ANCAP: Five stars for GWM Tank 500 and Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max

The 2024 GWM Tank 500 and 2024 Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max have both been awarded a maximum five-star safety rating by the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

The two all-new large SUVs are the latest models to arrive in Australia from the established Chinese auto brands, each appealing to car buyers who need three rows of seating but each with very different intents: the Tank is all about off-roading while the Chery focuses on the urban grind.

The GWM Tank 500 was awarded adult occupant protection, child occupant protection, vulnerable road user protection and safety assist category scores of 85, 93, 81 and 84 per cent respectively, one of which (child occupant protection) was a record score under ANCAP’s latest 2023-2025 test protocol.

A contributing factor to the impressive result is the Tank 500’s inclusion of an advanced ‘direct’ child presence detection system, which is capable of sensing the physical and even respiratory movements of a sleeping child or occupant and alerting drivers that someone may have been left behind in a vehicle.

“Our protocols encourage the fitment of direct child presence detection (CPD) systems in an effort to reduce instances where children are inadvertently left in a car,” said ANCAP CEO Carla Hoorweg.

“The CPD system fitted to the GWM Tank 500 is one of the more advanced systems assessed by ANCAP so far, and it's great to see manufacturers implementing this potentially life-saving technology.”

The only major blemish on the Tank 500’s scorecard was a full eight-point vehicle compatibility penalty for what ANCAP described as “increased risk to occupants of a struck oncoming vehicle”.

The seven-seat Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max isn’t fitted with a CPD but still netted decent category results of 88, 87, 79 and 86 per cent respectively.

ANCAP said its assessment was largely based on last year’s testing of the smaller but closely-related Tiggo 7 Pro five-seat SUV, with some supplementary pedestrian protection tests carried out on the Tiggo 8, as well as an assessment of additional technical information provided by Chery “to evaluate any potential differences”.

Hoorweg said the Tiggo 8 Pro Max’s five-star rating continued Chery Australia’s recent run of pleasing crash test results.

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