The Chery Omoda has recently received a 5-Star ANCAP safety rating with an elevated safety offering that passed with flying colours when tested against the 2020-2022 rating criteria.
It stood out from its predecessors with enhanced safety features, subjected to more rigorous testing and rating criteria. Unlike the previous Chery J11 (2 stars) and Chery J1 (3 stars) models, which received safety ratings below the expected standard in 2011, the Omoda 5 offers commendable structural and active safety protection.
In the frontal offset (MPDB) crash test, it demonstrated sound structural performance with a mix of Good and Adequate ratings. However, concerns were raised about the dashboard design, which could pose a knee injury risk to occupants of different sizes than the driver and front passenger test dummies. Penalties were applied to account for this additional risk.
During the side impact test, the test dummy’s injury measurements for key body regions were Good. However, the head-protecting side curtain airbag failed to open as intended, resulting in a penalty, and reducing the score for the driver’s head in both the frontal offset test and oblique pole tests to Adequate.
The front-end design of the small SUV was effective in minimising the injury risk to occupants of an oncoming vehicle if struck. It achieved one of the best scores for vehicle-to-vehicle ‘compatibility’ to date, with only a slight deduction in this area of testing.
Its autonomous emergency braking (AEB) performance was rated as Good. The AEB functionality extended to detect and respond to other vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists, as well as in reversing and intersection turning scenarios.
After updating the lane support software in Australian-supplied vehicles from April 2023, additional emergency lane keeping (ELK) and lane keep assist (LKA) tests were conducted to assess safety-related vehicle performance differences.
The local vehicle with updated software maintained a similar level of performance to the initial European testing, though it did not respond in a small number of emergency lane keeping test scenarios, resulting in a reduced score for ELK. Nevertheless, the overall Safety Assist score remains within the five-star threshold.
The full ANCAP Safety Report for this vehicle can be found here.
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