Mitsubishi Express rates zero for safety

The 2021 Mitsubishi Express is the first vehicle to receive a zero-star safety rating from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

The damning result reflects the fact that Mitsubishi’s new delivery van, which is essentially a rebadged version of the third-generation Renault Trafic introduced in Australia in 2015 (about a year after launching in Europe), has arrived without the high level of driver-assist safety technology that’s an essential element of the latest ANCAP testing criteria.

The Mitsubishi Express scored only seven per cent in the Safety Assist section, and ANCAP’s current practice is to base its overall star rating on the lowest result across its four areas of assessment – the others being adult occupant protection, child occupant protection (not applicable here) and vulnerable road user protection.

But the Mitsubishi Express also performed poorly in other areas, scoring only 55 per cent for adult occupant protection and 40 per cent for vulnerable road user protection – figures that ANCAP described as “below-par performance”.

The shocking zero-star rating comes after the independent safety watchdog took the unusual step of purchasing four examples of the Mitsubishi Express to conduct the various crash tests required to make the assessment.

Usually, but not always, car-makers provide the vehicles to ANCAP for testing, in the hope that their latest models will receive the maximum five-star safety rating, which is now considered a minimum requirement for private consumers and fleet purchasers alike.

Five stars has also become an important marketing tool for car companies.

But ANCAP’s testing of the Mitsubishi Express was never going to produce anything but a bad result given its lack of driver assist tech, and the fact the vehicle (like the Renault Trafic) was developed about a decade ago when NCAP protocols were less stringent.

ANCAP chief executive Carla Hoorweg told carsales it was unfortunate Mitsubishi launched the vehicle without considering the ramifications.

“This is a newly released vehicle, so while Mitsubishi will try and say ‘No, it’s an old vehicle’, they made that decision, they made that corporate decision to introduce it in 2020. So it’s subject to 2020 criteria and there’s no inconsistency in application there,” she said.

“It’s particularly concerning given the segment that it falls in. Fleet operators are obviously going to buy vans in greater numbers – you’ve got your everyday tradesman who will also buy this – and most of them have five-star purchasing policies.

“So it’s really unusual that Mitsubishi made the choice to bring in something that at that stage was unrated when they knew that it wasn’t able to achieve the five-star standards that ANCAP and the market would expect.”

Hoorweg compared the performance of the Express to the latest Toyota HiAce, which achieved a top five-star result in 2019. This included scores of 94 per cent for adult occupant protection, 84 per cent for vulnerable road users and 77 per cent for Safety Assist.

“It’s a matter of [Express] not meeting that current five-star standard that’s visited well ahead of time,” she said.

“And it’s unfortunate that Mitsubishi chose to introduce the vehicle without really considering the ANCAP ramifications.”

Mitsubishi Australia’s manager of certification and regulatory affairs, James Tol, acknowledged that the zero-star rating of the Express reflects the fact that it doesn’t have driver assist systems such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB).

“There’s no way we can avoid the zero-star result,” he told carsales. “The zero-star result is because ANCAP, in the current way things are scored, takes the worst of the four boxes and report that as the overall star rating.

“The facts are that on the current generation of Express we don’t have AEB or lane departure systems and so on, so as a result of that the zero score result comes.

“Granted, we got a zero-star result because of Safety Assist, but actually when we scratch into the detail result of adult occupant protection, we actually see some good results – even in tests that the vehicle was never developed for because these tests have come much later in the piece.”

Notwithstanding a red-zone alert for poor whiplash protection, Tol said the results show protection for the driver is particularly good, and that some of the marking down in the crash testing was partly due to the fact ANCAP (and Euro NCAP) threshold levels had changed in recent years.

Examples he cited include compatibility with other vehicles and the design of the side airbag, both of which he said were developed on the original van according to earlier testing protocols. 

“The detail can be lost in all of the hype around zero stars,” he said.

“The vehicle didn’t just suddenly become a bad vehicle overnight. Yes, it doesn’t have all of the contemporary braking assistance and so on, but it still offers you a good level of occupant protection and that’s important.”

ANCAP, on the other hand, said the crash performance of the newly released Express was “marginal” in various areas, “with notable risk of serious injury to the chest of the driver in three of the four destructive crash tests [frontal offset, full width frontal and oblique pole tests]”.

A penalty was also applied for potential hard knee contact points for the driver in frontal crashes, and close to the maximum penalty applied for “aggressivity” in frontal collisions with other vehicles. 

It said further penalties were applied for “significant deformation of the side cargo door in both the side impact and pole tests, creating openings through which partial ejection may be possible”.

In the whiplash test, there was a high risk of neck injury recorded, with “passenger whiplash injury risk likely to be higher due to the basic design of the bench seat and head restraints fitted for the two front-row passenger seating positions”. 

“The Express’ poor result sends a clear signal to manufacturers and their global parent companies that safety must be prioritised in all segments offered to the Australasian market,” said Hoorweg.

“Safety rating criteria and consumer expectations have evolved, as have manufacturers’ desire and ability to introduce improved levels of safety.

“We know Mitsubishi can deliver vehicles with high levels of overall safety and a wide range of modern safety technologies and we encourage them to accelerate the introduction of these features into their van product.”

Mitsubishi says it’s committed to selling the Express van in Australia and that it will upgrade to new technology as soon as it becomes available.

A new-generation version of Renault Trafic is expected to appear in 18 months to two years’ time, which means a new Express might arrive here by late 2022 or early 2023.

Related: Mitsubishi Express definitely 'not unsafe'