While the Ford Mustang Mach-E has been on sale in the U.S. for a few years now, the EV crossover is a relatively new entity in Australia, joining The Blue Oval’s lineup there in three trims – Select, Premium, and GT. There, the non-performance-focused version of the Mach-E managed to earn a perfect five-star safety rating in Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) testing back in July. However, that wasn’t the case with the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT, solely because it’s missing one particular feature that’s present in lesser trims, according to Drive.
That one feature is a center airbag located between the front seats, which negates the side impact occupant protection scores assigned to the previously-tested, non-GT model. The reason for this exclusion pertains to the heavily-bolstered front seats present in the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT, which seemingly doesn’t leave enough room for this added safety feature, which is designed to prevent the driver and passenger’s heads from making contact in the event of a side impact crash.
The Mach-E GT isn’t alone in that regard, as the Kia EV6 GT is also missing a center airbag for the same exact reason. According to Drive, neither automaker has plans to add a center airbag to those models at this time, nor to submit either for a new round of crash testing. This is notable because in Australia, vehicles must earn a five-star ANCAP rating to qualify for use in government fleets.
In other parts of the world, the Ford Mustang Mach-E has performed admirably in safety testing, earning a perfect five star rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NTHSA), as well as perfect marks in IIHS testing and from the Euro NCAP and Green NCAP.
We’ll have more on the Mach-E soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Mustang Mach-E news and ongoing Ford news coverage.
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