Holden Cruze Outstanding Five-Star Safety Rating
The Volt, which is scheduled to start production in late 2010 as a 2011 model, is expected to travel up to 65 kilometres on electricity from a single battery charge and be able to extend its overall range to more than 480 kilometres with its flex fuel-powered engine-generator.
In fact the ANCAP crash testing supported results obtained by Holden and other General Motors subsidiaries during crash tests and advanced simulations conducted in Germany, Sweden and Korea.
The result underscores Holden's long-term commitment to safety and points to the excellent passive and active safety measures included in the Cruze specifications.
Standard across the Cruze range are Electronic Stability Control (ESC), Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS), Electronic Brakeforce Distribution (EBD) and Traction Control (TC).
Combine those features with front, side and curtain airbags and the ANCAP five-star rating and you certainly get a vehicle which stands out in the competitive small car segment
The 60-litre driver airbag can fully inflate in 60 milliseconds while the front passenger airbag can inflate to its full 130-litres in just 70 milliseconds. Side airbags are mounted on the driver and front passenger seats for thorax protection of front row occupants.
Standard head curtain airbags are mounted to the roof rails between the A and C pillars for additional head and neck protection of both front and back seat occupants.
Structural integrity is critical to a vehicle's crashworthiness and the body-frame-integral (BFI) or unibody structure of the Cruze provides an extremely strong, stiff body with effective load paths that provide maximum protection for the passenger cabin.
The unibody is a high-strength steel structure incorporating full-length frame rails and safety cage in a single, welded unit. Single-piece side frames provide and highly efficicient, continuous load path and 65 percent of the Cruze's structure is high-strength steel.
Even the pedals are designed to collapse during an impact to reduce the chance of lower limb injuries to the driver.
Other interior safety features include:
- four-way adjustable headrests for whiplash protection
- Three-point seatbelts in all five seating positions
- Seatbelt retractor and lap pretensioners for driver and front passenger
- Front seatbelt load limiters
- Child seat latching system for the rear seat
The focus on safety was part of GM's efforts to launch the Cruze as a global small car. During its 27 month global development program, the Cruze 'homeroom' was based at GM's European HQ and some work was undertaken at the company's Korean facilities.
The $US4 billion development saw 221 prototype vehicles assembled and more than one million test kilometers logged in the United kingdom, North America, Canada, Sweden, Korea and Australia.
