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Road traffic in Berlin: Some electric SUVs weigh 3.5 tons
Photo: Florian Gaertner / Photothek via Getty Images
Probably nobody expected this rush: When Ford presented an electric version of its best-selling pick-up, the F-150 Lightning, in May, the number of orders skyrocketed.
Ford had to double the planned production.
For other car companies, the long-standing trend towards heavy SUVs also seems to be continuing in the e-sector.
Almost 25,000 of the ID.4 and ID.5 models alone, which Volkswagen advertises as “sporty SUV performance”, were newly registered in Germany last year, an increase of 95 percent compared to the previous year.
Weight differences in cars increase the risk
Researchers view the development with concern.
Heavy electric cars increase the risk of fatal accidents and are worse for the environment, write scientists led by Blake Shaffer, professor of economics at the University of Calgary in Canada, in an opinion piece for the journal »Nature«.
Electric cars are usually heavier than identical combustion engines, which makes them potentially more dangerous overall.
In order to move a particularly bulky car, and then with a particularly long range, a battery that is all the heavier is required, which itself accounts for a large proportion of the total weight.
"I'm concerned about the increased risk of serious injury and death posed by cars of increasing curb weight and power, including electric cars," US National Transportation Safety Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Homendy said midweek.
An electric GMC Hummer weighs 4000 kilograms, the battery alone weighs 1300 kilograms, which almost corresponds to the weight of a Honda Civic.
According to Homendy, it supports the expansion of electromobility.
"But we have to be careful not to cause any unintended consequences: more deaths on the streets." Safety must not be ignored.
The trend towards heavy cars can also be seen in Germany.
A Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV weighs almost 3.5 tons and can just about be driven with a normal driver's license.
Ford's electric F-150 weighs a good 700 kilograms more than its combustion engine predecessor, Shaffer and his colleagues write.
Huge differences in weight could lead to serious accidents: According to a study, the probability of someone dying in an accident increases by 12 percent if one car is 500 kilograms heavier than the other.
This can be dangerous, especially at a time when light, often older small cars are on the road alongside heavy electric SUVs.
According to a study from the USA, a good thousand pedestrians killed in car accidents could still be alive if smaller, lighter cars had prevailed over the past 20 years.
How can cars become lighter?
The economists warn that the savings in climate protection could be eaten up by the damage to life and limb caused by accidents.
But how can that be changed?
You have several ideas:
Heavy cars must be
taxed more heavily
to create incentives for lighter ones to buy.
Batteries need to be lighter
.
Instead of using heavy graphite, manufacturers could, for example, increasingly rely on silicone.
Digital connections could make cables obsolete.
Weight can also be saved
on the body
if more aluminum and magnesium is used instead of steel.
According to the economists, it is also important to make the streets safer.
In Germany, too, researchers dream of an accident record with zero fatalities.
(Read more here.) “If we drive lighter, safer, cleaner, and less,” argue Shaffer and his colleagues, “we can secure a better future for all.”
koe/AP
