5-star ANCAP rating for Subaru XV, Holden Astra

The Subaru XV and Holden Astra have both earned 5-star safety ratings from Australasian watchdog ANCAP, with the Subaru’s pedestrian protection scoring particularly high.   “It’s good to see more and more vehicles entering our national fleet that take into account the safety of all our different road users,” says AA Motoring Services general manager Stella Stocks. “The Astra sedan and XV offer high levels of protection to occupants across a variety of crash scenarios including frontal, side and rear-end crashes,” said ANCAP CEO James Goodwin. Testing will be more rigorous next year and include a requirement for vehicles to include autonomous engine braking (AEB) in order to receive five stars. AEB prevents crashes by automatically engaging the brakes when it senses a hazard in close range. While AEB is a standard option on the three higher XV models, it's unavailable on the entry-level variant. The Astra sedan lacked any AEB option across the model range.  “Both cars would make safe family vehicles and come with a fair amount of safety assist technologies, but we would have liked to see AEB at least as an option on higher variants of the Astra,” Stocks said. “Manufacturers will need to start including AEB as standard sooner rather than later as rating requirements become more stringent next year,” she added. The 5 star ratings apply to all sedan variants of the Holden Astra and all variants of the Subaru XV.