WASHINGTON: Honda’s Civic won the top grade in a new crash test of small cars while Nissan’s Sentra and two Kia Motors models received “poor” ratings, according to an insurance industry group.
Half of the 12 small cars tested in a deadly type of front- end collision earned “good” or “acceptable” scores while the rest were “marginal” or “poor,” the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said Thursday. Small cars fared better on average in the simulation of a “small overlap” crash than small sport- utility vehicles did in a May study by the institute.
The test of model-year 2014 cars may influence consumers’ vehicle purchases as makers of top-performing cars use the findings in marketing campaigns. The Arlington, Virginia-based insurance industry-funded group created the new test in part to give manufacturers an incentive to design safer cars.
The results underscore that safety need not be sacrificed in buying small vehicles, said Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at Irvine, California-based automotive researcher Kelley Blue Book.
“Small cars are often associated with a lack of safety,” Brauer said in a telephone interview. “It’s often a concern for people shopping that category. ‘Am I going to be safe and protected in this vehicle if something bad happens?’”
Introduced last year, the institute’s test simulates a vehicle’s front corner colliding with a car, tree or pole. It’s tougher than simulations used by US regulators to rate vehicles on a five-star auto safety system. The Civic is the top-selling model in the US so far this year in its segment of “upper small” cars, according to Autodata Corp, a Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based industry researcher. Toyota’s Corolla ranks second. The Civic is Honda’s second-best-selling vehicle in the US after the larger Accord.
The two- and four-door Civics, made by Honda, based in Tokyo, both scored “good,” the top rating, in the insurance institute’s simulation. Honda has designed its vehicles to withstand the types of crashes in this test and to have a survivable space for the driver after impact.
Toyota’s Corolla wasn’t tested because the carmaker plans to release it in a new design this month. The institute chided Volkswagen’s Beetle because the car’s steering column moved almost five inches to the right upon impact. Chrysler’s Dodge Dart, Ford’s Focus, Hyundai’s Elantra and Toyota’s Scion tC were rated “acceptable”. The Chevrolet Sonic and Cruze, and the Beetle scored “marginal.”
WP-Bloomberg
