Subaru Levorg scores five-star ANCAP rating

The Australasian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP) has obligingly granted the new Subaru Levorg a five-star rating.

And James Goodwin, the crash safety authority's CEO, has praised the new wagon, but primarily for its driver-assist technology.

"This is an impressive package in terms of safety," Goodwin was quoted saying in a press release.

"The standout with this model is that it offers all three grades of AEB as standard across the model line-up."

"This means its owners will benefit from emergency braking intervention to avoid a crash with another car at low speed; high speed; as well as upon the detection of pedestrians in the path of the vehicle.

"Very few models sold in Australia offer AEB as standard so this is a significant offering for a car in this category, and I would urge more manufacturers to follow suit."

There's no doubt that the Levorg is a safe car. In the event of a collision the Levorg's high-tensile-strength steel and airbags (including one for the driver's knee) will keep occupants safe from harm more so than many cars on the road. And primary safety features like Active Torque Vectoring and all-wheel drive will reduce the likelihood of a collision in the first place. The same could be said too for driver-assist technology like the Levorg's EyeSight v3.0 system.

But that system is not actually assessed by ANCAP, and nor are the active safety measures on board.

And finally, ANCAP hasn't actually crash-tested the Levorg. The local safety body has taken crash test data for Subaru's WRX and extrapolated a result for the Levorg based on the two cars sharing hard points and safety systems. That much was revealed during the car's local launch last week.

"We actually carried over from the WRX results, because it is just the same model line-up," said Subaru Australia's Chief Engineer, Hiep Bui, near the end of the car's media presentation.

It's commonplace for ANCAP and its counterparts around the world to use data from a near-enough/good-enough crash test to determine how a local car will 'stack' up. While there's no doubt that the Levorg result is valid (it even shares its wheelbase measurement with the WRX), the question that goes begging is whether this sort of exercise can be vindicated in every case.