ANCAP: 2025 Subaru Forester gets five stars

The new-generation 2025 Subaru Forester has successfully cleared a major hurdle in the lead-up to its Australian launch: a five-star ANCAP safety rating.

Posting respective category scores of 83, 91, 86 and 75 per cent for its adult occupant protection, child occupant protection, vulnerable road user protection and safety assists, the latest version of Subaru’s best-selling model breezed past the five-star thresholds.

Testers gave particular praise (full marks) to the new Forester’s driver protection in the side impact, oblique pole and full width crash tests, however the latter “saw ‘weak’ chest protection for the adult passenger seated in the second row”.

Another model recently awarded five stars was the 2025 Polestar 4 which equalled the second-highest adult occupant protection score (92) and supported this feat with respective category scores of 87, 81 and 79 per cent in the remaining categories.

Not quite so successful was the 2025 Hyundai Inster which was only awarded a four-star rating, having fallen short of a top rating on account of its lagging adult occupant protection (70%) and safety assists (69%).

The pint-sized EV did well on its child occupant protection (83%) and vulnerable road user protection (70%) – different categories have different five-star thresholds.

“‘Marginal’ chest protection was common across the frontal offset, full width frontal and oblique pole tests,” testers noted.

“In the side impact test, pelvis protection of the driver was assessed as ‘adequate’, and the chest protection for the 10-year-old child dummy was ‘poor’.

“Following this test, the driver’s door was found to be unlatched … a further penalty was applied.”

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