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The Australasian New Car Assessment Program, better known as ANCAP, has today released the results of another crash test that doesn’t seem to be doing too well, given that it involves a four-year-old model that the taxpayer-funded association already knew about. that he will not achieve his highest grade.
Estimated to have cost around $750,000, the test resulted in ANCAP hitting Hyundai’s best-selling model globally, i30 Sedan (known elsewhere as Elantra and Avante), with three safety stars.
This was essentially a test of a vehicle that first came out in 2020. to the 2024 standards, which were unknown at the time the vehicle was designed and manufactured.
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Upon its 2020 launch, the Hyundai i30 Sedan received a Top Safety Pick rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in the United States and a five-star crash rating from the South Korean equivalent, ANCAP; the car is not sold in Europe, so Euro NCAP has never tested it.
According to ANCAP CEO Carla Horweg, the Hyundai i30 Sedan is being tested now because “the addition of the hybrid drivetrain this year broadens consumer interest.”
However, the hybrid and combustion engine variants of the i30 Sedan are almost technically identical when it comes to crash testing, by ANCAP’s own admission.
The three-star rating does not apply to the i30 Sedan N, which remains unrated along with petrol versions produced before June 2023.
ANCAP gave the i30 Sedan an adult occupant protection score of 71 percent, a child occupant protection score of 81 percent, a vulnerable road user protection score of 62 percent and a safety assistance score of 56 percent.
Interestingly, ANCAP has not decided to apply its own logic to testing other now popular hybrids against modern standards such as Toyota Corolla Hybrid.
Toyota’s model is well ahead of the Hyundai i30 Sedan hybrid in sales and was given a five-star rating after testing in 2018, which is due to expire in just over a month due to ANCAP’s six-year shelf life policy.
Despite the organization’s general irrelevance in our market – due to the far wider and more comprehensive testing in Europe, Asia and North America – many Australian fleet managers are mandated to only buy vehicles with a five-star ANCAP rating.
This is a position that numerous fleet organizations in the industry have told us is unsustainable in the long term.
But is the Hyundai i30 sedan really dangerous?
ANCAP now considers any vehicle that does not meet the strict criteria of a constant beep as potentially dangerous. According to the company’s press release: “Safety Assist’s performance limited the i30 Sedan to three stars.”
In other words, it doesn’t beep enough when you’re driving.
Reading the actual ANCAP crash test results shows that the Hyundai i30 protects its occupants quite well in a real crash, with scores of 7.37 out of 8 in the adult side impact test, 5.13 points out of 6 in the dynamic test adults and 15.46 out of 16 for the children’s dynamic test.
With its latest publicity stunt, ANCAP seems to be trying to show that Hyundai should have updated a car that came out in 2020 to 2024 standards. for Australian market only.
To put that into context, figures from Hyundai’s annual sales report show an estimated 275,000 examples of the i30 Sedan/Elantra/Avante were sold globally in 2023 – of which only around 3000 came to Australia last year year.
Given that other markets already gave the i30 Sedan a top score when it was first launched – and tested it to the standards it was designed for – ANCAP’s latest crash test looks like another massive waste of taxpayer funds with no net benefit to Australian consumers.
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