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Honda says it won't get the CR-V retested by ANCAP to increase its safety rating from four to five because customers are not concerned.
Family Cars
Honda has no plans to put its top-selling CR-V medium SUV through a second round of ANCAP testing, despite having made safety improvements, stating that customers don’t consider it an issue.
The current-generation Honda CR-V carries a four-star ANCAP rating, awarded in 2024. It missed out on five stars, in part, because the range did not have a 360-degree camera feature at the time of testing.
The brand has just launched the updated CR-V in Australia, which now comes with said cameras on all hybrid versions except the entry-level X.
However, Honda Australia’s Director of Automotive, Robert Thorp, said the CR-V undergoing a second round of ANCAP testing wasn’t worth the roughly $750,000 cost to do so because it hasn’t had any feedback suggesting anyone cares that it has a four-star rating.
“It doesn't come up as an objection. It's not something that when we talked to our Honda Centre partners, they're raising as an issue,” he told media, including Drive.
“I think the suite of Honda sensing technologies that we have is very, very good.
“Honda is continually refining those and continually adding in [more]. So it is not an objection in the market we're seeing, and we're very comfortable with what we've got.”
Asked separately by Drive if customers are bothered that a car might not have a five-star rating, Thorp simply added: “We're not retesting.”
Back in 2023, ANCAP gave the CR-V a 68 per cent result in the safety assist category, which was not enough to meet the minimum 70 per cent requirement for a five-star rating.
ANCAP’s sister organisation, Euro NCAP, awarded the CR-V four stars as well in 2024, but upgraded it to five the same year once the camera system had been added. Australian examples didn’t get the feature until this year.
The safety body does carry out some of its own local testing, but most results are based on crash tests in Europe, then republished for our market with tweaks made where specification differs as necessary.
And the Honda HR-V was likewise given four stars in 2022 because it lacked a centre airbag between the front seats, designed to prevent head strike between two occupants in a severe side impact, as well as other shortcomings, including no top tether anchor for the rear middle seat.
Honda is not the only manufacturer whose vehicles miss out on a top score.
The MG 3 hatch was also limited to four stars in 2025; however, this was upgraded for models built from 30 April that year, with older versions classified as three-star due, primarily, to low adult and child occupant protection scores.
Honda’s comments have raised questions about whether private buyers are as focused on a new car's ANCAP rating as fleets, for which many operators insist on a five-star rating.
One of Hyundai’s top-selling models, the Kona small SUV, and its popular i30 Sedan both have fewer than five stars, yet thousands are sold in Australia every year.
The i30 Sedan received a three-star rating in 2024. Holding the rating back was the safety assist tech score, which fell short of the 60 per cent minimum for four stars or 70 per cent for five.
Points were deducted for autonomous emergency braking technology that delivered "poor" performance in preventing collisions in head-on and turning-across-traffic scenarios, as well as zero out of two points because it doesn’t have a driver monitoring system.
The performance of advanced safety systems such as its autonomous emergency braking system for pedestrians and cyclists, and emergency lane-keep assist function, was dubbed “adequate” by ANCAP, yet Euro NCAP – which carried out the actual testing – considered it “good”.
Hyundai declined to comment on whether a lesser ANCAP score has impacted its models’ popularity, letting the numbers speak for themselves.
Since the new model arrived in mid-2023, Hyundai has sold 101,831 Kona SUVs locally.
Responding to Honda’s comments, and the idea that private buyers aren’t as concerned with every car having a top result, a spokesperson for ANCAP told Drive:
“For most buyers, a high level of safety is expected in a new vehicle,” they said.
“In today’s market, where vehicles compete closely on price, features and technology, safety ratings remain a key point of differentiation, particularly when consumers are comparing similar models.”
“Our research shows a majority of Australians car buyers expect five stars as a baseline, and when given a choice at the same price point, overwhelmingly choose the higher-rated vehicle.
“That’s why independent safety ratings remain an important point of comparison, particularly in segments where multiple options compete closely on price and features.”
The comments come as Australia’s favourite SUV, and sometimes overall vehicle, the Toyota RAV4 goes unrated by ANCAP, its previous result having expired in December.
It’s likely fleet buyers won’t purchase the RAV4 until the new model, which has just launched in Australia, is tested by Euro NCAP later in the year.
If it were tested before then, it would only achieve a four-star rating by today’s standards, despite Toyota having made significant upgrades to both passive and active safety since the last model was introduced in 2019.
Family Cars Guide
A born-and-bred newshound, Kathryn has worked her way up through the ranks reporting for, and later editing, two renowned UK regional newspapers and websites, before moving on to join the digital newsdesk of one of the world’s most popular newspapers – The Sun. More recently, she’s done a short stint in PR in the not-for-profit sector, and led the news team at Wheels Media.
