Five-star Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) safety ratings go to the fully electric Hyundai Ioniq 6 and hybrid and petrol variants of the Lexus RX.
The Ioniq 6 battery electric vehicle (BEV) scored a record high 97% in the Adult Occupant Protection area of assessment for the medium car segment, says ANCAP.
This record score is shared with the Tesla Model Y rated last year, and comes as a result of very good performance for vehicle-to-vehicle crash compatibility combined with low levels of injury risk across each of the destructive crash tests performed, it adds.
“As electric vehicles don’t have large engine components under the bonnet, they have the potential to pose less risk to vehicle occupants in a frontal crash scenario, compared to petrol and diesel cars,” says ANCAP chief executive Carla Hoorweg.
“We have seen that play out in testing of the Ioniq 6 – with only a very slight penalty applied for potential injury risk to adult occupants.”
The Ioniq 6 also performed well for its protection of children, with full points scored for the six-year and 10-year child dummies in the frontal offset and side impact tests.
The BEV is fitted with an autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system capable of detecting and responding to other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, and performance in testing was very good, ANCAP adds.
An AEB Backover system which intervenes while reversing is fitted as standard on Australian and New Zealand-supplied models, however it was not fitted to the European test vehicle and therefore not scored in ANCAP’s assessment.
The Ioniq 6 launches in New Zealand this quarter, has up to 614km range and is able to charge from 10% to 80% in 25 minutes.
Hybrid and petrol variants of the new Lexus RX performed well in testing with a record high score of 89% achieved for its protection of pedestrians and cyclists in the Vulnerable Road User Protection area of assessment, says ANCAP.
A healthy Safety Assist score of 93% was also recorded for the RX’s collision avoidance capability.
“The Lexus RX is another of our top performers – achieving high scores across all key areas of assessment resulting in a five-star ANCAP safety rating,” says Hoorweg.
The Lexus RX haa a range of airbags including a driver’s knee-protecting airbag and a centre airbag designed to minimise injury risk should contact between the two front seat occupants occur during a crash. The centre airbag demonstrated effective performance in preventing serious head contact in set test scenarios, however a penalty was applied as technical evidence to demonstrate effective performance across a range of different seating positions was not supplied.
Click here for full ANCAP safety details on the Hyundai Ioniq and here for the Lexus RX.
