The Volvo V40 is Euro safety record king
The Volvo V40 has not only aced its Euro NCAP tests, but it has scored the highest overall safety rating as of yet, making the new hatchback by far one of the safest cars in the world.
On its way to an overall five-star safety rating, the car set new records in two of the three crash tests and reached the maximum score in the safety assist category.
Obviously the world’s first under-bonnet airbag system has contributed heavily to its 88 percent pedestrian protection score. We’ve talked about this system before, but to give a very quick break-down of it; the system detects when the car strikes a pedestrian – via several sensors located behind the bumper – and lifts the bonnet, to absorb some of the impact, and deploys an airbag to cover the base of the windscreen and the A-pillars to protect the pedestrian’s body, especially the pedestrian’s head, because the airbag was designed to cover the areas that are most likely to be hit by the head.
What further boosted the V40’s score is its pedestrian-detecting autonomous emergency braking system – which comes with the car as an option – capable of automatically braking if it concludes that a pedestrian is likely to be hit.
The vehicle also benefits from an updated version of the City Safety autonomous braking system, which now will be active for speeds up to 50 km/h.
The car was found to offer very good protection to knees and femurs of front-seat occupants across a wide range of body sized, as well as good protection to the entire body in the side barrier impact. It actually got maximum points in the side pole test.
Where it scored its lowest rating is in the passenger protection test, where it only got 75 percent. While the test’s results showed that the dummies were properly contained by the shells of their restraints, thus minimizing the risk of contact with the car’s interior, the score is well behind that of the smaller and less expensive Renault Clio for example.
