The new Holden Acadia and BMW X5 three-litre diesel variants have picked up top safety marks from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).
The Acadia impressed across the range of assessment areas with high scores for Adult Occupant Protection (94%), Child Occupant Protection (87%), Vulnerable Road User Protection (74%) and Safety Assist (86%).
“These are impressive results and it is encouraging to see Holden offer such a strong safety performer in this competitive family SUV segment,” says ANCAP chief executive, James Goodwin.
The Acadia provides side head-protecting curtain airbags which extend to cover all three seating rows, and top tether anchorages are offered for all second and third-row seating positions, while various technologies that assist the driver also impressed.
“The collision avoidance technologies fitted to the Acadia performed very well,” Goodwin says.
“Full points were scored in testing of its lane support systems, autonomously maintaining lane position within line markings as well as the un-marked road edge. The Acadia also intervened in overtaking scenarios, passing the more critical emergency lane keeping tests.”
The five-star rating applies to all Acadia variants.
Meanwhile, the X5’s active safety systems showed strong performance in avoiding collisions with vulnerable road users including pedestrians and cyclists, during the ANCAP testing.
“The X5’s autonomous emergency braking system scored close to full points across all test scenarios for the avoidance of pedestrians and cyclists in both daylight and night-time conditions,” Goodwin says.
“Engineers noted concerns with the deployment of the knee airbag, and a penalty was applied against the test results of both the frontal offset and full width frontal tests. Areas of the dash were also identified as a potential source of injury for the driver’s knees, and penalties were applied.”
The five star ANCAP safety rating for the BMW X5 is currently limited to 3.0 litre diesel variants as it awaits further information from the brand.
