Interesting Article On Current Guardrails Vs EVs

[Rayden]

I ran across this article on The Hill today. I've seen articles on concern about increased road wear from EVs b/c of weight (not sure if that's actually substantiated or maybe just more FUD), but this is the first time I've seen something addressing guardrail design.
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5617584-guardrail-standards-electric-vehicles/

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[Rayden]

Wow! That's crazy how the guardrail did pretty much NOTHING to slow it down, much less stop it!

 

[Newton]

This FUD has been around for awhile. My Audi Q5 was 4200 pounds. The heaviest Lightning is 5500 pounds, which is equivalent to the heaviest ICE F-150. The F-250 is significantly heavier than the heaviest Lightning at 8600 pounds (diesel).

My e-Golf is 3500 pounds and my EV6 is 4700 pounds.

An EV is heavier than an equivalent ICE car (generally) but if we have to upgrade guardrails do it for the 8600 pound diesel F-250 which is a fairly popular truck around here. (If you really need to tow something use the right tool).

You can tell a FUD article when they use outliers like the Hummer EV which weighs well more than twice what my E-Golf or Chevy Bolt weighs. Switch the AI prompt and you could argue that EVs are lighter than ICE vehicles.

 

[chriserx]

I appreciate any and all testing, within reason. At the same time, a more reasonable test would've been angled, maybe 45 or even 60 degrees, guardrails are not designed to be directly driven at by any vehicle, that's not their purpose. They are to keep your vehicle from falling. I can't really see a 90 degree test providing that much useful data.

 

[flabrent]

I worked as a route driver for Coke during summer breaks in college. Between the truck and 450+ cases of Coke onboard I was pushing 26,000 pounds down the road. And my truck wasn't a gooseneck. Those were probably around 40,000 pounds. So when someone says EV's are tearing up the roads I laugh.

 

[chriserx]

The paper is at researchgate and can be requested from the team. That being said, the first video appears near, if not perpendicular, you see the rail higher in left and lower in the right, suggesting that it is, in fact, at an angle, with the assumptions that:
A) the camera is pointing directly at the truck travelling
B) the barricades are perpendicular to the trucks travel (they are more or less even across the frame)
C) the guardrails are a consistent height
Without viewing on a computer, at a high frame rate and being able to count the pixels the barricade angle appears to be offset 5-10 degrees, but the truck itself is traveling toward left of frame which makes it more perpendicular to the impact point.

The second video certainly appears to show it impacting at an angle, near 60 from appearances alone, but I can't even guess with all of the variables involved with that portion. I'd love to see the actual paper if anyone found it to know for sure. I mean the premise is sound. Heavier vehicles means more impact energy. But, if it was capable of fully stopping a vehicle that heavy the energy transfer has to go somewhere and it won't be into the batteries, it'll be in the occupants. When it comes down to it highway safety is a balancing act, keeping the driver safe, keeping other road users safe from the errant driver, minimizing the damage of the errant drivers vehicle receives, maintenance and yes, cost. It's likely the reason they've been installing those steel cables everywhere, they're ugly as fk but they stretch which solves many if not all of the problems I mentioned. Except maybe the incident vehicle damage.

 

[WXman]

All these people act like HD pickup trucks don't exist. Lol. It's hilarious. We've had 7,000 to 9,000 lb. pickup trucks running up and down U.S. roads for decades. And they number in the hundreds of millions. In terms of weight, EVs are not presenting anything new that isn't already in existance today.

However what I will say is that what we ARE having to do now is increase the height of guard rails and bridge side barriers. This is because there are more trucks and SUVs being built today with off-road packages that increase their ride height. The average vehicle today is taller than 30 years ago. And so that has to be compensated for with barrier height.

I work with a lady who is missing her left leg from the knee down. In 2015 she was driving her small gasoline car down I-64 to school to take the ACT test on a Saturday morning. She lost control in a curve, hit the guard rail at a roughly 45 degree angle, and broke the guard rail which then went right through the floorboard and severed her leg. And that was a car that probably weighs around 3,200 lbs.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Interesting video on EVs and roadway guardrails

EVs Too Heavy for Road Infrastructure?

 

[sotek2345]

This FUD has been around for awhile. My Audi Q5 was 4200 pounds. The heaviest Lightning is 5500 pounds, which is equivalent to the heaviest ICE F-150. The F-250 is significantly heavier than the heaviest Lightning at 8600 pounds (diesel).

My e-Golf is 3500 pounds and my EV6 is 4700 pounds.

An EV is heavier than an equivalent ICE car (generally) but if we have to upgrade guardrails do it for the 8600 pound diesel F-250 which is a fairly popular truck around here. (If you really need to tow something use the right tool).

