When it comes to battery electric vehicles, most consumers will likely be most concerned about the car’s range, and possibly performance, but the notion of safety could be a concern as well. After all, electric vehicles are built differently than gasoline cars, so what happens if you get into an accident? Well, if you’re driving a 2020 Audi E-tron Sportback, you’ll be shrouded in safety as it just earned a Top Safety Pick + rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

The Audi E-tron Sportback joins the ranks of its stablemate

While a Top Safety Pick + rating is one of the hardest ratings to get, this isn’t the first time that an all-electric vehicle from Audi has received one. In fact, the E-tron SUV received it in 2019 and it was the first EV from any manufacturer to do so. So it’s safe to say that Audi knows what it’s doing when it comes to making an all-electric vehicle and the E-tron Sportback is a great indication of its ingenuity.

Part of what makes the Audi E-tron Sportback so safe is that its 95-kWh battery pack, which is located underneath the car, has an integrated lattice structure and aluminum frame to keep it secure as its design dissipates energy in the event of a collision. The car’s solid structure it what earned it such high marks, as the IIHS gave it a “good” rating in six different areas when it came to crashworthiness. Those areas included: small front overlap collisions on the driver and passenger sides, moderate front overlap, side-impact, roof strength, head restraints, and seat performance.

The Audi E-tron Sportback’s safety aids aided in its ratings as well

In addition to the E-tron Sportback’s superb structural rigidity, its lighting and safety aids received good grades. Safety isn’t just about seatbelts and airbags anymore as being able to see clearly at nighttime is part of staying safe as well. Luckily, the Audi E-Tron Sportback is equipped with standard Matrix Design LED headlights, which also received a “Good” rating from the IIHS and those bright lights are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to safety.

The Audi E-tron Sportback also comes standard with automatic emergency braking as well as Audi’s “Pre Sense Front” technology, which helps detect pedestrians and cyclists in front of the vehicle and can initiate braking at speeds up to 52 mph and up to 155 mph when detecting other vehicles. This potentially life-saving feature earned the E-tron Sportback the highest “Superior” rating on the “Crash Avoidance and Mitigation” category.

Electric vehicles are safer than we think

While some may be wary about the crashworthiness of electric vehicles, now that they are becoming more popular, Audi’s E-tron lineup shows that they can exude the same type of safety as any other car, and possibly more so. For example, the Tesla Model 3 has earned the same rating from the IIHS as well. In case you’re interested in one, the Audi E-tron Sportback should show up in dealerships as early as next month.