Kia Sportage rated five-star safe despite safety spec discrepancy

carsales’ Best Mid-Size SUV, the 2022 Kia Sportage, has just been awarded a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating, backing up the same rating achieved by the bigger Kia Sorento – our Best Family SUV for 2022 – in 2020.

Based on testing conducted by Euro NCAP, Kia Australia’s most popular model so far this year scored 87 per cent for both its adult and child occupant protection, 66 per cent for vulnerable road user protection and 74 per cent for its safety assist systems.

According to ANCAP, the only chink in the new Kia Sportage’s physical crash test results were the ‘marginal’ protection provided to the driver’s chest in the full-width frontal test and oblique pole tests.

A few other shortcomings were also uncovered in the performance of its autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system, especially when it came to detecting other vehicles above 60km/h, which ultimately yielded another ‘marginal’ result on its score card.

More points were lost when it came to the AEB system’s junction assist and rear pedestrian detection functions, not because of a poor performance but because they aren’t fitted as standard to all variants in Europe where the testing was conducted.

However, Australia’s (and New Zealand’s) Sportage range does come with junction assist as standard on all variants (while AEB Backover is fitted to Australia’s GT-Line and NZ’s X-Line models), leading the local ANCAP body to concede our vehicles would “achieve a slightly higher Safety Assist score with this added functionality”.

“The new Kia Sportage has already proven to be a popular choice for fleets and families, and Kia is to be congratulated for achieving another five-star safety rating against ANCAP’s 2020-2022 protocols,” said ANCAP chief executive officer Carla Hoorweg. 

The upcoming 2022 Alfa Romeo Tonale luxury SUV, Cupra Born electric hatch and Mercedes-Benz T-Class people-mover also netted themselves five-star Euro NCAP ratings, although the Alfa raised eyebrows for missing a centre airbag.

However, testers said the new Italian SUV performed well in car-to-car and car-to-pedestrian crash avoidance tests thanks to its advanced safety suite, making an “an aggressive collision partner in frontal crashes”.

The same success couldn’t quite be replicated by the 2022 BMW i4 electric fastback, which ended up with a four-star Euro NCAP rating because it is fitted with an ‘older’ sensor set dating back to 2019 and subsequently “missed out on some critical crash avoidance points”.

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