Chevrolet Cruze wins top safety pick award as small cars get safer

Dec 22, 2010

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Chevrolet's Cruze compact car was one of 10 new vehicles to win the coveted Top Safety Pick award from the insurance industry, a sign that small cars are less hazardous to drive than they once were.

"The bar has been raised, and the automakers have been rising to the challenge," said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group, funded by insurance companies, that issues the safety rating. "With each successive redesign, cars have been getting safer."

General Motors has made safety a key selling point of the Lordstown-built Cruze, frequently mentioning the car's 10 standard airbags and electronic safety features in its commercials.

"The new Cruze was clearly engineered from the ground up to meet the highest standards in safety performance," IIHS President Adrian Lund said in a written statement.



In the highly competitive compact class, only the Kia Forte and Volkswagen Golf earn the top safety rating for all models. Honda's Civic gets the award only for its top-of-the-line Civic EX-L model.

That could change with next year's rating as automakers continue to move the compact car class more upscale. Ford plans to start selling its new Focus early next year, and that car will feature stability control technology to help prevent skidding and a new kinds of airbags that stay inflated longer.


Ford says it has put the 2012 Focus through more than 12,000 simulated and real-world crash tests in hopes of winning top safety rankings here and in Europe.



"We are using more computer simulations than ever to optimize the designs of all the components," Focus safety manager Matt Niesluchowski said. "The complexity of crash tests, with hundreds of parts and systems interacting, still requires physical testing to validate those simulation results."

Hyundai's new Elantra, also due out in early 2011, that will feature six airbags, electronic systems to prevent skids and improved brakes.

"You have to have the trust of your customers first," Hyundai spokesman Miles Johnson said. "You have to put all of those safety features first."

Johnson said Hyundai has added more safety and luxury features to the upcoming Elantra to appeal to buyers who may be trading down from bigger cars or sport utility vehicles. With gas prices rising, he said the company expects small cars to be a popular choice.

"All of the trend data that we look at show the small car segment is going to outdo the mid-sized car segment in terms of size" in the near future, Johnson said.

Honda also has a new version of the Civic due out late next year, and that automaker has made putting new safety features on redesigned cars a priority in recent years.

The addition of extra airbags and electronic safety systems does add cost to cars, and it's one of the reasons that compact cars have been getting more expensive in recent years.

The Cruze is selling for between $1,500-$5,000 more than the Chevy Cobalt it replaced. The Kia Forte costs between $15,000 and $23,000. Its predecessor, the Kia Spectra, started at about $13,000 and topped out at less than $18,000.

Marketing executives at Ford and GM have both said that compact cars are no longer cheap, entry level vehicles. That distinction has gone to the smaller subcompacts such as the Toyota Yaris or Chevrolet Aveo.

Instead of sticking to bare-bones interiors in compacts, automakers have been adding leather seats, navigation systems and high-tech audio systems.

"There are a lot of compact drivers who want a grown-up car," Cruze marketing manager Margaret Brooks said earlier this year.

Safety is a big part of selling compact cars as more premium vehicles because it's one of the biggest concerns many people have of going into that class of vehicles, Rader said.

"There's no question that small cars are getting safer, but the laws of physics still apply," Rader said. In a crash, the bigger, heavier vehicle tends to fare better than the smaller, lighter one. "Because of the inherent disadvantage that small cars have, it's extremely important that if you're choosing one of those vehicles that you choose a top safety pick."

The Cruze wasn't the only new car on the IIHS safety list. Nine other new vehicles got the nod, including Ford's Explorer sport utility vehicle and Hyundai's Santa Fe small SUV.

The Institute recommends 66 different vehicles as top safety picks. In 2009, it raised its standards to earn the rating by requiring stronger roofs to protect in rollover crashes. So that year, it only recommended 27 vehicles. By last year, the number was up to 58.

Another trend that the industry noted was that safety is no longer optional. Automakers used to reserve their best safety systems for premium vehicles, a practice that appears to be ending. For the 2011 model year, 92 percent of cars and 94 percent of SUVs have standard head and torso side airbags. Stability control is standard on 92 percent of cars, 100 percent of SUVs and 72 percent of pickups.

"That gives consumers shopping for a safer new car or SUV -- from economy to luxury models -- plenty of choices to consider in most dealer showrooms," Lund said. "In fact, every major automaker has at least one winning model this year."

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