Now, the Prius has always been arguably the most over-engineered of all the current-generation Toyotas. Lexus, of course, being the most obvious manifestation of their obsessive attention to detail to the point of having to spin it off as another marque.
Short of that, there’s the incumbent hybrid that pretty much set the template for amalgamating internal combustion and electric power. And now the fourth generation Prius is here to nudge us yet again to buy into its promises of ultimate fuel economy.
It has been on sale in Australia since March, but only how has it been put through the standardised crash tests. Unsurprisingly, the Prius’ results were rather stellar and continues the high standard of safety espoused by its previous evolutions.
Overall, it scored a 36.22 out of a maximum 37 points with that small fraction shy of a perfect score stemming from a 15.22 out of a maximum 16 points in the Frontal Offset Test. The rest, such as the Side Impact Test and Pole Test, were where the Prius took full marks.
Those are for occupants, mind you. For pedestrians, the Prius did fare so flawlessly. That being said, it did take home a very strong score 28.55 points out of a maximum 36, resulting in a ‘Good’ rating.
The 4th-gen Prius comes standard with dual frontal, side, head, and knee airbags along with active safety features such as Autonomous Emergency Braking, adaptive cruise control, and lane support system.
James Goodwin, CEO of ANCAP, commented: “The Prius has held a 5 star ANCAP safety rating for a number of generations and the current model continues to impress with a notable line-up of advanced safety assist technologies as standard including autonomous emergency braking, lane support systems and adaptive cruise control.”
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