Safest car of the year shortlist unveiled by Thatcham
Thatcham Research has unveiled the contenders for the 2025 What Car? Safety Award, which identifies the safest car of the year available on UK roads.
The vehicles on the shortlist for safest car of the year were chosen by Thatcham Research, Euro NCAP and What Car? judges based on Euro NCAP safety test scores alongside other criteria such as expected market volume.
Safest car of the year shortlist
With modern cars setting new performance standards across an ever more exacting range of collision scenarios, the judges also carefully considered how advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) were implemented on the shortlisted vehicles. Judges assessed how accurate the systems were, how they provided information to the driver and whether they were implemented collaboratively.
The shortlist
The following 10 cars, listed in alphabetical order together with comments from the judges, are shortlisted for the 2025 What Car? Safety Award:
- AUDI Q6 E-TRON
- “The Q6 E-Tron benefited from an excellent driver assistance system and collaborative lane keep assist. Driver information provided to the user was extremely intuitive. It was also the year’s highest scorer in Euro NCAP’s Child Occupant Protection tests”
- MAZDA CX-80
- “The CX-80 had good impact compatibility and Vulnerable Road User safety performance, especially for a large SUV”
- MERCEDES-BENZ E-CLASS
- “The E-Class was one of the top 2024 Euro NCAP performers. It also had a 100% displayed speed limit accuracy when tested by judges.”
- MINI COUNTRYMAN
- “In addition to its strong safety performance, the Countryman offered a well-implemented Intelligent Speed Assist system with excellent driver information including displaying the distance to upcoming speed limits.”
- MG HS
- “The HS offered a comprehensive driver assistance system as standard and is competitively priced meaning more drivers are likely to benefit from its safety systems.”
- SKODA KODIAQ
- “The Kodiaq had an all-round well implemented driver assistance system. It also performed strongly in assessments of post-crash technologies such as eCall.
- TOYOTA C-HR
- “The C-HR had a strong VRU safety performance and scored highest on Euro NCAPs Vulnerable Road User protection test”
- VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT
- “The Passat had a very well implemented driver assistance system and strong safety performance across the board. It also scored highest on Euro NCAPs adult occupant safety test of the shortlisted vehicles.”
- VOLVO EX30
- “The EX30 had one of the most capable direct driver monitoring systems of the shortlisted vehicles, being able to detect a range of distractions and sleep/microsleep scenarios.”
- XPENG G6
- “The G6 delivered a good safety performance for a new market entrant, especially the direct driver monitoring and lane centring systems.”
The winning vehicle representing the safest car of the year will be announced next Thursday (23 January) at the What Car? Car of the Year Awards.
The importance of ADAS
The vehicles shortlisted for the 2025 Safety Award offer a range of ADAS to provide safety benefits for drivers, passengers and other road users.
It’s not just about having ADAS fitted to the vehicles – performance and implementation are key for the safety benefit to be realised. It’s essential that ADAS technology works collaboratively with the driver instead of becoming a distraction when behind the wheel.
Richard Billyeald, chief research and operations officer at Thatcham Research and one of the What Car? Safety Award judges, said of the technology behind what makes the safest car of the year: “Modern ADAS technology offers a range of safety benefits for drivers, whether through systems such as ISA keeping the driver informed of the local speed limit or AEB mitigating the risk of frontal collision.
“In recent years, systems such as LKA have received criticism for intruding into the driving experience, leading some motorists to disable the function due to driver annoyance.
“It’s crucial for all ADAS features to be properly implemented to reduce the number of false positives, only activating when required.
“The Lane Support Systems found in this year’s shortlist benefit from improved real-world performance when compared to the previous generation. Thanks to the efforts of vehicle manufacturers the performance of ADAS technology continues to mature.
“While it’s true that there is variation in implementation and that drivers will find some systems to be more intrusive than others, the fundamental objective of ADAS is to reduce crashes and save lives.
“There are many competing safety imperatives for carmakers to contend with, from designing front end structures that are compatible with other vehicles and consider Vulnerable Road User safety to striking the right balance between achieving good ADAS performance during testing and in the real world. The good news is that the vehicles in the What Car? Safety Award shortlist broadly demonstrate that it is possible to implement ADAS effectively without compromising the driving experience,” he added.
Future of automotive safety technology
In 2024, the EU introduced the second phase of General Safety Regulation 2 (GSR2) which mandated the fitment of a number of ADAS technologies on all new vehicles. This phase applies to new vehicle models from 7 July 2024 and existing vehicle models from 7 July 2026.
Four vehicles tested, Volvo EX30, XPeng G6, Mazda CX-80, MG HS, comply with this second phase as new models. The remaining vehicles comply with the first phase and as such have no driver-facing camera offering direct driver gaze monitoring.
While GSR2 only applies to EU countries, all volume cars sold in the UK will adhere to the regulation because manufacturers will not produce UK-specific ADAS software disabling GSR2 features.
Many ADAS systems are mandated by GSR2 including Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA), Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), Advanced Driver Distraction Warning (ADDW), and Emergency Lane Keeping System (ELKS).
While these systems are already widely fitted on modern vehicles, GSR2 introduces minimum performance standards for each system, ensuring that all vehicle manufacturers are not only fitting this safety technology, but ensuring that it performs its function well and operates consistently.
One of the mandated systems, ADDW, uses a driver-facing camera to monitor the driver’s gaze and measure their alertness, alerting the driver if they look away from the road for too long or if drowsiness is detected. Crash statistics show distraction and impairment to be contributing factors in many collision scenarios, and systems like this aim to act as a safety net to mitigate this risk.
Billyeald, continued: “GSR2 represents a good step in improving overall vehicle safety across Europe. However, manufacturers must ensure that the mandated systems work collaboratively with the driver, and that their fitment is not treated as a tick-box exercise. Systems must be implemented well, performing in the real-world with high accuracy to ensure the safety benefit is realised.”
Safest car of the year judges
Yousif Al-Ani – principal engineer for ADAS at Thatcham Research; Richard Billyeald – chief research and operations officer at Thatcham Research; Claire Evans – consumer editor at What Car?; Richard Schram – technical director at Euro NCAP; Alex Thompson – principal engineer for automotive safety at Thatcham Research and a Euro NCAP lead inspector.
