The 2021 Kia K5 Lags Fails to Keep up With the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry in Safety
There are plenty of things to consider when shopping for a new car. From the price tag to the vehicle’s size to the comfort level, every option comes down to personal choice. Where most consumers don’t differ is in their need for safety. MotorTrend set out to find the safest cars to drive. While the 2021 Kia K5 was named one of the safest cars of the year, the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry outperform the popular midsize sedan in other areas.
The Honda Accord and Toyota Camry beat out the Kia K5
According to MotorTrend, NHTSA gave the 2021 Kia K5 an overall five-star rating. The score combined the four stars received in the front crash and rollover tests and five stars awarded in the side crash test.
Both the 2021 Honda Accord and the 2021 Toyota Camry received perfect five-star ratings in all testing areas, outperforming the Kia K5. MotorTrend went as far as to say that the Accord is “one of the safest cars you can buy,” while the Toyota Camry “lives up to its reputation for safety.”
Standard safety features in the Kia K5
The 2021 Kia K5 offers advanced standard safety features that include forward collision warning, high-beam assist, and driver attention warnings. It also has lane-keeping assist with centering function and front automatic emergency braking in every trim level.
Optional safety features in the higher-end trim levels of the Kia K5 include driver assistance features such as parking collision avoidance while reversing along with adaptive cruise control that is navigation-based. An optional forward collision-avoidance system alerts the driver to both pedestrians and cyclists. Blind-spot monitoring, rear automatic emergency braking, and rear cross-traffic alert functions are also available.
How it can get on the level of its competition
Beating out the Toyota Camry, which is the best-selling sedan in the U.S., is no easy feat. The Kia K5 would also have to improve its crash test performance score to meet the safety ratings achieved by Toyota. Getting an overall five-star rating from NHTSA would go a long way in leveling the playing field. If Kia included some of its optional safety features as standard, it would meet the abundance of items found in the Toyota Safety Sense package.
The 2021 Honda Accord, ranked No. 1 in midsize cars by U.S. News, is also difficult to beat when it comes to safety. U.S. News gave the sedan a 9.9/10 safety rating compared to the 9.4/10 awarded to the Kia K5.
Kia Motors America recently issued a press release announcing that eight of its vehicles have received safety awards from IIHS. The all-new K5 earned the prestigious Top Safety Pick+ award, along with “Good” ratings in the crash tests.
Taking a step in the right direction to outperform the competition, CEO Sean Yoon stated, “These newest safety accolades validate our relentless pursuit of improvement and advancement, and are a complement to recent initial quality and dependability awards to solidify our position as a leader in mobility.”
