The Peugeot 308 has recorded an ANCAP four-star safety rating, applicable to all petrol variants, based on testing by Euro NCAP. While safety assist performance is of an improved standard on the Australian-specified Peugeot 308 compared to the standard European variant, lower scores in the adult occupant protection assessment prevented a five-star rating.
Nevertheless, Carla Hoorweg, CEO of ANCAP, praised the 308’s manufacturer. “It is good to see Stellantis opting to provide their Australian customers with a system that provides an enhanced level of active safety performance,” she said.
ADULT OCCUPANT PROTECTION
ANCAP said the passenger compartment remained stable in the frontal offset test (MPDB), though dummy readings indicated weak protection for the driver’s chest, and marginal protection for the lower legs. Protection of the front passenger chest and lower legs was adequate, while good protection was seen for all other critical body regions.
The 308’s front structure presented a moderate risk to occupants of an oncoming vehicle in the MPDB test (which evaluates vehicle-to-vehicle compatibility), and a 1.36-point penalty was applied.
In the full width frontal test, protection of the driver’s neck was adequate, and protection of the chest was marginal.
Protection was adequate for the neck and chest of the rear passenger, while good protection was offered to all other critical body regions for both the driver and rear passenger.
In the side impact test, protection offered to all critical body regions of the driver was good.
Protection was adequate for the chest of the driver in the oblique pole test, and good for all other critical body regions. A centre airbag to prevent contact between the heads of front seat occupants in side impacts is not available. 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 scenario and the vehicle-to-pole scenario.
CHILD OCCUPANT PROTECTION
In the frontal offset test, protection of the neck of the 10-year dummy was marginal and chest was adequate, while protection of the neck of the six-year dummy was adequate. Otherwise, protection of both dummies was good.
During the side impact test, protection of all critical body areas was assessed as good for both dummies, and maximum points were scored.
The 308 is fitted with lower ISOFix anchorages on the rear outboard seats and top tether anchorages for all rear seating positions.
Installation of typical child restraints available in Australia showed most child restraints could be accommodated in most rear seating positions, though the Type A capsule and the Type E booster could not be correctly installed in the centre rear position.
VULNERABLE ROAD USER PROTECTION
The bonnet of the 308 provided good or adequate protection to the head of a struck pedestrian over the forward part of the bonnet, but the rear of the bonnet, the windscreen, and the stiff pillars showed mostly poor performance.
The bumper provided good protection to pedestrians’ legs and pelvis.
The autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system can detect and react to pedestrians and cyclists. The AEB system offered adequate performance in pedestrian test scenarios, but the system on the tested vehicle does not react to vulnerable road users in reverse (AEB back over). A more advanced system able to detect vulnerable road users in turning scenarios is standard on all variants in Australia.
Good performance was seen in AEB cyclist test scenarios.
SAFETY ASSIST
The 308 is fitted with an AEB system capable of functioning at highway speeds, a lane support system (LSS) with lane keep assist and emergency lane keeping (ELK) functionality, and blind spot monitoring.
A fusion camera-radar AEB system is fitted as standard to vehicles supplied in Australia, providing better performance for car-to-car scenarios than the camera-only system standard in Europe. Peugeot provided evidence that the fusion camera-radar system and vehicle performance for the Australian specification 308 is the same as the closely related DS 4, for which official tests were conducted by Euro NCAP, and this is reflected in the 308 scoring.
Tests of the car-to-car AEB system showed good performance, with collisions avoided or mitigated in all scenarios, including AEB Junction Assist where the test vehicle can autonomously brake to avoid crashes when turning across the path of an oncoming vehicle or pedestrian.
The LSS functionality showed some good performance, including in several of the more critical emergency lane keeping test scenarios. A more advanced system with ELK overtaking functionality is standard on all variants in Australia, but its performance was not tested.