Revised Toyota HiLux gets five stars

TOYOTA has thrown down the gauntlet to rivals in the huge Australian ute market by scoring a range-wide five-star Australasian New Car Assessment (ANCAP) safety rating for the latest updated version of its top-selling HiLux pick-up.

The move means HiLux – Australia’s best seller for the past three years – will retain its appeal among safety-conscious fleet buyers who demand a five-star rating not more than three years old.

While the HiLux was already a five-star vehicle under the previous ANCAP testing regime, the Japanese manufacturer re-submitted its revised version for testing under the more stringent 2019 ANCAP analysis.

Known within the company as Toyota Safety Sense, the revised safety systems package being progressively rolled out in the latest HiLux update includes autonomous emergency braking (AEB) capable of detecting vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, along with active lane-keep assist and advanced speed assist.

The move has won the praise of ANCAP chief executive James Goodwin who said it was encouraging that Toyota had become the first manufacturer to put forward a vehicle with improved safety specification for re-testing against the more stringent ANCAP criteria.

“The standard inclusion of these advanced driver assistance systems across the HiLux range is a welcome move and one which will make this model even more appealing to private and fleet buyers with many fleets insisting on five-star rated vehicles with a ‘tested’ date stamp of no older than three years,” he said.

“Utes are the most popular choice among Australian and New Zealand consumers, and no matter the use, the highest levels of safety should be provided.

“This is a strong example of market-driven change.”

Rival Ford has also ramped up the safety tech of its Ranger ute, adding AEB with pedestrian detection, lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition and auto high beam headlights.

This should protect the Ranger’s five-star rating under the new rules, although GoAuto understands no such revised testing is in the planning schedule at ANCAP.

In the case of HiLux, ANCAP tested the new safety technologies on extended cab 4x2 and 4x4 variants, giving the vehicle a 78 per cent safety assist rating for 10.5 points out of 13.

Test engineers found that the AEB showed good performance at highway speeds, with collisions avoided or mitigated in most test scenarios.

The vehicle lost some points for its lane keeping assist system that ANCAP said did not intervene in more critical lane-keeping scenarios, thus earning it an adequate rating.

HiLux’s speed assistance system which identifies the local speed limit and allows the driver to set the vehicle’s speed accordingly also got marked down a little, but the ute scored full points for its seatbelt warning alarms.

In a result that would shame many passenger sedans on Australian roads, the HiLux scored 96 per cent for adult occupant protection in the crash testing, only losing points for crash impacts on the driver’s legs and chest and the front-seat passenger’s right leg. These were rated ‘adequate’, while the rest of the test results were ‘good’.

Child occupant protection was rated at 87 per cent, with a score of 42.64 points out of 49, while the vulnerable road user (pedestrians and cyclists protection) was given a score of 88 per cent (42.27 points out of 48).

The new safety rating applies to single cab and dual cab variants already in showrooms, while the extended cab will get it when the updated version arrives next month.