Eli5: how is it so easy for cars to flip? Do certain types of cars flip easier than others?
In: Physics
It’s about the center of gravity.
Take a tall bookshelf. Fill the bottom shelf with heavy books. Try to tip it over, kind of hard. It keeps wanting to go upright again because the center of gravity is right next to the ground. Now put the books on the top shelf, and it’s easy to tip over because of the high center of gravity.
Cars with a high center of gravity are also easier to tip, all else being equal. So jacked up pickups have a high center of gravity and are notorious for flipping. A Tesla has a very low center of gravity because the heavy battery pack and motors are about as low to the ground as they can possibly be.
There’s a common rollover test. Send the car sideways to hit a raised edge. The edge stops the tires, and the momentum of the car then tries to flip it. Cars normally do well, SUVs and trucks do not. The test repeatedly failed to flip the Tesla SUV because of the very low center of gravity. Even when it was thrown at the barrier at a high enough speed to tip completely on its side and even a bit over that, it just came back down on the wheels.
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