NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – In July, the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at the University of Nebraska conducted the latest in a series of electric vehicle crash tests that questioned whether the safety infrastructure on our nation’s highways can adequately protect electric vehicle (EV) occupants in the event of a crash.

This time, engineers from Nebraska tested a Rivian R1T against a portable concrete road barrier, with the 3,280 kg truck hitting the barrier at a speed of 100 km/h at an angle of 25 degrees.

The Rivian passed the test, according to the Nebraska test team, because it did not break through the safety barrier, the vehicle did not roll over and the passenger compartment remained intact.

Like most crash test videos, the footage of the R1T hitting concrete is spectacularly brutal, so it was no surprise that Carol Sullivan, who owns a Rivian SUV, was shocked when WSMV4 Investigates showed the crash test video and learned that the truck had passed the test.

“Oh no, no way! It just flew through the air,” Sullivan said. “But they’re so heavy you don’t have to worry about them tipping over.”

But just like crash test videos, the tests themselves can be somewhat misleading, warns accident reconstruction expert Brian Coon.

“The most important takeaway from these tests is that they are intended to represent a typical accident, so we have to be clear that we are not considering every type of accident that exists,” Coon said. “If there is an accident that is a little steeper or where the vehicle is going faster or turning a little more, the test may not pass and the driver may not be OK.”

In this case, the Rivian passed the test, but Coon says the video of the crash test revealed another danger on the other side of the concrete barrier.

An overhead view of the crash shows that several sections of the concrete barrier were pushed back more than 10 feet by the force of the Rivian. On a real highway, Coon says, construction workers could have been working at that spot, or cars could have been driving in the opposite direction. As a result, anyone on that side of the barrier could have been seriously injured or killed, Coon says.

“When it comes to our security infrastructure, these tests show us that there are hidden security concerns and the public is not aware of that danger,” Coon said. “And if the public knew what kind of danger they were facing, they would not be willing to take that risk.”

Thanks to recent crash tests from the University of Nebraska and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, the public is becoming increasingly aware that our nation’s safety barriers and guardrail systems may not be able to withstand the weight of popular electric vehicles like the Rivian R1T and Tesla Model 3.

However, Coon believes these tests raise questions about whether some heavier gasoline-powered vehicles, particularly large pickup trucks and SUVs, could pose similar safety risks.

“It makes little difference if you drive a very heavy internal combustion engine vehicle into a guardrail that is not designed for it or if you drive an electric vehicle,” Coon said. “Part of the problem is that we have vehicles in our current fleet that are heavier and can potentially penetrate guardrails and other safety infrastructure that are now 50, 60 years old.”

At the top of the list of gasoline-powered vehicles that concern Coon are some large pickup trucks and SUVs.

“When we do crash testing on cars and trucks, we identify a replacement vehicle for that type of car or truck and then do targeted crash testing on that one,” Coon said. “But in doing so, we skip some vehicles in our fleet.”

“So the issue we need to look at is how much of our fleet is not protected by our infrastructure,” Coon said. “Is it 60% of our vehicles or 80%? We really need to figure out what percentage of our vehicles we are not protecting.”

Coon says we could develop computer simulations to test new vehicles against aging safety infrastructure and then determine what type of safety barriers need to be replaced.

However, the cost of developing this software, testing all the newer vehicles on the roads and then modernizing the millions of kilometers of highway safety infrastructure would be enormous.

“The economics are costly,” Coon said. “And right now we’re still just looking at the problem. Everyone agrees it’s a problem, but nobody wants to quantify it because the numbers are so big.”

“So who’s going to do the testing?” Coon asked. “Will the government do it? Or will automakers be asked to develop and test? Those are not the easy answers we want.”

Like Coon, Sullivan questions who will bear the cost of updating our nation’s safety infrastructure to protect the heavier vehicles that are becoming increasingly popular today.

“Where does the money come from? I want to know,” Sullivan said.

In July, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, attended Rivian’s crash test and said it was part of the NTSB’s mission to improve our nation’s safety infrastructure and better protect heavier vehicles.

Coon says this recognition is a positive step in the right direction.

“It’s not a perfect story and our biggest challenge will be figuring out how to address the problem,” Coon said. “But at least we’re now saying there’s a problem that needs to be fixed.”

All rights reserved.