BYD Atto 3 safety rating hits hurdle in Australia

The 2022 BYD Atto 3 has been awarded a maximum five-star safety rating under the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), but there’s a catch – it only applies to New Zealand for now.

Australian-delivered versions of the Chinese brand’s new EV remain unrated as a potential homologation breach is investigated.

The discrepancy stems from the lack of a child-seat top tether anchorage point for the centre-rear seat, which is a must-have for new five-seater passenger vehicles sold in Australia.

ANCAP says it’s “working with BYD to finalise the applicability of a rating for Australian-specified models”.

The process could end up being a lengthy one if the Atto 3 is found to have breached Australian regulatory requirements. BYD’s local distributor could be required to stop selling the EV and recall all vehicles delivered to customers to date.

Beyond the question mark over child restraint safety, there was no questioning the crash test performance of the BYD Atto 3, which achieved high marks for driver protection in the side impact and far-side impact tests, as well as child protection in the side impact and frontal offset crash tests.

The autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system of the BYD Atto 3 was also praised, especially for its pedestrian and cyclist detection day or night.

The latest ANCAP results also cover another electric car – the soon-to-launch all-new 2022 Volvo C40 Recharge, which received a five-star safety rating without hiccup.

The C40 Recharge earned maximum points for front occupant protection in the frontal offset test and for driver protection in the full-width frontal test, side impact test, oblique pole test and the far-side impact tests.

Full marks were also awarded for child occupant protection in the side impact and frontal offset crash tests.

The new Volvo EV’s ability to “maintain its intended lane of travel” and avoid run-off-road crashes through its lane support system were noted too, and the car’s AEB suite performed to a high standard.

That said, the C40 Recharge did receive a four-point penalty for vehicle-to-vehicle compatibility, with ANCAP declaring the vehicle presents a higher risk to occupants of an oncoming vehicle in a collision.

The crash tests for both the C40 Recharge and Atto 3 were conducted by Euro NCAP – which also gave the Atto 3 a five-star result – as part of its latest round of testing, which included five other models relevant to our market.

The Mercedes-Benz EQE, Mazda CX-60, BMW X1 and the updated Volkswagen Golf were all awarded five stars, while the just-launched Citroen C5 X fell short with four stars.

According to Euro NCAP, the Citroen C5 X was a solid performer generally speaking but “did not stand out due to the omission of equipment or marginal performance in some of the active safety tests”.

The Euro NCAP results for these five cars are also expected to carry over to ANCAP ratings.

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