The newly-arrived GWM Haval H6 Hybrid and the upcoming H6 GT ‘coupe SUV’ have both earned a five-star safety score from Australian crash testing authority ANCAP.
The result follows on from the regular H6 petrol range achieving the maximum crash score in March of this year.
ANCAP says it conducted additional frontal offset and oblique pole tests in the H6 Hybrid to confirm the integrity of its battery and high-voltage electrical equipment.
With these additional crash tests, ANCAP chose to extend the five-star rating to all variants of the China-made medium SUV range.
By contrast, the H6 GT wasn’t separately crash tested, but following ANCAP’s assessment it was deemed to have similar safety credentials as the regular H6, and thereby got five stars.
H6 Hybrid
The GWM Haval H6 is the latest in a swarm of Chinese-made vehicles to be awarded a five-star safety rating from ANCAP. These include the likes of the GWM Ute, Polestar 2, MG ZS EV, and MG HS.
The entire GWM Haval H6 range earned its five-star safety rating on the back of scores of 90 per cent for adult occupant protection, 88 per cent for child occupant protection, 73 per cent for vulnerable road user protection, and 81 per cent for safety assist.
ANCAP says the H6 “performed well across all areas of assessment”, with full points awarded for driver protection in both the side impact and oblique pole tests, front- and rear-seat occupant whiplash protection, and the front-seat passenger protection in the frontal offset test.
A penalty was applied though for the driver’s footwell, as it showed some signs of “loss of integrity” in the front offset test.
ANCAP praised the GWM Haval H6’s active safety systems, with it awarding a good rating across all emergency lane-keeping test scenarios, and car-to-car and car-to-cyclist autonomous emergency braking performance.
It also commended the H6’s junction assist feature, which is able to prevent a collision with another vehicle in the turn-across-path intersection test scenario.
Standard safety equipment across the GWM Haval H6 range includes the following:
- Autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian, cyclist and junction assist
- Lane-keeping assist
- Lane-centring assist
- Lane-departure warning
- Blind-spot monitoring
- Driver attention monitoring
- Traffic sign recognition
- Safe exit warning
- Front, front-side and curtain airbags plus a centre airbag
- Reversing camera
- Rear parking sensors
- Tyre pressure monitoring system
H6
Rear-cross traffic alert, adaptive cruise control and front parking sensors are available as standard on the H6 Hybrid and higher up in the petrol-powered H6 wagon range.
Although GWM Haval Australia hasn’t detailed the specific standard safety equipment for its upcoming H6 GT ‘coupe SUV’, it recently said that AEB with pedestrian and cyclist assist, adaptive cruise control, and lane-keeping assist will be standard.
The 2022 GWM Haval H6 Hybrid recently went on sale in Australia in a single, fully-loaded front-wheel drive trim, priced from $45,990 drive-away.
H6 GT
It competes against the extremely popular Toyota RAV4 Hybrid in the hotly contested medium SUV segment.
As previously detailed, the H6 GT ‘coupe SUV’ is set to go on sale in July 2022 after initially being signposted for a second-quarter 2022 launch.
Once it goes on sale it will compete against the likes of the Renault Arkana and Citroen C4.
MORE: Everything GWM Haval H6
