Jan

Feds Exempt Tesla Roadster From Airbag Requirement

Posted by admin Published in Auto Blog, Tesla

Tesla Motors won a three-year exemption to a federal airbag requirement after regulators decided that forcing the company to comply could put it out of commerce.

Although the Tesla Roadster will have driver and passenger airbags, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the company need not comply with a 2006 rule requiring that passenger airbags differ their deployment speed according to the size of the passenger.

As we reported final week, the all-electric Tesla Roadster has passed federal crash safety tests and will go into production March 17. The company plans to build 650 of the $98,000 cars that year. Federal regulators said Tesla made an effort to comply with the airbag rule and, noting that the company lost $43 million within 2002 and 2006, said denying the exemption was “likely to put Tesla out

of commerce in the U.S. and potentially worldwide.”

“The Tesla Roadster is one of the most advanced fully electric vehicles available,” the agency said in its ruling, according to the Detroit Free Press. “We believe that the public interest is served by encouraging the development of fuel-efficient and alternative-fueled vehicles.”

According to the Free Press, Lotus and other small automakers have struggled to meet the airbag deployment rule; the Lotus Elise - on which the Tesla Roadster is based - received a similar exemption in 2006. The agency said the rule would probably apply to 3,825 Roadsters. Read more here and here.