2023 Chery Omoda 5 awarded five-star safety rating in Australia

The 2023 Chery Omoda 5 has earned a five-star safety rating from Australasian independent safety organisation ANCAP, almost five months after the small SUV from China arrived in local showrooms.

The five-star result under recent test standards is a dramatic turn-around from the two-star and three-star ratings dealt to the J11 SUV and the J1 hatchback in 2011, during Chery's first short-lived tenure in Australia from 2011 to 2015.

Although the Omoda 5’s score is being published in Australia in 2023, it was tested in Europe last year under ANCAP and sister organisation Euro NCAP's 2020-2022 test protocols – which were superseded by stricter standards this year.

The Chery Omoda 5's Euro NCAP score was announced last year.

Applicable to all Chery Omoda 5 variants sold in Australia, the small SUV received scores of 87 per cent for Adult Occupant Protection, 88 per cent for Child Occupant Protection, 68 per cent for Vulnerable Road User Protection (pedestrians and cyclists), and 83 per cent for Safety Assist technology.

It has edged past the minimum results required in each category for a five-star score: 80 per cent in Adult Occupant Protection, 80 per cent for Child Occupant Protection, 60 per cent for Vulnerable Road User Protection and 70 per cent for Safety Assist.

According to ANCAP, the Chery Omoda 5 performed well in its frontal offset crash test, but the organisation said certain hard elements of the small SUV’s dashboard “could become a potential source of knee injury risk to occupants”.

ANCAP also said the Omoda 5’s side curtain airbags did not deploy "as intended" in its side impact test – resulting in a points penalty.

Despite posting good scores for upper leg impacts against pedestrians, the Chery Omoda 5’s Vulnerable Road User Protection scores are among the lowest compared to other small SUVs tested against ANCAP’s 2020-2022 criteria.

Specific areas where it struggled in the test included pedestrian head impacts and upper leg impacts, culminating in a total of 16.77 points out of 30 available across the two categories.

The SUV’s advanced driver assistance systems also fared well against ANCAP’s tests, particularly the autonomous emergency braking (AEB) car-to-car and junction assist technology.

However, ANCAP said the Chery Omoda 5 “did not respond in a small number of emergency lane keeping test scenarios” in its testing, despite being equipped with newer software intended to fix issues found when the vehicle was tested by Euro NCAP last year.

"Following an update to the lane support software running in Australian-supplied vehicles from April 2023, additional emergency lane keeping (ELK) and lane keep assist (LKA) tests were conducted to assess any potential differences in safety-related vehicle performance," ANCAP said in its media release.

"The additional tests, conducted locally, showed vehicles with the updated software maintained a similar level of performance to the test results obtained in initial European testing, though the local vehicle did not respond in a small number of emergency lane keeping test scenarios and this is reflected in a reduced score," it said.

The Chery Omoda 5 is currently on sale across Australia, priced from $32,990 drive-away in its entry-level ‘BX’ grade, while the better-equipped ‘EX’ starts from $35,990 drive-away.