The IIHS has just announced its award winners in the crop of 2023 models. 48 different cars take home either a Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ award but more than 70 winners from last year come away with nothing. Here’s why that is, who the big winners were, and who the biggest losers were.
The biggest reason for the drop-off in winners this year is that the IIHS now has higher standards for what constitutes a winner in each category. To be a Top Safety Pick winner for 2023, a vehicle must now achieve an “acceptable” rating in an updated side crash test along with a rating of advanced or superior during a daytime vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention test.
More: See How Much Car Safety Has Improved With Generational Crash Tests
In addition, vehicles now need to have standard acceptable or good headlights across the entire trim lineup. Grabbing a Top Safety Pick+ award requires that a vehicle get a “good” rating in the side impact test and score advanced or superior in both daytime and nighttime versions of the vehicle-to-pedestrian test.
Biggest Losers
Considering that dozens of cars lost their IIHS awards this year it should be no surprise to learn that many came from the same brand. Audi, Kia, and Volvo all saw nine different models lose their awards and that’s not including variants. For example, Volvo’s XC60 and XC60 PHEV both lost the award but are counted as just one vehicle. The same goes for Audi’s A5 Coupe and Hatchback.
Other notable brands that lost big numbers are Hyundai with seven models, Ford with five vehicles including the F-150 dropping out, and BMW with five as well. In some cases, vehicles were simply downgraded from a Top Safety Pick+ winner to a Top Safety Pick.
Biggest Winners
Coming away with the most victories was Toyota and Lexus with a combined 15 awards. Nine of those were Top Safety Pick+ awards and the other six were Top Safety Picks. Honda and Acura combined for a total of eight awards while Mazda had six.
Other notable Top Safety Pick+ winners include the Rivian R1T, the Toyota Tundra, the Tesla Model Y, and the Subaru Solterra. Interestingly, the Toyota bZ4X did not win any awards this time around. Top Safety Pick winners included the Lincoln Nautilus, the Ford Explorer, and the Hyundai Sonata.