I-Pace among five-star vehicles

A strong safety performance across a range of brands and vehicle types is highlighted in the latest round of Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) ratings.

The all-electric Jaguar I-Pace gets the top five-star rating, as do the Ford Focus, Hyundai Santa Fe and Genesis G70.

“Brands have responded to a far more stringent test regime, further increasing the standard consumers expect when it comes to safety, with all 2018 ratings meeting five stars,” ANCAP chief executive James Goodwin says.

“The Focus scored maximum points in destructive Child Occupant Protection testing and is equipped with both forward and reverse auto braking.”.

The I-Pace also scored five stars for all variants.

“The I-Pace is one of only a few models to offer an external airbag, which is designed to provide increased protection to pedestrians,” Goodwin says.

An innovative new child occupant detection feature has been incorporated into the new generation Hyundai Santa Fe, alerting the driver when leaving the car if a rear seat occupant is detected, to reduce the chance of a baby or young child left in an unattended vehicle.

“It is encouraging to see vehicle brands incorporate innovative new safety features,” Goodwin says.

“Engineers identified two issues with the deployment of the curtain airbag in Santa Fe models fitted with a panoramic roof, with the airbag tearing and a portion of the airbag being caught on the upper belt anchorage. Penalties were applied to scoring of the side impact and oblique pole tests to reflect the increased head injury risk.

“ANCAP notified the Australian vehicle standards regulator of the issue, resulting in a national recall to remedy models already in service. A production change has been implemented by Hyundai for new models,” Goodwin says.

“The seven-seat SUV also lacks top tether anchorages for third row seating positions, leaving the third row unable to install child restraints and carry young children.”

The luxury medium car segment received a boost with a further five-star performer in the Genesis G70.

“The Genesis G70 is fitted with a well-performing lane support system, with good performance recorded across testing, including some of the more critical emergency lane keeping test scenarios,” Goodwin adds.

Five-star ANCAP safety ratings apply to all variants of the Ford Focus (from December 2018), Hyundai Santa Fe (from July 2018), Genesis G70 (from 2018) and I-PACE (from December 2018).

ANCAP’s counterpart organisation, Euro NCAP, has also issued a range of ratings for the Audi Q3, Peugeot 508, Volvo V60/S60 and Jeep Wrangler.

The applicability of these results to Australasian-specified models will be determined in conjunction with local vehicle launches in 2019.

Euro NCAP has also issued a rating for European BMW X5 models. A rating for Australasian-specified X5 models is yet to be determined as BMW has not provided access to a vehicle for local assessment, Goodwin says. This model remains unrated in Australia and New Zealand.