The Holden Acadia and BMW X5 are the latest new vehicles to be awarded a five-star rating by ANCAP.

The Holden Acadia seven-seat SUV has realised a five-star rating according to ANCAP with the independent crash test organisation praising the Acadia’s active safety features. According to ANCAP boss, James Goodwin: “The collision avoidance technologies fitted to the Acadia performed very well. 

“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.”

Indeed, across the test spectrum the Acadia performed well, scoring 94% for Adult Occupant Protection, 87% for Child Occupant Protection, 74% for Vulnerable Road User Protection and 86% for Safety Assist. The top rating applies to all Acadia variants.

“These are impressive results and it is encouraging to see Holden offer such a strong safety performer in this competitive family SUV segment,” said Goodwin.

The new BMW X5 also realised a five-star rating although, at this stage, the rating only applies to the 3.0L diesel variant and it wasn’t all good news with issues noted surrounding the deployment of the knee airbag. Again, ANCAP praised the active safety features of the BMW.

ANCAP’s James Goodwin said: “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.”

“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,” Goodwin added.