EVs are heavy. Are they safe on our roads and carparks?  

In a recent survey of 1,376 NRMA members, it was found that the percentage of members not sure about buying, or who would not buy an EV jumped from 43 per cent in 2022 to 64 per cent in 2024.

Price remains the primary factor in not switching to an EV, but safety concerns have surged as the second biggest reason, rising to 20 percent – from just 0.3 per cent in 2022.

With such a high jump in safety concerns, it’s worth looking more closely at how safe EVs really are.

We’ve already covered EV battery fire risks (which are very rare) and driving and charging EVs in water (which is safe under normal circumstances), so in this article we’ll take a look at:

• Are EVs safe in crashes?
• Will carparks collapse from the weight of EVs?   
  
• Should carpark designers be concerned about EVs?  
• What about the weight of electric utes? 

It’s already been established that EV battery fires are rare, but the question remains about how safe EVs are in car crashes and other impacts.

Jingwen Hu, a researcher in vehicle safety at the University of Michigan, published an article discussing how EVs behave in crashes¹.

Notably, he says that data shows not one EV involved in a crash test at the US-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has resulted in any fires.

Also, because EV batteries are generally placed under the vehicle's floor, the lower centre of gravity prevents rollover incidents that are associated with a higher rate of fatalities according to data from the United States’ National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)².

He adds that EVs are typically newer with the latest safety technology.

Closer to home, only three of the 52 battery electric cars available in Australia that have been tested by ANCAP in the last five years do not have five-star safety ratings (the Hyundai Kona, the BMW i4, and the Fiat 500e.)

This means that 94.3 per cent of EVs achieved a five-star rating compared to only 88.3 per cent of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles tested in the last five years.

Hu does note that the extra weight of EVs can result in more damage to those not inside the EV.

Importantly, this factor also applies to the large SUVs and 4x4 utility vehicles (of which almost 400,000 were sold in 2023, equalling a third of the market) and have similar or heavier tare weights than the most popular EVs currently available in Australia. 

This brings us to the question of whether carparks will collapse from the added weight of EVs. In short, carparks are generally robust enough to accommodate modern EVs available in Australia which typically do not exceed current weight limits. 

However, there is a trend towards increasingly large (and heavier) vehicles in Australia. Whereas passenger cars (sedans and hatchbacks) accounted for half of the new car market a decade ago, SUVs and utes (light commercial vehicles) now account for 80 per cent of the new car market. 

According to Standards Australia, the weights for which carparks are designed are determined by AS/NZS 1170.1:2002. Last updated in 2002, it defines limits for light vehicle and medium vehicle traffic areas. 

Under the standard, these are: 

• Light vehicle traffic areas: The current gross vehicle mass limit is 2.5 tonnes. Light vehicle traffic areas are typically³ accessible through entries not greater than 2.2 meters, marked by height restriction bars. 
• Medium vehicle traffic areas: Above 2.5 tonnes with an upper limit of 10 tonnes. These areas have no such height restriction. 

In layman’s terms, if you drive into a carpark with one of those height restriction bars above it, you are entering a light vehicle traffic area designed to hold vehicles up to 2.5 tonnes gross – that is, including payload. 

Before 2002, the 1989 version of the standard also had two provisions: for a 2.5 tonne tare limit and above 2.5 tonnes (though it did not define light or medium traffic areas). 

The difference then was that the pressure requirements (measured in kilopascals) was 3kPa for areas limited to vehicles with 2.5 tonnes tare weight, not 2.5 kPa (as is defined in the 2002 version.)  

For areas for vehicles with a tare weight of over 2.5 tonnes, the pressure requirements are 5 kPa. The same figures appear on the 1981 version of the standard. 

Based on the 2002 standard, the figures that matter are the gross vehicle mass (GVM) limits. Carparks built before 2002 are built to a higher pressure limit, according to the standard. 

Looking at the gross mass limits of popular vehicles in Australia, the answer is no – it is the increasing prevalence of large 4x4 utes and SUVs, regardless of the powertrain, that should be of primary concern.  

For example, the maximum gross vehicle mass of Australia two most popular vehicles – the Ford Ranger and the Toyota Hilux – are 3.13 tonnes and 3.05 tonnes respectively. The Mitsubishi Outlander, one of Australia’s most popular SUVs, comes in with a maximum 2.75 tonnes gross vehicle mass. 

Interestingly, one model in the top five of most popular EVs in Australia exceeds the 2.5 tonnes GVM limit: the Performance variant of BYD Seal, which has a GVM of 2.6 tonnes. 

We’ve charted the maximum GVMs for each model in the top five non-EV and top five EVs below, as well as some of the heaviest utes in Australia – the RAM 1500 and the Nissan Patrol – and the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, which at its heaviest tips over the 3 tonne mark on tare mass alone. 

There is only one electric ute (the LDV eT60) available currently in Australia, but more are expected. The LDV eT60 has a tare mass of 2.9 tonnes and a GVM of 3 tonnes according to the government’s ROVER website.  

Other utes promised for Australia are not listed there yet, but according to carsized, the tare mass of the Ford F-150 Lightning is 2.7 tonnes and the Tesla Cybertruck is just under 3 tonnes. 

The moral of the story is know what your vehicle’s tare mass and GVM is – and think twice about entering a carpark if it weighs over 2.5 tonnes - no matter what powers your vehicle. 

References:

1. Electric vehicles are usually safer for their occupants – but not necessarily for everyone else | The Conversation, Jingwen Hu, 30 April 2024
2. Khan, I. U., & Vachal, K. (2020). Factors affecting injury severity of single-vehicle rollover crashes in the United States. Traffic Injury Prevention, 21(1), 66–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2019.1696962
3. Car Parks | Transport for NSW, 2024