Initial data indicated that the new-gen Hyundai Tucson won’t arrive in South America for another two years. As a result, Latin NCAP bought the previous-generation model at the beginning of the year and set out to see what it’s made of in a crash-testing session.
You’d probably expect the compact crossover to behave quite well, right? Well, it doesn’t, because the version tested by the safety specialists, with two frontal airbags and no standard ESC, scored a very disappointing ZERO stars.
According to Latin NCAP, it showed good performance in the frontal and side impacts, yet the lack of standard side airbags is what prevented it from scoring higher. Child occupant protection was poor, on the other hand. Pedestrian protection was deemed as average overall, with poor for the upper legs and low for the head, and more points were lost as it does not feature autonomous emergency braking for pedestrians. Overall, the vehicle achieved 51.21% in the Adult Occupant, 4.37% in the Child Occupant, 49.85% in the Pedestrian Protection, and 6.98% in the Safety Assist.
Since the new-gen Hyundai Tucson has arrived in the market in the meantime, Latin NCAP offered to test it out, but the Korean automaker is said to have declined.
“Latin NCAP is again disappointed by Hyundai’s attitude to Latin American consumers’ health and safety,” commented Secretary General, Alejandro Furas. “It is unbelievable that an SUV like the Tucson does not offer side impact protection and ESC as standard. The long delay in replacement parts delivery is also concerning. We make an urgent call to Hyundai for a dramatic change in basic safety strategy in LAC and level it to its policy in Europe, Australia and US, among others.”
Alongside the previous-generation Tucson, Latin NCAP also tested the Peugeot 208, which received a 2-star safety rating. The subcompact model is built in Argentina for the local market and has standard two frontal and two side airbags, and ESC. In the Adult and Child Occupant categories, it received 51.53% and 54.92% respectively, 54.13% in the Pedestrian, and 55.81% in the Safety Assist.
After a series of unfortunate events put an end to Cristian's dream of entering a custom built & tuned old-school Dacia into a rally competition, he moved on to drive press cars and write for a living. He's worked for several automotive online journals and now he's back at autoevolution after his first tour in the mid-2000s. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News