You can tell a FUD article when they use outliers like the Hummer EV which weighs well more than twice what my E-Golf or Chevy Bolt weighs. Switch the AI prompt and you could argue that EVs are lighter than ICE vehicles.

Not sure where you got that 5,500lbs figure for the Lightning. My 2022 ER Lariat is ~6,800lbs empty and the Platinum is heavier (~7,000 if I remember correctly)

 

[Bwanapete]

I would prefer two parallel guard rails maybe 6 feet apart rather then a single extra-strength rail, and yes my Lightning ER weighs almost 7,000 lbs. The parallel rails would lower the speed of a truck but would do less harm to occupants AND might be less expensive to install. Or plant multifloral roses to slow down crashing vehicles. I believe MA tried this years ago.

 

[srvethelord]

This FUD has been around for awhile. My Audi Q5 was 4200 pounds. The heaviest Lightning is 5500 pounds, which is equivalent to the heaviest ICE F-150. The F-250 is significantly heavier than the heaviest Lightning at 8600 pounds (diesel).

My e-Golf is 3500 pounds and my EV6 is 4700 pounds.

An EV is heavier than an equivalent ICE car (generally) but if we have to upgrade guardrails do it for the 8600 pound diesel F-250 which is a fairly popular truck around here. (If you really need to tow something use the right tool).

You can tell a FUD article when they use outliers like the Hummer EV which weighs well more than twice what my E-Golf or Chevy Bolt weighs. Switch the AI prompt and you could argue that EVs are lighter than ICE vehicles.

I'm curious to know where you learned the "heaviest Lightning" is 5,500 pounds. I was told it's around 7,000 and a quick google search confirms that for the ER (6,900 pounds). I remember watching a State of Charge YouTube video where he tests the new SilveradoEV and mentions its curb weight is 9,000 pounds.

 

[Pacific.NW]

Force = Mass x Acceleration

From the article: "A Tesla Model 3 and Rivian R1T both tore through guardrails during controlled tests..." (highlights mine)

A Tesla Model 3 has a curb weight of roughly 4000lbs.
The best selling sedan in 2025 is the Toyota Camry, about 3500lbs.
Your average 2025 minivan clocks in at 4500lbs.
A 2025 Suburban is 5800lbs.
For giggles, a 1972 big-block Monte Carlo is also around 4000lbs (just to show that it's not like vehicles have changed significantly in mass).

I'll let you draw your own conclusion, but mine was that the mass of EVs is not the problem with the guardrails.

 

[ZeusDriver]

Force = Mass x Acceleration

From the article: "A Tesla Model 3 and Rivian R1T both tore through guardrails during controlled tests..." (highlights mine)

A Tesla Model 3 has a curb weight of roughly 4000lbs.
The best selling sedan in 2025 is the Toyota Camry, about 3500lbs.
Your average 2025 minivan clocks in at 4500lbs.
A 2025 Suburban is 5800lbs.
For giggles, a 1972 big-block Monte Carlo is also around 4000lbs (just to show that it's not like vehicles have changed significantly in mass).

I'll let you draw your own conclusion, but mine was that the mass of EVs is not the problem with the guardrails.

My 2002 Dodge Durango weighed 4600 lb empty. My 2024 Tesla Model Y weighed 4200 lb empty. They both could tow my boat, and both carried five people in comfort. The Old Durango was tearing up the roads more, and more likely to wreck guardrails (by a tiny amount that would be darn near impossible to quantify in any meaningful sense). This "concern" over guardrails and road wear is just pure FUD.

 

[Lomilar]

I thought the primary issue with guard rails is that that the weight of an EV is in line with the battery, which is a significantly lower center of gravity, so the battery does the skateboard thing and goes under the guardrail and takes out the supports.

The weight.... doesn't help, but my understanding was that it's how the weight applies to the crash. EV cars center of mass is like a sports car, but they aren't light like a sports car.

I would expect the lightning doesn't suffer from this, as the battery weight is in line with the body --- the heavy part of the vehicle, which is (comparatively) elevated.

Edit: It occurs to me that having the majority of weight inline with the wheels (without an engine to absorb impact and slam against the firewall) may cause the Lightning to behave like we saw the Rivian where the wheels caused it to bounce over or through the various barriers, instead of cleanly impacting.

 

[ZeusDriver]

Here is an example of the histrionics and sloppy reporting from this article:

>>Electric vehicles are literally changing the physics of roadway safety. Their added weight accelerates damage to roadway pavement, increasing the risk of accidents.<<

If you click on their link, you get an article that talks only about heavy trucks, not EVs. The range of GVW in the article was from 54,000 lbs to 132,000 lbs. Pavements are designed for weights that are many times higher than those of a EV. The lightest of those vehicles is approximately 10 times the weight of an average EV.

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