Safety Authority Reveals Light Truck Scores

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program – better known as ANCAP – has put some of the best-selling light trucks through their paces.

Despite being available to drivers with standard car licences, light trucks fall into a different category than passenger cars and light commercial vehicles like utes and vans.

To help consumers, ANCAP has published its Light Truck ADAS Safety Comparison, which compares the Advanced Driver Assistance System fitted to four of the most popular light trucks.

The Hino 300 Series, Fuso Canter, and the industry sales leader, the Isuzu N-Series all had their safety systems examined – along with the top-selling electric truck in Australia, the Foton T5.

The report included tests of the speed assistance systems, intelligent seatbelt reminders, blind-spot monitoring, lane departure warning, lane-keep assist, and autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems – truck-to-car, truck-to-pedestrian, and truck-to-cyclist.

For each scenario, the vehicles were given a result of Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Weak, Poor, or Not Available/Not Tested (No Functionality).

However, somewhat confusingly, of the six performance tests, both the Foton and Fuso were only graded on one test, while the Hino and Isuzu were graded on two and three tests, respectively.

Out of a possible 100, the Fuso received a total of 13.2 points, with a Marginal grading for its sole AEB (T2C) test.

The Fuso came in second-last, scoring 15.2 on its AEB (T2C) test, with a grading of Acceptable.

Slightly ahead of the Fuso was the Hino 300 Series, which scored 13.4 for the AEB (T2C) test (Marginal), and an additional 2.5 (Weak) for Lane Support – which includes both lane-keep assist and lane departure warning – for a total of 15.9 out of 100.

With a total of 20.9 points, the Isuzu N-Series led the field, scoring 14.7 for AEB (T2C), 3.2 for AEB (Pedestrian), and 2.8 for AEB (Cyclist) – all of which were somehow considered Marginal by the authority.

Front collision warning and AEB tests were also carried out several times, with the trucks unladen, with 50 per cent payload – for both 4500kg and 6000kg GVM variants – and fully laden at GVM.

Only the Fuso Canter and Isuzu N-Series received the highest scores of Good across all four tests, while the Hino received mixed results. The Foton was marked with mostly Weak scores, and one Poor score.

Read the full report on the ANCAP website by clicking here.