Hyundai, Kia cars win top safety rankings in US

Hyundai Motor Group said Sunday that four of its cars -- Palisade, Sonata, Genesis G90 and Kia’s Telluride -- have won awards in a crash test held by the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, one of the industry's top safety honors.

The Hyundai Palisade, Kia Telluride and Genesis G90 were named as Top Safety Pick+, the highest ranking, while Hyundai Sonata won the second-highest Top Safety Pick.

The Telluride, in particular, received the highest rankings in every test category, while the Genesis G90 topped the premium segment for the second consecutive year.

“This is a meaningful outcome considering that our leading car models have shown safety even under the toughened test requirements of the US agency,” said a Hyundai official.

Starting this year, the agency’s side-impact tests are conducted with an 82 percent heavier ram to reflect the increasing weight of vehicles.

The winners of the top plus award are also required to achieve high ratings for pedestrian collision avoidance, both day and night.

As for headlights, a key evaluation standard to determine whether vehicles have enough visibility to prevent a nighttime crash, requirements have gotten more stringent for both TSP and TSP+ awards.

The TSP+ award requires a “good” rating in the four standard test categories that evaluate the crash impact on driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front and side. For daytime and nighttime vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash, the vehicle must receive “advanced” or “good” and “acceptable” or higher grades in the headlight test.

For TSP awards, cars need to have been graded “acceptable” or higher ratings for side impact and “good” in terms of the rest of the three categories. For front crash of vehicle and pedestrian during daytime, the vehicle must receive “advanced” or “good.” The headlight test adopts the same scaling rating as TSP+.

Founded in 1959, IIHS is a non-profit organization that evaluates the safety of vehicles sold in the US through crash tests.