The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crash tested the new-to-market 2024 Acura ZDX and 2024 Honda Prologue and the results were worse than the Tesla Model Y and Rivian R1S. The ZDX and Prologue are both battery-electric vehicles, like the Tesla and Rivian.
There are two awarded designations by IIHS, Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick +. Criteria for the award recently changed. To win either designation, the vehicle must record a Good score in small overlap front and updated side tests, an Acceptable or Good rating in the organization’s pedestrian front crash prevention evaluation and Acceptable or Good headlights ratings across all trim levels.
To get the highest designation, Top Safety Pick +, the vehicle must also receive a Good or Acceptable rating in the new moderate overlap front test. That test is designed to represent the result of an offset crash between two vehicles traveling in the opposite direction at just under 40 miles per hour each. In 2022, the test was updated to include seat protection as part of its rating criteria.
IIHS testing for the Tesla Model Y amounted to the crossover earning all Good ratings (the highest possible) in two overarching categories, Crashworthiness, and Crash Avoidance and Mitigation. Because of those ratings, it was awarded the Top Safety Pick + designation, IIHS’s highest award.
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The Rivian R1S is an IIHS Top Safety Pick. It earned scores similar to the Tesla, except in the moderate overlap front test where it scored a middling Marginal, and its standard front crash prevention system was only rated Acceptable.
The two new electric SUVs came up short in the the small overlap front test. During the stages crash, in both vehicles, the passenger side dummy’s head, “slipped between the front and side curtain airbags,” IIHS said in a press release.
The small overlap front test is designed to represent how a vehicle and its occupants respond should the model crash into a stationary object, like a telephone poll or tree, To get the result, each vehicle is tested twice, once on the driver side and another on the passenger side.
The ZDX had additional failings. Its headlights initially tested as Poor, but new headlights were provided by the company and then the vehicle was retested, earning a Good rating. Vehicles built before September come equipped with the Poor headlights.
The ZDX and Prologue are built alongside the Cadillac Lyriq and Chevrolet Blazer EV at General Motors’ Spring Hill, Tennessee manufacturing plant. The cars share a platform but have unique styling. The Lyriq and Blazer EV have not been rated by IIHS.
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Honda reported selling over 14,000 Prologues this year, through the end of September. Acura has sold more than 3,000 ZDXs during the same time.
Newsweek has contacted Honda and Acura for comment.