Volkswagen T-Cross safety credentials revealed

Volkswagen has given an insight into the level of safety fitted to its upcoming T-Cross SUV, which is due to be revealed in full later this month.

A teaser video from the German car-maker reveals its smallest crossover to-date will offer a big safety suite.

Chiefly, Volkswagen is promoting the T-Cross’ City Emergency Braking system with pedestrian detection, which is set to be standard fitment and uses a sensor to detect other vehicles and pedestrians.

As depicted in the video, when a potential collision is detected, the system alerts the driver and automatically primes the brake. If the driver fails to respond, the T-Cross will intervene, automatically braking itself to prevent or reduce the impact of the collision.

The T-Cross is being touted as “one of the safest vehicles in its class” by Volkswagen, in a segment already occupied by the Mitsubishi ASX, Mazda CX-3, Hyundai Kona, Holden Trax and, soon, an entrant from Kia codenamed the SP2.

“The Lane Assist lane keeping system and the Front Assist area monitoring system with City Emergency Braking System and Pedestrian Monitoring are always included as standard,” Volkswagen said in a press release.

“Other assist systems include the Blind Spot Sensor (warns of vehicles in the blind spot) including Rear Traffic Alert (warns of vehicles approaching from the side behind the T-Cross), the proactive occupant protection system (closes windows and sunroof, tightens seat belts and increases brake pressure in the event of an accident) and Adaptive Cruise Control (brakes and accelerates automatically using a radar system).”

Based on the same AO platform as the Polo city-car, the T-Cross has been busy testing in the lead-up to its unveiling on October 26, Australian time.

There is little else left to uncover for the baby VW SUV. In fact, a prototype version has already been sampled by motoring.com.au and the production-spec car was caught virtually undisguised in August.

The T-Cross will be powered by a range of three-cylinder engines and will be front-drive only. Not counting the Golf or Passat Alltrack crossovers, it will be Volkswagen Australia’s fourth SUV model, following the Tiguan, Tiguan Allspace and Touareg, and the fifth globally including the larger Golf-based T-Roc.

Volkswagen Australia has ruled out the T-Roc SUV for now but says the T-Cross will arrive in Aussie showrooms in the second half of next year.

“It gives us coverage in a segment where Volkswagen hasn’t previously had coverage,” said Volkswagen Australia spokesman Paul Pottinger.

“We’re really just getting on the SUV bandwagon and the T-Cross is very much part of our plans. In the meantime we’ll be bringing out the Tiguan Wolfsburg edition. That will be our next SUV to roll out.”