A wide range of 2024 model year vehicles – from small cars and SUVs to large pickups and minivans – are among the 71 that have been recognized for their safety benefits in a new ranking.
Hyundai Motor Group, which includes the Genesis, Hyundai and Kia brands, garnered the most awards overall.
Those are the highlights of the most recent list of Top Safety Picks, an annual evaluation designed to give consumers an easy and efficient way to identify vehicles with the best level of safety available.
This year’s list, released on Tuesday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit financed by the insurance industry, introduced requirements for better protection for back seat passengers and improved pedestrian crash avoidance systems.
“This year’s winners are true standouts, offering the highest level of protection for both vehicle occupants and other vulnerable road users,” David Harkey, the Insurance Institute’s president, said in a statement. “We followed the tougher requirements we introduced last year with another major update to the award criteria in 2024.”
The changes to the 2024 award criteria were designed to push automakers to pursue higher levels of safety, and the more stringent criteria, the safety group said, have been applied to both the award categories: Top Safety Pick and the higher-tier, Top Safety Pick +.
Hyundai Motor Group, which includes the Genesis, Hyundai and Kia brands, had the most 2024 awards overall — six Top Safety Pick+ and 10 Top Safety Pick awards for a total of 16.
Toyota Motor Corp., which includes the Toyota and Lexus brands, garnered the next highest total with one Top Safety Pick+ and 12 Top Safety Pick awards. Mazda earned the most Top Safety Pick+ awards of any single brand, with five, as well as one Top Safety Pick.
By class, small SUVs, midsize SUVs and midsize luxury SUVs tied for the most Top Safety Pick+ awards, with five each. Midsize luxury SUVs, which qualified for an additional 12 Top Safety Pick awards, earned the most awards overall.
“The high number of SUVs that earn awards probably reflects the dominance of those vehicles in the U.S. market,” Harkey added. “But it’s disappointing that only four pickups and four midsize cars earn awards, considering the popularity of those classes.”
Criteria differ slightly, depending on the award category, but both categories include evaluations for: a number of tests that gauge crash protection; headlight standards: and pedestrian front crash prevention systems, which include tougher standards for the technology that detects and brakes for pedestrians in the dark.
Pedestrians represent an increasingly large share of crash deaths and are currently at their highest level since the early 1980s, the safety
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