Car of the Year Awards 2025: Safety Award
For this award, our judges considered both active and passive safety, along with purchase price, because a model that sells in large numbers will have a bigger influence on road safety...
Volkswagen Passat
The latest Volkswagen Passat is an exceptionally good all-rounder for safety. Its adult occupant protection score of 93% is the second highest of all the 41 cars tested in the past year, and it’s among the top performers for protecting vulnerable road users and for safety assistance systems that help drivers to avoid collisions in the first place.
The Passat’s front bumper is wide and deep, and the structure of it is designed to make it less harmful to a smaller vehicle in a head-on impact. This, and the design of the car’s entire front end, help to lessen injuries to pedestrians and cyclists.
The Passat’s active safety systems are as accurate as those on pricier models. The lane-keeping assistance works particularly well, picking up lane markings on a wide variety of roads, including country lanes, and gently guiding the car back into its lane, rather than moving it too sharply.
The speed assistance system is one of the best; when used with the Travel Assist package (adaptive cruise control), it reduces the car’s speed as it approaches a bend or roundabout, and it displays the reduced target speed.
In terms of overall safety, the Passat is almost on a par with the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, but its more affordable price means it has the potential to have a bigger impact on road safety. The fact that the new Skoda Superb has the same safety kit and credentials as the Passat further increases the reach of the VW Group’s suite of safety features.
Runners up
2nd Mercedes-Benz E-Class
The Mercedes-Benz E-Class is the highest-scoring car of all those tested by Euro NCAP in 2024. Its score of 90% for child occupant protection and 87% for safety assist are slightly higher than those awarded to the Volkswagen Passat, and its automatic emergency braking system is the best overall for detecting other vehicles and pedestrians.
Its lane-keeping and speed assistance systems both worked well in a range of situations. However, it lost marks in our judging because lower- spec models get a less user- friendly version of the speed assistance system.
3rd Mini Countryman
Although the Mini Countryman didn’t score as highly as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class or Volkswagen Passat in Euro NCAP tests, its scores across all four categories are good. It has many excellent active safety features, which are very similar to those in the latest BMW 5 Series and i5.
The Countryman’s speed assistance is the best of all the latest systems. It’s extremely accurate at detecting upcoming speed limits and alerting the driver to them, and it’s the only system that gives the driver a visual distance countdown to when the speed limit will change.
What we looked for
- A full five-star Euro NCAP safety rating and high scores in all test categories: adult occupant, child occupant, vulnerable road user and safety assist.
- Excellent crash compatibility, which means a car does the least possible damage to a smaller vehicle in a head-on crash.
- Non-intrusive driver assistance systems that work collaboratively with the driver rather than being too forceful. These include lane-keeping assistance and automatic emergency braking that can detect other pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
- Active and passive safety features that lessen injuries to pedestrians and cyclists in front-end impacts.
- A speed assistance system that shows the current limit and alerts drivers to upcoming changes.
The judges
Richard Billyeald - Thatcham Research’s chief research and operations officer, leading research teams in identifying new features and tech to advance cars globally.
Alex Thompson - Principal engineer for automotive safety at Thatcham, utilising 23 years of experience to guide safety research.
Yousif Al-Ani - Principal engineer for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), specialising in ADAS hardware and software.
Richard Schram - Technical director at Euro NCAP, leading the research and development groups working on the next generation of test and assessment procedures.
Claire Evans - What Car?’s consumer editor has worked in automotive journalism for 30 years and has overseen our safety award for the past seven years.
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