pounds heavier than its ICE counterpart.
The heavier weight of EVs “has a significant impact on safety for all road users,” Homendy claimed in her speech in Washington to the Transportation Research Board.
“I’m concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles. We have to be careful that we aren’t also creating unintended consequences: more death on our roads.”
US NSTB chair Jennifer Homendy
GM responded immediately to Homendy’s concerns.
“…safety is at the cornerstone at everything we do. All GM vehicles are engineered to meet or exceed all applicable motor vehicle safety standards.”
General Motors
US traffic deaths
The concerns mentioned above are only valid, given that US road deaths have surged since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
US traffic deaths saw a 10.5% growth in 2021 to 42,915. That number marked the highest road death rate in the country since 2015, as per the report.
At the same time, vehicles on US roads kept on gaining more size and weight.
“Average new vehicle weight and horsepower both hit new records in 2021 with average vehicle weight hitting 4,289 pounds in 2021 as SUV and truck sales rise and both are forecast to hit new records in 2022.”
Reuters, citing the Environmental Protection Agency
Need for a study
Despite the rationality of this concept, it would still be hard to prove the connection of a car’s weight to the recorded road death in the US.
That said, interim NHTSA Administrator Ann Carlson announced that the agency is researching how vehicle size affects traffic safety. She claimed that the EPA is highly concerned about the connection of heavier vehicles to higher fatality rates.
Carlson also emphasized people’s belief in bigger vehicles’ increased safety, but this does not always account for other circumstances.
“Bigger is safer if you don’t look at the communities surrounding you and you don’t look at the other vehicles on the road. It actually turns out to be a very complex interaction.”
NHTSA Administrator Ann Carlson
Heavier EV weights are indeed a safety concern. However, it must be noted that overall, vehicles in the US have gotten heavier and bigger as well. That said, it might be better if the government looked into another perspective instead of focusing on EVs.
