ANCAP has awarded a five-star safety rating to all variants of the Alfa Romeo Tonale, introduced to Australia in February 2023. The rating is based on testing of left-hand-drive models by sister agency Euro NCAP.
ANCAP says the Tonale performed well in all four key areas of assessment, offering good all-round performance for the protection of adult and child occupants and vulnerable road users, along with its ability to actively avoid a crash through standard collision avoidance systems.
“The five-star rating for the Alfa Romeo Tonale hybrid sees it added to a growing list of small SUVs with strong and green safety credentials,” said ANCAP Chief Executive Officer Carla Hoorweg.
ADULT OCCUPANT PROTECTION
The agency says the passenger compartment remained stable in the frontal offset (MPDB) test. Protection of the driver’s chest and lower legs was adequate, with good protection offered to all other critical body regions of the driver, and all body regions of the front passenger.
The front structure presented a higher risk to occupants of an oncoming vehicle in the MPDB test (which evaluates vehicle-to-vehicle compatibility), and a 3.99-point penalty was applied.
In the full width frontal test, protection of the driver dummy was good for all critical body areas. Protection was adequate for the chest of the rear passenger, with good protection of all other critical body areas. Protection offered to all critical body regions in side impact and oblique pole tests was also good, scoring maximum points.
A centre airbag or other countermeasure to prevent contact between the heads of front seat occupants in side impacts was not available on the Tonale. Tests to measure potential injury risk in far side impacts were therefore not conducted.
Prevention of excursion (movement towards the other side of the vehicle) in the far side impact tests was assessed as marginal for the vehicle-to-vehicle impact and vehicle-to-pole scenarios.
CHILD OCCUPANT PROTECTION
In the frontal offset test, protection of the neck and chest of the 10-year-old dummy and the neck of the six-year-old dummy was adequate, while the protection offered to all other critical body regions was good.
In the side impact test, protection of all critical body areas was good for both dummies, and maximum points were scored.
The Tonale is fitted with lower Isofix anchorages on the rear outboard seats and top tether anchorages for all rear seating positions.
ANCAP says installation of typical child restraints available in Australia and New Zealand showed all selected child restraints could be accommodated in all rear seating positions, resulting in full points scored for this assessment.
VULNERABLE ROAD USER PROTECTION
The bonnet provided predominantly good or adequate protection to the head of a struck pedestrian, while weak and poor results were recorded at the rear of the bonnet, at the base of the windscreen, and on the stiff windscreen pillars.
Protection of the pelvis was mixed, with areas of good and poor performance, while the bumper provided good protection to pedestrians’ legs.
SAFETY ASSIST
The Tonale is fitted with an autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system capable of detecting and reacting to pedestrians and cyclists. Testing of this system showed adequate performance in pedestrian test scenarios, but the AEB system does not react to vulnerable road users in reverse, so AEB back-over tests were not conducted. In cyclist test scenarios, the AEB system offered good performance.
The Tonale scored well in the safety assist assessment thanks to its AEB system being capable of functioning at highway speeds, and a lane support system (LSS) with lane keep assist and emergency lane keeping functionality. A blind spot monitoring system is optional. Alfa Romeo says a higher grade of AEB and LSS is fitted to vehicles for Australia and New Zealand, but these systems were not examined due to the test being conducted by Euro NCAP on a European-market vehicle.
Tests of the AEB (car-to-car) system showed good performance with collisions avoided or mitigated in most test scenarios, including AEB Junction Assist where the test vehicle can autonomously brake to avoid crashes when turning across the path of an oncoming vehicle.
The assessment of lane support system functionality showed good performance, including in several of the more critical emergency lane keeping test scenarios.
A speed assistance system is standard, informing the driver of the local speed limit and allowing the driver to set the speed accordingly.
A seatbelt reminder system is fitted to all seating positions, but occupancy detection is not available for the rear seats. A driver drowsiness monitor system is fitted as standard.