New Kia Carnival lands five-star safety rating

Korean brand Kia will be thanking its stars that history hasn’t repeated itself, with the new 2021 Kia Carnival landing a 5-Star ANCAP safety rating this week.

Keen readers may recall the previous Carnival landed in hot water back in 2015 when it was given a 4-Star rating where top marks had been expected – because of a miserable 10.48 score out of 16 in the critical ‘offset frontal’ crash test.

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The brand redeemed itself quickly, however, rolling out an update in 2016 that corrected the engineering issue that resulted in the unexpected score. For all models built from December 23, 2015, a 5-Star rating applied.

Here in the present, with an impressive new-generation Carnival now on the market in Australia, ANCAP has today announced a 5-Star rating for the new model right out of the gate.

The new Carnival scored 90 per cent for adult occupant protection and 88 per cent for child occupant protection, while vulnerable road user protection was given a score of 68 per cent. Safety-assist technologies were rated at 82 per cent.

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“The Carnival also provides a well-rounded safety specification, offering head-protecting airbags and intelligent seat-belt reminders for all three seating rows, autonomous emergency braking, active lane keeping, and fatigue monitoring as standard,” the report reads.

The 5-Star score applies to all eight-seat variants of the Carnival.