2018-09-20

@LanceUlanoff Consider an ice skater. Same weight, but spins/turns much faster with arms in vs arms out. Same principle is true for a car.

@LanceUlanoff Front vs rear wheel weight distribution, though commonly asked, isn't the right question. You can have 50% on front, 50% on rear & still have poor handling if mass elements are far from center. Dumbbell mass distribution is bad, spinning top/dreidel is good.

@LanceUlanoff Simple explanation of polar moment of inertia & other important car terms at https://t.co/CftQ1v9YCL

@LanceUlanoff Key technical point is that the polar moment of inertia (concentration of mass around center) of a Tesla, to the extent of our knowledge, is better than any other production car. This positively affects safety, handling & driving feel. Extremely important metric.

@martinengwicht @BlondesE A car propelled by combustion is far more likely to combust than an electric car

@LanceUlanoff Yes, when it comes to physics, make sure Newton is on your side

@LanceUlanoff Helps improve forward crumple zone length, especially important in high speed frontal impacts, and moments of inertia in side impacts

Tesla piece on the physics of car safety coming soon for those interested in technical details

@MartenBenjamin @NHTSAgov @Tesla Exactly, all 5 star are *not* the same, as the videos show. “5 star” just means a car met a certain threshold, but injury probability stats (real numbers) tell you by how much.

@Cardoso @NHTSAgov Haha true

.@NHTSAgov will post final safety probability stats soon. Model 3 has a shot at being safest car ever tested.

@LindseyStirling 👽💘

@primadanna @Tesla @alphacali Wow, glad they’re ok!

@vicentes @DanAloni @slashdot Physics can be thought of as the compression algorithms of reality