Dozens of new cars get tested each year by the main European crash testing organization, EuroNCAP, but only a small percentage of those vehicles achieve truly high scores. This happens in part because EuroNCAP has kept improving its testing procedures almost on a yearly basis, with the newest requirements in 2014 involving autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems and other technologies part of the "Safety Assist" criteria, which is a branch of active safety.
A couple of novelties happened during the crash tests that took place in 2014, with EuroNCAP testing no less than five models available with either full-electric or hybrid propulsion. The second premiere was probably the fact that all the so-called Large Family cars tested in 2014 achieved the top five star rating, with the only difference between them being the overall score. With that being said, EuroNCAP has just released a list of the five highest performing cars in terms of overall score, spread around five different model categories: Supermini, Small Off-Road 4x4, Small MPV, Small Family Car and Large Family Car.
As it happens, only one Supermini achieved a five-star rating, and therefore the highest overall score in its category, despite no less than 14 cars in its segment having been crash tested during 2014. Pretty much the same situation happened in the Small MPV category, where only one car received the highest rating — over half of the vehicles tested scoring a rather shameful three stars. Interestingly enough, the Tesla Model S was surpassed by the Lexus NX hybrid as far as the best-scoring alternatively fueled vehicles go, albeit by only a small margin. The five best scoring cars of 2014 at EuroNCAP are the Skoda Fabia, Land Rover Discovery Sport, Volkswagen Golf Sportsvan, Nissan Qashqai and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class.
More details after the jump.
EuroNCAP Announces Best In Class Cars Of 2014 originally appeared on topspeed.com on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 17:00 EST.
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