2023 Chery Omoda 5 small SUV scores 5-star ANCAP safety rating

The 2023 Chery Omoda 5 small SUV has received a five-star ANCAP safety rating.

This rating is based on testing conducted by Euro NCAP last year, applied under the 2020-22 criteria.

ANCAP has yet to publish vehicle results under more-stringent criteria introduced in 2023, as the first vehicles tested to the new standards in Europe are not due to be sold in Australia.

The score applies to all variants of the Omoda 5 currently available in Australia, which feature a 1.5-litre turbo-petrol engine, a CVT automatic transmission, and front-wheel-drive.

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It scored 87 per cent for adult occupant protection, 88 per cent for child occupation protection, and 68 per cent for vulnerable road user protection.

Following software revisions applied to the lane-keep assist system to address media and customer concerns for Australian-spec vehicles, ANCAP conducted an audit test and found the updated local vehicle “did not respond in a small number of emergency lane keeping test scenarios”.

The difference in the Omoda 5’s lane-keep assist performance resulted in its safety assist score being reduced to 83 per cent – down from 88 per cent in Euro NCAP testing.

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“This five-star ANCAP safety rating for the Omoda 5 is a marked improvement on the results seen by Chery’s original market entrants a decade ago,” said ANCAP chief executive officer, Carla Hoorweg.

“Chery has made significant strides to reach the five-star standard and we encourage them to continue to refine and improve the performance of their vehicles with future new models and model updates.”

The last Chery vehicles assessed by ANCAP were tested under much less-stringent criteria in 2011, with the J1 light hatch – once Australia's cheapest vehicle – scoring three stars and the J11 small SUV receiving two stars.

VFACTS new-car sales data reveals 1612 examples of the Chery Omoda 5 have been sold in Australia since the brand re-launched at the start of 2023, outselling the Skoda Kamiq (984) and Honda HR-V (908) to the end of June.

Australia's top-selling small SUV, the Chinese-built MG ZS, has a four-star ANCAP safety rating from testing conducted in 2017.

The Chery Omoda 5 has seven airbags: dual frontal, side chest, side head, and front-centre.

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In crash testing, the Omoda 5 received ‘good’ and ‘adequate’, with “sound” results for protecting occupants in frontal-offset and side-impact crashes.

ANCAP noted concerns that hard elements in the lower dashboard could be a “potential source of knee injury risk to occupants to occupants of different sizes to that of the driver and front passenger test dummies,” with penalties applied.

In addition, the side curtain airbag was found to “not open as intended” in frontal-offset and oblique pole testing, with an ‘adequate’ rating applied for driver’s head protection.

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ANCAP commended the Omoda 5 for having “one of the best scores recorded for vehicle-to-vehicle compatibility”, which assesses the risk to occupants of oncoming vehicles in a crash, with a small 0.43-point deduction applied.

The 2023 Chery Omoda 5 is priced between $29,900 and $32,900 before on-road costs.