IIHS Crash-Tests 11 More Vehicles, 3 Earn Top Safety Pick+ Awards
Model-year 2025 examples of the Audi Q6 e-Tron, Buick Enclave and Nissan Armada have emerged from a recent round of crash testing crowned as Top Safety Pick+ award winners, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s highest accolade. Meanwhile, the 2025 GMC Acadia landed on IIHS’s second-tier list of Top Safety Picks, while seven other vehicles missed the mark.
Related: These Cars Do Well in Crash Tests for 2025, According to IIHS
A Winner’s Guide to Winning
The Q6 e-Tron aced the IIHS’ tests, earning top marks in every evaluation. The Enclave and Armada each missed a perfect score by just one category, with the Buick scoring an acceptable rating in the pedestrian-avoidance exercise and the Armada receiving the same rating for its headlights. The Acadia’s acceptable score in the pedestrian-avoidance test qualifies it as a Top Safety Pick+, but it was relegated to the second step on the podium due to its acceptable rating in the updated moderate overlap evaluation.
The quartet of winners earned their awards during a session that also included the Audi Q6 Sportback e-Tron, Cadillac Lyriq, Kia K4, Nissan Kicks, Nissan Rogue, Nissan Sentra and Toyota Tacoma crew cab. The Q6 Sportback e-Tron did not make the list alongside its regular Q6 counterpart because it did not undergo one of the necessary tests.
Other caveats apply: The honors for the Enclave and Acadia only apply to vehicles built after January 2025, when GM made a running change to the vehicles’ headlights; prior to this year, the standard units only rated marginal. And there’s hope yet for the K4: Scoring a good rating in the small overlap, side-impact and crash prevention tests, as well as acceptable in the headlight evaluation, it bottomed out with a poor rating in the updated moderate overlap frontal crash. But, IIHS notes that score only applies to vehicles built before February 2025, when Kia “modified aspects of the vehicle design.”
Automakers — including Kia — have previously realized significant improvement in this test with relatively small changes to seatbelts and their installation. The Lyriq, too, is notable for its potential improvement; the only thing holding it back from Top Safety Pick+ status is its headlights, which rated poor.
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How Does the IIHS Rate Vehicles in Its Crash Tests?
IIHS rates vehicle performance on a four-point scale — poor, marginal, acceptable and good — in three crash tests as well as in evaluations of the forward collision prevention system’s ability to avoid pedestrians and how well the headlights illuminate the road at night. To earn either award, vehicles must earn a good rating in the small overlap front crash test, which simulates an impact with a utility pole or tree, and the side-impact test, which simulates a T-boning by a modern SUV. The vehicle’s headlights across all trim levels and its crash prevention system must also earn at least an acceptable rating.
The differentiator between Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ is the newly updated moderate overlap frontal crash test, which recreates a common type of collision in which a vehicle veers across the road’s center line and strikes another vehicle head-on at an offset. With virtually every vehicle earning a good rating in the original test — which was conducted with only one crash-test dummy aboard, in the driver’s seat — IIHS updated the test in 2022 to also take into account how well the vehicle protects rear-seat occupants. Now, a second dummy rides in the rear seat directly behind the driver. An acceptable rating qualifies a vehicle as a Top Safety Pick, but to earn the plus, vehicles need a good rating.
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