What Is an NHTSA Safety Rating?
The NHTSA star rating shown on every applicable vehicle page on this site comes from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) — real physical crash tests, not a manufacturer's own claim.
How the test works
NHTSA physically crash-tests real vehicles: a frontal crash test (simulating a head-on collision), a side crash test (simulating being struck from the side), a side pole test (simulating hitting a narrow object like a tree or lamppost), and a rollover resistance test that measures how likely a vehicle is to tip over during an extreme steering manoeuvre. Each area gets its own 1–5 star score, and an overall score combines them.
What the individual scores mean
5 stars is the highest rating in every category. A 5-star overall rating means the vehicle performed strongly across frontal, side and rollover tests specifically — it doesn't mean every individual score was 5 stars, so it's worth checking the breakdown (shown on every rated vehicle page on this site) rather than the headline number alone if a specific type of protection matters most to you.
Why some vehicles show no rating at all
NHTSA doesn't test every vehicle on sale — testing is resource-intensive and prioritised by sales volume and significant model changes. A missing rating on this site means NHTSA hasn't published a result for that specific model year, not that the vehicle failed a test.
Browse by rating
You can browse every vehicle on this site with a confirmed rating, sorted by star band, on the NHTSA Safety Ratings hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a 5-star NHTSA rating the same as Euro NCAP's 5 stars?
No — they're separate testing programmes with different protocols, run by different organisations (NHTSA in the US, Euro NCAP in Europe). A vehicle's US and European ratings can differ even for the same model.
Does an older 5-star rating mean the car is still safe by today's standards?
Not necessarily. NHTSA periodically tightens its test criteria, so a 5-star rating from an older model year was measured against a different (often less demanding) standard than a 5-star rating today.
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