Palisade safety turns a corner

HYUNDAI’S updated full-size Palisade SUV has scored a top safety score of five stars during recent testing by the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

Improving on the model’s previous four-star result, the renewed Palisade achieved strong results across the petrol- and diesel-powered range. The results apply to two- and all-wheel drive Palisade models produced from May 2022 onwards and available for purchase across Australia and New Zealand from this month (August).

Hyundai Palisade models originally released into the Australasian market from late 2020 were restricted to a four-star ANCAP safety score because of performance limitations in the Adult Occupant Protection (79%) and Safety Assist (63%) areas of the assessment.

Respective threshold scores of 80- and 70 per cent are required to achieve a five-star result.

Updated Palisade variants fared far better in both criteria, the MY23 range achieving an 84 per cent result in the Adult Occupant Protection category and an 83 per cent score against Safety Assist criteria.

Hyundai chose not to conduct an additional side impact test to demonstrate occupant-to-occupant protection with the centre airbag. A default one-point penalty was therefore applied.

The model also achieved an 88 per cent Child Occupant Protection score (unchanged) and a 62 per cent Vulnerable Road User Protection rating (down one per cent from the previous model).

In both the frontal offset and side impact tests, Child Occupant Protection was rated as ‘good’ for all critical body areas for both the six- and 10-year-old child dummies.

The bonnet of the Hyundai Palisade provided ‘good’ or ‘adequate’ protection to the head of a struck pedestrian over most of its surface, with some ‘weak’ and ‘poor’ results recorded

along the front of the bonnet and on the back corners.

Protection of the pelvis was mixed, with ‘good’ and ‘poor’ results across the vehicle’s front. The bonnet of the facelifted Palisade model offers a slightly lower level of pedestrian protection to the earlier model Palisade, with some ‘marginal’ and ‘adequate’ results recorded for the lower legs.

ANCAP says original Palisade models were not fitted with a centre airbag and offered a less sophisticated autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system when viewed against that fitted to the updated range.

Updated Palisade models are fitted as standard with a centre airbag – providing front seat occupants with an improved level of head protection in side impact collisions – and improved AEB technology which provided better performance across all car-to-car AEB test scenarios, including turn-across-path emergency braking situations.

Dual frontal, side chest-protecting and side head-protecting (curtain) airbags are also fitted as standard.

Further improvements include the fitment of a speed limit information system, where the vehicle can identify a local speed limit and allow the driver to set the speed accordingly, and multi-collision braking, which limits vehicle movements following an initial collision.

Autonomous emergency braking (car-to-car and vulnerable road user and junction assist) and a lane support system with lane keep assist (LKA), lane departure warning (LDW) and emergency lane keeping (ELK) are all standard equipment on the new Hyundai Palisade.

“It’s great to see Hyundai introduce these safety-related upgrades which now elevate the facelifted Palisade to five stars, and we encourage all vehicle brands to continually look for opportunities to improve the safety specification of models as part of their model facelifts,” said ANCAP CEO Karla Hoorweg.

“Consumers, fleets and mobility service providers prioritise the purchase and use of five-star ANCAP rated vehicles, and this upgrade now sees the Palisade become a purchasing contender for these buyers.”