Why Subaru Didn't Make Consumer Reports' List Of Safest Cars

There are some car brands that have become synonymous with the word safety. Brands like Mazda, Lexus, Acura, and Hyundai roundly receive very high safety ratings from drivers and publications alike. Another of these brands is Subaru. The Japanese automaker ranks second amongst all car brands on U.S. News' safety ranking, earning an overall score of 9.56 out of 10. Its Impreza, Solterra, and Ascent models all received ratings of 9.5 or higher, showing that the brand's safety is not confined to one particular vehicle. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) also rates the Subaru Ascent, Solterra, and Forester models among the safest in their respective vehicle classes. So, it comes as a bit of a surprise that Consumer Reports' ranking of the safest vehicles doesn't feature a single Subaru model.

The reason behind it is quite simple. There are a number of safety features that have drastically improved the safety of vehicles, such as blind-spot warning and pedestrian detection. In order for a car to make Consumer Reports' list, these features needed to be standard on every single trim of a particular model. While Subaru offers these features on its vehicles, they are not standard across the board. For example, take the Subaru Forester. Blind post detection comes standard on four of the six trims available. Beyond that, it is optional on the Premium trim for an extra fee, and it is not available at all on the base Forester. Therefore, it is disqualified from the Consumer Reports ranking. That is not to say that the Subaru Forester — or any other Subaru model for that matter — is unsafe. They just didn't meet this one specific criterion.

The Consumer Reports ranking of the safest vehicles on the market features many other brand names you would expect to make a list like this. The brand with the most representation is Hyundai. Out of the nine vehicles on the list, three of them bear the Hyundai name: the Tucson Hybrid, Santa Fe Hybrid, and Ioniq 6. The Tucson ranks the highest of the three, but Consumer Reports arranged the ranking by overall average score, which does not necessarily mean it is the absolute safest of the Hyundai models. Along with those three, the list also features the Genesis GV60, which earned a glowing review here at SlashGear, and Genesis is the luxury arm of Hyundai, meaning one company makes up over one-third of the list.

At the very top of the ranking is the BMW X5, thanks to its overall rating of 87 out of 100. That is five points higher than the tied second-place finishers, the Hyundai Tucson Hybrid and Toyota Camry. The X5 is the only model produced by BMW on the list, and it is the sole vehicle of the nine not produced by an automaker based in Asia. That means there are no other European models, even from companies like Volvo, which have been revolutionary in developing car safety features, and not a single American automobile. The only American vehicle mentioned by Consumer Reports is the Dodge Durango, and that's to highlight it as the worst-performing vehicle when it comes to crash tests.