Australasia's independent voice on vehicle safety, ANCAP, has today released ratings for the Land Rover Range Rover, Land Rover Range Rover Sport, Nissan X-Trail and Toyota Corolla Cross, with four more SUVs achieving five-star safety ratings as the 2020-2022 test and rating criteria draw closer to an end.

All petrol, diesel and PHEV variants of the three-row Land Rover Range Rover and its partner model, the Land Rover Range Rover Sport achieved five-stars with full points scored for its protection of adult and child occupants in the side impact test and the driver in the oblique pole tests. AEB car-to-car and AEB car-to-pedestrian (forward) performance also scored well, however active avoidance of pedestrians while reversing is not offered. A centre airbag is not offered on the Range Rover or Range Rover Sport, however owing to the size and design of the cabin, performance in far side impact tests was still respectable.

The Nissan X-Trail – assessed as a partner model to the recently high-scoring Nissan Qashqai – was shown to offer a comparable very high level of active safety performance achieving an overall Safety Assist score of 97 per cent which contributed to its five-star rating. Child Occupant Protection also scored well at 90 per cent. The X-Trail rating applies to all petrol and hybrid (e-POWER) variants.

Scoring five-stars and taking out the privilege of being the highest scoring model in the area of Vulnerable Road User Protection against the current 2020-2022 rating criteria is the Toyota Corolla Cross with a score of 87 per centi. Good scores were achieved in both the side impact and oblique pole tests as well as across the majority of autonomous emergency braking, emergency lane keeping and lane keep assist test scenarios, however Marginal performance was recorded for the chest of the driver in the frontal offset test, and a penalty was applied for far side impact protection as Toyota did not provide the additional information required to demonstrate that performance would provide similar levels of protection (robustness) for occupants of difference sizes. The five-star rating applies to all petrol and hybrid Corolla Cross variants.

"As we approach the end of this 2020-2022 protocol period and look ahead to a broadened test regime from 2023, it is pleasing to see a continued high level of safety performance offered from a range of brands," said ANCAP Chief Executive Officer, Carla Hoorweg.

i Previous highest Vulnerable Road User Protection score to 2020-2022 criteria was 84 per cent (Subaru Outback).