4 Star Government Safety Ratings- Will it impact sales?

Informed For Life does incorporate the IIHS results. It does not incorporate EuroNCAP. Who knows if the Euro Spec Prius is identical to the North America version. Even so, it can't hurt that the Euro version got a 5-star result there. I think the SCORE is a good overall comparison tool. Because it factors in weight, it also allows you to compare vehicles of different sizes. The NHTSA and IIHS frontal results, on their own, can only be used to compare vehicles of similar weights.

The 72 result is because they have not yet entered the NHTSA information or the IIHS rear rating. You must use their calculator as I described earlier in order to get the correct score, at least until they update their database with the new crash test results.

The Insight rating is mostly correct, but it will be lower once they enter the IIHS rear rating, also. It also assumes the LX version without stability control. If you use the calculator to add stability control and the rear rating, the SCORE drops to 69 for the EX model.

 

The calculator ask for NHTSA 'side impact front seat' rating, but it doesn't distinguish between frontal driver and frontal passenger.

Being extremely conservative at 12% and 4 stars for front/rear side impact, I get 68.6. I put the curb weight in as 3000lbs - maybe their official scoring will use the actual curb weight of 3042 (not that it should matter much).

With the best scores being around 50, I feel pretty good about anything below 70.

Edit: the difference between 3000 and 3100 lbs is 0.6 points, so maybe 42lb will be equivalent to ~0.3 points.

 

The NHTSA frontal percentage is 11.48% average for driver and passenger, confirmed by the Informed For Life author and the equations provided by the NHTSA in the Informed For Life FAQ. As I said above, I chose to round down;-)

For weight, I used the number in the NHTSA page, 3098 and rounded up to 3100. Obviously, if you use 3000 instead the SCORE will float higher. Somewhere between 64 and 69 lies the real number, and I wouldn't sweat it. It's a solid result at either of those numbers or in between.

 

All, good discussion.

One thing to note is that starting with next MY, the federal crash testing will be changed to make it harder to achieve 5-stars. If you're still concerned about safety, I recommend you hold off on a purchase until next year, then compare all cars again. You may find that Prius stacks up very well.

Doug Coleman
Prius Product Manager
Toyota Motor Sales, USA

 

OK, are you saying that the Gen 3 was built with those new testing procedures in mind?

 

Or maybe he is saying that cars close to being a 5 will stay at 4 and cars at the bottom end of the 5 range will sink down to 4. Just a guess.

 

He was careful with his wording.

He used "may" instead of "should" or "will." I guess you could also say the we MAY find that the Prius does not stack up very well. Or we MAY find that Tuesday comes on Wednesday.

 

It was originally supposed to be 2010, but it has been postponed to 2011.

 

That is my understanding, yes.

Of course I used "may". We think it should do well but until the testing is completed and we get actual results, I'm not going to stick my neck out.

Doug Coleman
Prius Product Manager
Toyota Motor Sales, USA

 

As far as safety goes, a good rule of thumb is going to be your insurance rates. These companies base their numbers off of actual or anticipated losses, NOT government crash tests.

Also, when you look at the statistical difference between a 4-star and a 5-star rating, there is a few percentage points difference in the LIKELYHOOD of a significant or serious injury. Having said that, keep in mind that there are almost NO two accidents that are exactly alike. Even a point of impact difference of a few degrees, a decline/incline in the road surface of a few degrees or a couple of miles per hour in either of the impact vehicles, a few hundred pounds of weight of the vehicles, and other factors can make a huge difference.

Bottom line: Wear your seat belt and shoulder belt properly, drive defensively and always assume your safety is YOUR responsibility, not the car's.

Joe

 

Insurance rates tend to be dominated by vehicle collision repair costs, not injury or fatality related claims. There's also theft, damage and liability. You can find real-world statistics that separate out injury and medical claims, though usually only for cars at least a few years old. Even these are not very good predictors. Corporate twin models tend to have significant variations. That's in part because driver demographics play a big role in insurance claims too. An car that offers good crash protection will still have very high rates if it appeals to teens and young, unmarried males who account for more claims than average.

True, which is why it's nice that we have two different types of frontal and side impact tests in the USA. Conversely, if the manufacturers don't bother to design their models to do well in these well established tests that can influence consumers from a marketing perspective, there's not much reason to think they would spend the time, effort and money to design their vehicles to do well in other types of crashes.

Well said. The biggest things you can do for yourself and your passengers are to ride correctly restrained and drive unimpaired/undistracted. That cuts your risks considerably. Having a safe vehicle helps protect you from the person who runs a red light or swerves across the divider while sending a text...

 

www.informedforlife.org has updated the Prius entry in their database. Their final risk SCORE is "64.9".

 

5 star EuroNCAP though.
I have not read the reports fully yet.


Future owner of a Blue Ribbon Metallic Prius V with Nav, All weather Floor mats and Door Mouldings. (I had a IV on order but was able to change it)

 

I'd like to propose a new NHTSA star rating system. The present system only shows a star improvement after a carmaker has improved ONE FULL STAR. They get no star improvement, and the casual buyer (most, I'd bet) sees no improvement even if there is a "95% of a star" improvement. This unfair to the carmaker, the dealer, and the buyer, as far as I can see.

My suggested new system is shown in the attachment (since I don't know how to imbed a file directly). Please not that I am using circles rather than stars, but it's the same idea.

Any comments would be welcome, even negative ones

Thanks,

-g

 

I think you're a few years late, the period for comments on the new system was probably quite a while back;-) You may be in luck though. I think I read that the new system was going to be more like the Euro system, with one overall star rating and then percentage scores in the sub categories. I'll see if I can confirm that.

 

I guess they round it off to 65 and only give it a Medium Risk. A few extra pounds would put it under the threshold, so maybe that's even better news for the SR and Prius V people.:cheer2:

Still, the 65 SCORE easily beats the Insight and the 2009 Prius. It looks like the Fusion Hybrid might be in its own league (it's at least much heavier than the gas Fusion which already has a SCORE of 52.6). That's pretty damn good.

Interesting site, thanks for sharing.

 

Yup, you have to be 64.49 to get the low risk rating. Rounding and thresholds and margins of error aside, it's pretty similar to anything in the 60-70 range. That includes the Insight EX if you update its information, but not the LX that lacks stability control.

Ford did a great job with the Fusion. If I was trading in my minivan right now, the Fusion Hybrid would be a top consideration. We'll see what's around in a few years.

 

If you look at the 2009 ratings, only a handful of cars within 200lbs of the Prius have a better score.

 

I think the 2010 Prius's new 64.9 SCORE is super!! It's a shame that the 2010 Prius missed the hot zone (by 4/10 of one point) becasue the SCORE folks decided to round the number up to 65 before applying the "less than 65" criterion. Uhhhhhh......