The Ford Explorer’s center of gravity sits about 26.3 inches off the ground on a vehicle with a 66.8-inch track width, according to NHTSA’s own rollover testing program. The Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade land in almost the exact same range, within a few tenths of an inch of each other, despite coming from three different manufacturers with three different platforms. That’s not a coincidence. It’s what happens when every three-row SUV redesign chases the same goals, more headroom, a bigger third row, a commanding driving position, and NHTSA’s own physics-based stability math shows precisely what that tradeoff costs.
The Government Actually Measures This, Down to the Tenth of an Inch
Every vehicle NHTSA rates for rollover resistance gets a measured Static Stability Factor, essentially half the vehicle’s track width divided by its center-of-gravity height, before any dynamic testing even begins. Official NHTSA rollover stability measurements from its New Car Assessment Program put the Ford Explorer 4WD at an SSF of 1.27 with a 26.30-inch center-of-gravity height and 66.8-inch track, and the Explorer RWD at 1.28 with a 26.14-inch center of gravity. The Toyota Highlander comes in at 1.24 SSF (AWD) with a 26.44-inch center-of-gravity height. Both the Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade post SSF figures of 1.29 in all-wheel-drive form, with center-of-gravity heights of 26.19 and 26.22 inches respectively. Four different nameplates, four different corporate parents, and every single one lands within five hundredths of a point on the same government metric.
Front-Wheel-Drive Versions Score Worse Than All-Wheel-Drive, and the Numbers Show Why
The same NHTSA dataset shows a consistent pattern between drivetrain variants of the same model. The Highlander’s front-wheel-drive configuration posts an SSF of 1.23, a hair below its all-wheel-drive sibling’s 1.24, with a center-of-gravity height that climbs to 26.49 inches. The Palisade’s front-wheel-drive version drops further still, to 1.25 SSF with a 27.10-inch center-of-gravity height, nearly a full inch higher than its all-wheel-drive counterpart’s 26.22 inches. That inch matters more than it sounds like it should: without a driveshaft and rear differential hardware occupying floor space and helping anchor mass lower in the chassis, engineers are working with less room to keep weight down low, and the stability math reflects that difference directly, model by model, trim by trim.
The Physics Problem Isn’t New, Only the Vehicles Are
NHTSA built its Static Stability Factor rating system specifically because of a rollover crisis in an earlier generation of tall, narrow-track SUVs and light trucks during the 1990s and early 2000s, when a wave of high-profile rollover incidents and tire-related crashes pushed the agency to start publishing a standardized stability metric rather than leaving rollover risk as an invisible spec. The math hasn’t changed since then, only the vehicles being measured against it. Today’s three-row crossovers are dramatically safer than the truck-based SUVs that prompted the original rating system, thanks to standard electronic stability control and far more sophisticated unibody engineering, but they’re still governed by the same track-width-versus-center-of-gravity-height equation. A modern SUV can have every advanced safety feature on the market and still be working with a fundamentally similar geometry problem to the one regulators started measuring a generation ago.
Every Redesign Cycle Chases the Same Tradeoff
Three-row SUV redesigns are judged almost entirely on interior space: more third-row legroom, a taller roofline for headroom, a higher hip point for a commanding seating position that buyers specifically shop for. Every one of those improvements either raises the roofline, raises the center of gravity, or both, and none of them widen the vehicle’s track by nearly enough to offset it. That’s the mechanical reason SSF figures across this entire class of vehicle cluster so tightly together despite coming from unrelated engineering teams on different continents. A National Academies review of NHTSA’s rollover resistance rating system confirms that SSF, not horsepower or price, is the dominant physical variable in how these ratings are calculated, which is exactly why taller vehicles with narrower relative track widths consistently land in a lower stability band than lower, wider vehicles regardless of brand reputation or safety-tech content.
What the Numbers Mean for the Vehicle You’re Actually Buying
None of this means these SUVs are unsafe. Modern electronic stability control has done more to prevent real-world rollovers than any single inch of center-of-gravity height ever could, and these vehicles remain far safer than the truck-based SUVs of the 1990s that the original SSF rating system was built to flag. But the physics NHTSA measures don’t lie: a taller three-row SUV with a narrow relative track is working with a smaller stability margin than a lower, wider vehicle, full stop. Every redesign that stretches the roofline for more headroom is spending part of that margin on comfort, and the fact that Ford, Toyota, Kia, and Hyundai all landed in nearly the same spot on the same government test says the entire segment made the same bet at once.