Mitsubishi Express ‘definitely not’ unsafe

Mitsubishi Australia stands by the safety performance of the Mitsubishi Express, despite the van receiving the first-ever zero-star rating from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

The 2021 Mitsubishi Express is a rebadged version of the Renault Trafic that was awarded a three-star result out of five by ANCAP’s European affiliate Euro NCAP in 2015.

But ANCAP never applied those ratings to the Renault Trafic in Australia, and has now crash-tested the closely-related Mitsubishi Express based on much tougher testing protocols introduced in 2020.

Among other things, this latest testing regime accounts for the fitment of advanced driver assist safety systems that weren’t developed for the third-generation Renault Trafic – or most, if not all, of its competitors at the time, for that matter – which arrived in Australia in 2015.

In any case, ANCAP has determined that the Mitsubishi Express is not directly comparable to the Renault Trafic tested overseas six years ago, and as a new model now on sale in Australia the independent safety authority has assessed the van according to the latest testing regime.

While it has made exceptions for new models within a particular brand – the 2021 Kia Stonic small SUV recently received a five-star safety rating based on a 2017 crash test of the Kia Rio hatchback, for example – ANCAP will only accept vehicles that are part of a brand alliance, as with Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, if there’s no more than two years between the launch of the vehicles.

Even then, the manufacturer has to make it clear to ANCAP from the outset that models will be shared across brands, not decided late in the lifecycle as occurred with the Express-based Trafic.

In an interview with carsales, Mitsubishi Australia’s manager of certification and regulatory affairs, James Tol, said the company specified the Express with the highest level of safety equipment available to it from the factory in France, which goes beyond what was fitted to the Trafic when it was crash-tested in Europe.

He also said the level of crash protection provided for Mitsubishi Express occupants was shown in the Australian testing to be relatively high, particularly for a vehicle nearing the end of its lifecycle.

And, fundamentally, he insisted that all new vehicles sold in this market are inherently safe, based on the fact that they pass strict regulatory requirements as specified under Australian Design Rules.

Asked whether the Mitsubishi Express was an unsafe vehicle, in light of the damning ANCAP assessment, Tol was unequivocal.

“Definitely not,” he said.

“A good way of answering that is if you refer back to the 2015 result that was achieved in Europe, that three-star result was actually achieved on a vehicle with a lower level of safety equipment than we’ve specified.

“That particular vehicle didn’t have side airbags or a passenger airbag, and we made a specific point to make sure that we took every safety equipment that was available to equip the Express with [including these airbags].

“Fundamentally, in terms of adult occupant protection, the vehicle is safe and remains safe.”

The ANCAP report on the Mitsubishi Express does show areas of concern in adult occupant protection, such as a red-zone alert on the whiplash test.

“But all of the other zones are not red, and the vehicle itself is still fundamentally safe,” Tol said.

“And, in fact, if you go back to the fundamentals, there really isn’t an unsafe vehicle on the market today, at least in terms of mainstream. That’s because, fundamentally, we are not allowed to sell an unsafe vehicle in this marketplace.

“The Australian Design Rules make this so. The Australian Design Rules include all of the necessary crash testing. Of course, ANCAP and [Euro] NCAP take more of what I’d call a base level of safety and then start to rate what’s above that … and that’s all very fine.

“But I think one thing that’s important to recognise is that I don’t believe there’s any mainstream vehicle that you would deem to be unsafe from an occupant protection viewpoint.

“What we’re really starting to talk about now, what has a much higher prominence in terms of [ANCAP] protocols, is the need to start having more of the advanced safety items.

“And that’s where we have fallen down in terms of the vehicle being at the latter part of its lifecycle. That’s really where the delineator is coming now.

“For occupant protection, I’d wager than all mainstream [new] cars are very safe; we’re now debating and comparing how much additional electronic safety devices have been added in on top.

“I don’t think anyone could or should argue that the mainstream cars on the market are unsafe. The way things are regulated today, it’s not possible to sell a vehicle that isn’t safe.”

Tol said Mitsubishi was committed to selling the Express van in Australia and that it would upgrade to new technology as soon as it became available.

He also said Mitsubishi Australia had a co-operative relationship with ANCAP and provided data and other support for the assessment of the Express, although the independent safety watchdog did take the unusual step of purchasing vehicles to be crash-tested itself.

A new-generation version of Renault Trafic is expected to appear in 18 months to two years’ time, opening the prospect for a late 2022 or early 2023 launch of a new Mitsubishi Express.

The testing of the Mitsubishi Express follows a report ANCAP released late last year that compared collision avoidance technology in 15 vans available in Australia.

In this test, the latest-generation vans fitted with driver assist safety tech naturally came out on top – the Toyota HiAce and Ford Transit leading the field – while the Express was among five vans that were ‘not recommended’ due to their “poor active safety specification”.

The others included, unsurprisingly, the Renault Trafic, as well as the Hyundai iLoad, Renault Master and IVECO Daily.

For the record, the Hyundai iLoad carries a four-star ANCAP rating based on 2017 testing. A new iLoad will be released by the end of this year, while the Trafic, Master and Daily have not been rated in Australia.