ANCAP: Four stars for 2024 Hyundai Kona

The second-generation Hyundai Kona has been issued with a surprise four-star safety rating by the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) after it fell short in the areas of vulnerable road user protection and safety assist.

While carsales’ reigning Best Small SUV and 2023 Car of the Year podium-getter achieved five-star-worthy results in the areas of adult and child occupant protection following physical crash tests that assess a vehicle’s structural integrity, the new Hyundai Kona only achieved scores of 64 and 62 per cent for the vulnerable road user protection and safety assist categories respectively, both of which have a five-star threshold of 70 per cent – thereby ruling it out of contention for an overall five-star rating by default.

“The Kona achieved scores of 64 per cent and 62 per cent … with performance of its autonomous emergency braking system assessed as ‘adequate’ in tests with pedestrians and cyclists,” said ANCAP.

“The emergency lane keeping system fitted to the Kona also showed ‘adequate’ performance, including in emergency lane keeping tests with a motorcycle.

“‘Good’ performance was shown in autonomous emergency braking motorcycle test scenarios.”

ANCAP also noted that the destructive crash tests brought “mixed results”. Maximum points were awarded for protection of the driver in the side impact and oblique pole tests, however protection of the driver’s chest in the full-width frontal test was assessed as ‘weak’.

“The driver dummy was also observed to slip beneath the lap portion of the seatbelt in the full-width test with crash forces transferred across the abdomen, and a scoring penalty applied for higher abdominal injury risk,” ANCAP said in its report.

Released in July 2023 and now joined by Hybrid and Electric variants, the new 2024 Hyundai Kona was praised by carsales testers for its tech-heavy nature and safety, even if some of its active driver aids are somewhat overbearing.

Hyundai Australia has so far declined to comment on the new Kona’s four-star ANCAP rating, which applies to every locally-offered variant – including the just-released Kona Electric – and which will prevent it being sold to company fleets with a maximum five-star ANCAP rating requirement.

It’s not the first time a new model – or a new Hyundai – has received a sub-five-star ANCAP rating, with the Hyundai Venue light SUV being rated four-star back in 2019 and the pint-size Hyundai i20 N hot hatch now being ‘unrated’ by ANCAP, along with a host of others that lost their safety rating after six years on sale.

Most notably, the new MG 5 small sedan and Mahindra Scorpio off-road SUV were slapped with a zero-star rating by ANCAP in December, while the new Toyota CH-R and the popular Prado and LandCruiser 70 Series are now unrated, and more auto brands including Mitsubishi are considering the release of new non-five-star models due to the high cost of meeting increasing active safety requirements by ANCAP.

ANCAP today also announced the Tesla Model 3’s existing five-star safety rating will not be carried over to the facelifted version, which will need to be retested due to the mechanical and technological changes made as part of its mid-life update.

Join the conversation at 

our Facebook page

Or email us at 

editor@carsales.com.au