2016 Volkswagen Tiguan Awarded "Best in Class" Title by EuroNCAP

These days, Volkswagen is much more vocal about its plans to build an army of electric vehicles than the cars and SUVs that have brought the company to the privileged spot it occupies. Not exactly fair toward the latter, but let's not get carried away and forget they're just a pile of plastic, metal, and glass with no conscience.

It turns out it's quite a shame the new Tiguan went under the radar too. If its looks are debatable - Volkswagen is going for a much more angular design these days, which might not be to everyone's liking - everything else about the car is better than with the previous generation.

It's got more room, more tech, a better-finished interior, and, apparently, it's also much safer. When it was tested by EuroNCAP, the small SUV received a rating of 96 percent for adult occupants, 84 percent for a child occupant, an impressive (especially for an off-roader) 72 percent for pedestrians and 68 percent for its standard safety assist features.

Its performance does not come as a surprise at all since other recent Volkswagen cars have also fared well in the safety tests. However, EuroNCAP tests became even more stringent in 2016, which makes Tiguan's score all the more valuable.

Every year, EuroNCAP selects the safest vehicles it had tested during the past 365 days for each segment and rewards their performance by awarding them the title of "Best in Class." This year, only three models were chosen, and the VW Tiguan was one of them.

The other two were the Toyota Prius for the large family car class and the Hyundai Ioniq for small family car. EuroNCAP noted that other models had fared well through this year's tests - like the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, for example - but they were alone in their respective categories so could not be awarded any prize.

Here is a video of the three winners being smashed to smithereens, so we know which car is the safest.