European NCAP bestows Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra with 5-star safety ratings

The Toyota bZ4X battery electric compact crossover SUV has earned a 5- star safety rating in the latest batch of tests conducted by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), which provides consumers with information regarding the safety of passenger vehicles.

Interestingly, the all-electric Toyota bZ4X crossover SUV received the 5-star safety rating together with its official twin the Subaru Solterra. While only the Toyota bZ4X was tested, the results applied also to the Subaru Solterra because the two models are the same in terms of safety equipment.

According test results published by Euro NCAP, the duo received 88 per cent and 87 per cent in Adult Occupant protection and Child Occupant protection, respectively. In terms of Vulnerable Road Users protection, the duo received a rating of 79 per cent, while their Safety Assist system fetched 91 per cent.

Those results are pretty consistent, and very comparable to the Nissan Ariya’s ratings. It may be noted here that the Nissan Ariya is a competitor to the Toyota bZ4X crossover SUV. The Nissan Ariya scored 86 per cent in Adult Occupant protection, 89 per cent in Child Occupant protection, 74 per cent in Vulnerable Road Users protection and 93 per cent in Safety Assist.

While the aforementioned results are quite impressive good, the Tesla Model Y showed that even higher scores are possible. The Model Y electric SUV scored 97 per cent in Adult Occupant protection and 98 per cent in Safety Assist.

Back to the Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra, these two models scored the aforementioned results after undergoing frontal impact test with 50 per cent of the width of the car striking an oncoming deformable barrier, frontal impact test with the vehicle impacting a rigid full-width barrier at 50 km/h, side impact test with a mobile deformable barrier impacting the driver’s door at 60 km/h) and pole test with the tested vehicle propelling sideways into a rigid pole at a speed of 32 km/h. It is also worth-mentioning here that both all-electric Toyota bZ4X crossover SUV and the Subaru Solterra are finally entering the fast-expanding European and North American markets following a safety recall related to a glitch in wheel hub bolts. The recall had even forced the Japanese automaker to temporarily stop production of the EVs for a few months, right after the launch. Newly published safety ratings are now expected to help attract more customers towards these models.