The massive auto manufacturer was considerably outperformed on the new tougher safety tests.
The Camry and the Prius V from Toyota Motor Corp. received the lowest ratings in a new auto insurance crash test simulation for severe front end collisions that included new and tougher elements.
The Camry is currently the best selling mid-size vehicle in the United States, and the Prius V is a hybrid.
These two vehicles from the manufacturer were the only ones out of all of the participants in the auto insurance safety test to have received “poor” scores. The crash tests are used by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and are meant to help to evaluate a collision in which the front corner of a car strikes another vehicle, pole, or tree.
This is considered to be a tougher auto insurance test than the one used by the American government.
The government’s safety test uses a simulation in which two vehicles – or a car and an object – connect head-on. According to the president of the auto insurance group, Adrian Lund, “Toyota engineers have a lot of work to do to match the performance of their competitors.”
The group receives its funding from the auto insurance industry. It is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It has just implemented what it calls the “small overlap” test for the first time this year. The choice was made to include this simulation because it represents the type of collision that occurs in nearly one quarter of all frontal crashes that either seriously injure or kill people in the driver or front passenger seats.
A spokesperson from Toyota, Brian Lyons, released a statement via email, which said that “With this new test, the institute has raised the bar again and we will respond to the challenge.” He went on to explain that in light of the auto insurance test’s new results, “We are evaluating the new test protocols and can say that there will not be one single solution to achieve greater crash performance in this area.”
The auto insurance test showed that “good” ratings were typically scored by mid-sized vehicles, such as the Kizashi from Suzuki Motor Corp., or the Accord from Honda Motor Co., and that they also often outperformed comparable luxury models.
