ANCAP testing shows electric cars are not significantly safer than petrol or diesel

Yesterday at 06:49 PM

Regardless of where you stand on electric vehicles (EVs), the inclusion of a high-capacity battery and high-voltage components presents a unique danger in the event of a collision.

EV Firesafe Australia states there have been six reported electric car battery fires locally, with none related to a spontaneous or charging event.

In fact, most (four out of the six) have been caused by an external fire, while one was caused by hitting road debris and the other by a collision.

According to Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) Chief Executive Officer Carla Hoorweg, the crash-test data between tailpipe emissions-free models and the all-electric cars are shaking out to be similar in terms of overall safety.

"What we've seen from the ones [EVs] that we've rated that have come into the market … around 85 per cent had hit five stars," Hoorweg said.

"It's not too different from the whole of the ratings.

"We usually see around 85 per cent of what we've tested have hit the five-star mark, so it's not dissimilar."

Across the list of current electric cars that have ANCAP ratings, only a handful of passenger car and SUV models fell short of the maximum safety rating – namely the BMW i4, Fiat 500e and Hyundai Kona Electric that notched four stars, and the Jeep Avenger that scored three stars in their respective test years.

With ANCAP's remit also extending to New Zealand, all-electric versions of the Opel Mokka and Citroen C4 have also been awarded four-star scores.

This means out of the 57 current EV ANCAP scores, only six have fallen short of the maximum safety score, or around 10.5 per cent.

Of note, there are also 16 EVs with expired ratings, all of which had five-star scores barring the first mass-market EV to arriving in Australia, the Mitsubishii-MiEV that had four stars.

Compare that to the current ratings for internal combustion engine (ICE) passenger cars and SUVs, which sees 18 out of the 117 tested models fall short of the maximum score – or about 15.4 per cent.

ICE models also include lower scores, such the zero-star Mahindra Scorpio and MG5 due to sub-standard active safety and crash protection, one-star Suzuki Swift, and three-star cars like the Hyundai i30 Sedan, MG3, Jeep Gladiator and Jeep Wrangler.

With EVs scoring higher proportionally to their ICE counterparts, that makes the former safer right?

Well, no, because it is important to note that EVs are generally newer than petrol- or diesel-powered models, which means they often having more advanced technologies despite being tested to the latest standard.

Price also plays a big part here too, or as Hoorweg puts it: "I would say there's also probably a factor of play there where … how are you going to go from a sales perspective if you're bringing a one-star EV into Australia – it's an expensive product."

Furthermore, ANCAP simply cannot test every single new model coming to market, which means as an overall indicator of safety, the data is inconclusive regarding which is safer.

What can be surmised however, is that from the models that have undergone ANCAP examination, so far it looks like electric cars have a higher proportion of five-star cars than models with ICE.

The post ANCAP testing shows electric cars are not significantly safer than petrol or diesel appeared first on Drive.