Tesla Model 3 grabs 5-star Euro NCAP safety rating

KUALA LUMPUR: Tesla cars are among the safest electric vehicles on the road today, having received top ratings from safety authorities. Continuing this legacy, the refreshed Tesla Model 3 has recently grabbed a 5-star safety rating in the Euro NCAP crash tests.

Tested under the updated 2025 protocol, the Tesla Model 3 impressed with the highest scores in Child Safety, Active Safety, and Pedestrian Safety tests. 

The category-wise safety scores are as follows -

Category	Total score
Adult Occupant Protection	90%
Child Occupant Protection	93%
Safety Assist	87%
Vulnerable Road User Protection	89%

The notable observations include - 

• The sedan offers good occupant protection in various crash scenarios, including side barrier and pole impacts. However, there was marginal chest protection for the rear occupant in the rigid barrier test.
• The thoughtfully designed airbag system helped reduce occupant-to-occupant injuries.
• Protection was good for all critical body areas of child dummies in both the frontal offset and the side barrier tests. 
• The EV is equipped with a direct 'child presence detection' system, which issues a warning when it detects that a child or infant has been left in the car. 

• With the help of sensors, the 'active' bonnet of the EV can detect when a pedestrian has been struck and raise itself to reduce injury severity.
• The autonomous emergency braking system also performed well in detecting and responding to cyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians.
• The EV has a direct driver status monitoring system that can detect driver fatigue and some types of distraction, while the lane support system gently corrects the vehicle’s path if it is drifting out of lane. The speed assistance system identifies the local speed limit. 

Tesla Model 3 in Malaysia 

Tesla Malaysia offers the Model 3 in three variants - Rear-Wheel Drive, Long Range All-Wheel Drive, and Performance All-Wheel Drive. As the names suggest, the base-spec model comes powered by a rear-wheel drive motor while the higher models feature a dual-motor AWD setup. 

Depending on the variant picked, the EV offers a driving range between 513 km and 629 km. The price begins at RM 181,000 and goes up to RM 242,000.

Also read: How safe is the new MG S5 EV? Here’s what the Euro NCAP rating says