About ANCAP crash tests

Land Transport New Zealand is a member of the Australian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP). ANCAP tests judge the protection provided to front-seat occupants wearing safety belts in serious head-on and side-impact crashes.

New test results will be added to this site as they are completed. Eventually it will become more useful for used-vehicle buyers as the new vehicles filter through New Zealand's fleet year by year.

Recognising the limited number of ANCAP results available at present, we have provided links to a number of international crash test sites with information for a much wider range of vehicles.

We ask that you interpret these results with caution. In some cases there may be variations between models of the same name used in these tests and the models available here in New Zealand. All the vehicles tested in this programme are made to Australian specifications. New Zealand specifications may vary and therefore vehicles sold in New Zealand might provide different levels of protection to those described in these tests.

There has also been a change to the ANCAP rating system in the last 18 months and comparisons between the new star rating system and the older system cannot easily be made.

About the tests

Two crash tests are performed on each vehicle model - an offset frontal test and a side impact test. These tests simulate two of the most common crashes that occur on our roads.

In the offset frontal crash test 40% of the front of the vehicle (on the driver's side) strikes a fixed barrier at 64km/h. The front of the barrier has a deformable aluminium face so the test simulates crashing into another vehicle.
In the side impact test a 950kg trolley strikes the driver's side of the test vehicle at 50km/h. The trolley also has a deformable aluminium face to simulate the front of another vehicle.
Recent results have included pedestrian tests. These are a series of tests carried out to replicate crashes involving child and adult pedestrians where impacts occur at 40kph. Impact sites are assessed and rated out of a possible 4 stars.

Dummies are used in the tests to measure the degree of injury that would be inflicted on front seat occupants wearing safety belts in these crashes.

The European NCAP uses the same offset frontal and side impact crash tests, and some of the ratings given for vehicle models are the result of crash tests done in Europe.

Comparing ratings

There are two ratings systems for the cars shown on this site. The star system is the one most recently developed by ANCAP, but it cannot be directly compared to ANCAP's previous system of assigning cars a rating of Good, Acceptable, Marginal, or Poor.

The more stars under the new system the better.

The ratings allow you to compare the crash protection offered in a serious crash by different vehicles of similar weight. Comparison of the ratings of two vehicle models is most meaningful when the vehicles compared are manufactured in the same year and within a weight range of 230kg.

Correlation with on-road crashes

The Monash University Accident Research Centre in Victoria, Australia has found that the ratings from tests which are the same as those carried out by ANCAP had a strong correlation with the outcomes of serious on-road crashes. This shows that a vehicle's ANCAP rating is a good indication of the actual protection offered in a serious crash on the road.

ANCAP test results

Last updated: 6 December 2005