After making its name for its performance and value for money aspects, the subcompact SUV is now making headlines in safety aspects as well
Just a few days after Kia Sonet made its global debut, its cousin, Hyundai Venue has received one of the top safety awards. Venue and Sonet not only share parts and engine options, but also shares platform and chassis. Speaking about the latest award bagged by Hyundai Venue, it is the ‘Top Safety Pick’ award for the year 2020 conferred by Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). IIHS is a non-profit independent institute that evaluates a car for its safety in the US.
To be eligible for this award, a car must secure good ratings in six different sets of evaluations. These include- moderate overlap front, driver-side small overlap front, side-impact, passenger-side small front, head restraints and roof strength. It also requires advanced or superior ratings for both vehicle to passenger as well as vehicle to vehicle front crash prevention tests as well as an acceptable headlight illumination rating.
Details of the tests conducted
In case of Venue, the car scored the highest ratings in almost all the fields except for headlight illumination and child seat anchors. As per IIHS norms, both standard and optional fitments in the Venue obtained superior ratings in front crash prevention safety in case of vehicle to vehicle crash. It was able to withstand collisions in both cases of vehicle to vehicle evaluation at 19 kmph and 40 kmph.
In case of vehicle to pedestrian tests, the Venue secured an advanced rating with standard safety fitment and a superior rating with optional safety package. The optional safety package includes features such as Blind-Spot Collision Warning (BCW) with Rear Cross-Traffic Collision Warning (RCCW). Both variants of the car successfully managed to mitigate the impact of the collisions in all pedestrian layouts. However, the optional variant was able to avoid severe impacts on more cases and attained a greater reduction in speeds.
The only area where the Venue lacked behind is the headlamp illumination criteria in which it scored ‘Marginal’ in its lower trims because of poor visibility around corners. In its higher trims, though, it managed to score better with an ‘Acceptable’ rating. It is to be noted, that the Venue comes with projector LED headlamps in the higher trims whereas in the lower trims it gets a halogen unit.
In the overall crash tests, Hyundai Venue manages to score a ‘Good’ in every category which is the highest available rating. Therefore, in case of an unfortunate collision, the Venue is fully capable of keeping its occupants safe. However, due to the lower rating in the headlight illumination category, it cannot qualify for the Top Safety Pick + award.
Difference between India-Spec and US-Spec Venue
It is to be noted here that the Hyundai Venue sold in the US, is not made in India. It is made in South Korea. The India-made Hyundai Venue has not been crash tested yet. Engine options are also different. The US version of Venue gets a 1.6-litre in-line four-cylinder Smartstream petrol engine which produces 119 bhp and 153 Nm of peak torque. Transmission duties are carried either by a six-speed manual as standard or an IVT gearbox as optional. Interestingly, the Venue secured a 4-star crash test rating in the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP). Although, the Indian version is yet to be crash-tested.
