Genesis G70: How ANCAP arrived at a five-star score

So you’ve read about the impending – if much delayed - arrival of the Genesis G70 and decided this is the sort of luxury sedan that might appeal to you.

You’re a diligent researcher when buying a new car, so you naturally check the ANCAP safety rating.

How long might that take you? Call up the website, click Genesis on the drop down menu, then select G70 and find out it’s got five stars. It took me 22 seconds. Add another five minutes to study the technical report – if you’re keen – and you have been briefed.

Now compare that with the process that arrived at that five-star process. Five G70s crashed, four written off, testing that spanned the globe, months of number and data crunching and the not inconsiderable sum of around $550,000 spent to do it all.

And out of all that spits a star rating. In this case, that all-important five-star rating announced last December.

But our story started in April 2018 when ANCAP – or the Australasian New Car Assessment Program – invited carsales.com.au to witness a G70 being crashed at the APV test lab in western Melbourne.

This was a significant moment for several reasons. It was the first time the G70 has been tested outside the confines of Genesis parent Hyundai’s own crash labs, which helped explain why there was a bunch of Hyundai engineers on-hand, as well as representatives of ANCAP and its partners.

It was also the first time ANCAP had conducted a full-frontal impact test and the first time two adult female instrumented dummies had been used in an official test.

That new test, which runs a car head-on into a wall at 50km/h, reflects the alignment of ANCAP with Euro NCAP that was completed in 2018.

Other physical tests conducted under this regimen include frontal off-set, side impact, pedestrian protection, oblique pole and whiplash. Ramped up significantly from 2018 onwards was the assessment of driver assist systems such as autonomous emergency braking, which were tested for effectiveness and not just handed out points for being fitted to the vehicle.

These tests are conducted in the UK, but will eventually start happening in Australia. All this is a lot more complicated and extensive than the way ANCAP kicked off 26 years ago.

“ANCAP started as a bit of a troublemaker,” explains CEO James Goodwin. “They really were trying to point out to the car industry ‘are you really making the best and the safest vehicles that you can’.

“But it’s evolved, it’s become almost a quasi-regulatory organisation. We have done that by changing the testing protocols. As cars have got safe we have tried to make them safer by introducing or changing our testing protocols.”

The introduction of the full-frontal test reflects that. While off-set tests are better for assessing the integrity of the safety cell, the full-frontal – or full-width -- test is better for assessing the operation of airbags and seat belts.

Key areas being examined include A-pillar deflection, roofline deformation, how the airbags open, how the Hybrid III dummy’s head makes contact with the airbag, and how quickly load cells react and limiters fire. In the back seat, the passenger’s head movement and pre-tensioner operation are also tracked.

The two fifth percentile adult female instrumented dummies – worth around $500,000 each! – were positioned in the G70’s driver’s seat and in a rear outboard seating position. Previously, only child dummies were used in the rear seat.

“It’s important to use different dummies to represent the community and we can capture different data on how they respond in different crash scenarios,” explained Goodwin.

“In the rear-seat we are concerned that the technology that has been going into the front seats - load limiters, seat belt pre-tensioners - are often not included in the rear seats

“We should be as safe sitting in the rear seat as we are sitting in the front.”

And so to the test. The 2.0T G70 looked a little forlorn attached to the chain dragging it to its fate.

All onlookers were ushered to a viewing area, where we watched the crash from a three-quarter rear angle. A klaxon went off, banks of lights switched on and a whirring noise became louder as the car commenced its final ride.

The G70 appeared from our right and rushed unflinchingly into the wall. A loud but dull boom echoed through the cavernous hall. The car rebounded and stopped. Shrapnel had exploded off the front-end of the car and was strewn about. But for the most part the G70 looked remarkably intact.

A photographer captured the detail before the scene was contaminated. The engineers watched video replays in slow motion until they are given the all-clear to approach the wreck. Then the forensic examination began.

Long after the wreck was shipped away the data crunching continued in search of a verdict. Of course, there were more crashes and more test results to be factored into the knowledge base.

Months and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the verdict on the G70 is just a click or two of a keyboard away. Read the technical report and you’ll find out driver dummy protection in the full-width test was adequate for the chest and good for all other critical body regions. In the rear seat protection was rated as good or adequate but dropped to poor for the pelvis area, which slipped beneath the lap section of the seatbelt.

All important stuff to know.

“This is an expensive business but it’s a great investment,” says Goodwin. “We are empowering consumers with the information they need to know how safe a vehicle is.”