Tesla is building a crash test lab in Austin

Tesla confirmed that it is building a new crash test lab in Austin, Texas to further improve the passive safety of its electric vehicles.

It took a while for Tesla to get credibility in the auto industry, and while it still has naysayers, it has made itself undeniable by profitably establishing the capacity to produce two million electric vehicles.

The capacity to produce electric vehicles en masse profitably is the only way Tesla gained credibility within the auto industry. When designing and engineering a new vehicle, the priority is (or should be) safety, and Tesla has surprised many on that front over the years.

The Model 3 has won several other safety plaudits, including 5-star ratings in all categories and the lowest probability of injury ever tested from NHTSA, 5 stars from Euro NCAP while being hailed as setting a “new safety technology benchmark,” and 5 stars from the Australiasian NCAP.

Since then, virtually all Tesla vehicles have achieved similar industry-leading safety ratings.

Tesla has made some advancements on the active safety side of things, and that’s what is mostly talked about in the media through Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Beta.

However, there’s an argument to be made that Tesla’s passive safety is even more impressive.

Recently, Tesla has explained how it is using the fact that its vehicles are highly connected to collect an incredible amount of real-world crash data and use that to improve its safety in crashes.

The automaker would use its crash test lab in California to test its results.

Now we learn that Tesla is building a new crash test lab in Austin, Texas. A Tesla recruiter wrote in LinkedIn last week:

Y’all asked for it. Tesla provided! Tesla is building a Crash Test Lab in Austin, TX! We are hiring Engineering Technicians to support the crash test lab.

Tesla is listing a job for an “Engineering Technician, Passive Safety Crash Test Lab” role.

The automaker wrote in the job description:

The Passive Safety Crash & Sled Test team is responsible for executing, analyzing, and reporting on crash and sled tests within required program timelines, primarily focusing on vehicle development, regulatory certification, and consumer protection crash testing. Team consists of Test Engineers and Engineering Technicians, specializing in Vehicle & Mechanical, Instrumentation & ATD (Anthropomorphic Test Devices, or crash test dummies), and Imaging.

Not much else is known about Tesla’s plan for a new crash test lab in Texas at this point, or if it is going to add to or replace the lab in Fremont.