Land Rover’s greatly updated Defender is, unsurprisingly, much safer than the old one.
The new-generation Land Rover Defender 110 has been awarded a five-star ANCAP rating, based on testing performed by EuroNCAP.
The new Land Rover Defender also showed strong performance across the four key areas of safety assessment.
“Adult Occupant Protection and Child Occupant Protection scored well, with maximum points recorded for adult occupants in the side impact and oblique pole tests, and for child occupants in the frontal offset and side impact tests,” said ANCAP Director Communications and Advocacy, Rhianne Robson.
The Defender combines new driver assist technologies with an ultra-stiff aluminium-intensive body construction engineered to cope with 4×4 work on rugged landscapes. Six airbags are designed to protect the driver and passengers, while up to three ISOFIX mounting points are available for child and baby seats.
The new Defender scored 85 per cent for Adult and Child Occupant protection, 79 per cent for Safety Assist and achieved a 71 per cent score for Vulnerable Road Users on its way to a five-star overall rating.
The comprehensive range of advanced driver assistance technologies fitted as standard on all 21MY Defenders include:
- Emergency Braking – Designed to detect if a potential frontal collision with another vehicle may occur and display a forward alert to warn the driver to brake. If the driver doesn’t respond, the vehicle will deploy emergency braking to reduce the severity of the possible impact.
- Blind Spot Assist – A flashing icon in the appropriate wing mirror helps alert the driver to obstacles in, or quickly approaching, your blind spot.
- 3D Surround Camera – Assists the driver during low-speed manoeuvres using advanced camera technology to provide a 3D view of Defender in its environment on the central Pivi Pro display.
- Clear Exit Monitor – Helps warn of a possible threat when preparing to open any door from the inside using sensors in the bumper to monitor approaching traffic.
- Adaptive Cruise Control – Maintains a safe distance from the vehicle in front. If the vehicle ahead stops, the technology will bring the vehicle to a smooth halt.
- Driver Condition Monitor – Designed to sense driver fatigue by monitoring steering, brake and accelerator inputs to provide alerts when tiredness is detected.
- Lane Keep Assist – Helps to detect unintentional lane drift and applies corrective counter-steering to maintain lane position.
- Rear Collision Monitor – If a vehicle approaching from behind is not slowing down, the vehicle will attempt to alert the approaching driver by automatically flashing the hazard lights.
- Rear Traffic Monitor – Designed to warn of vehicles, pedestrians or other hazards approaching from either side – particularly useful when reversing out of a parking bay.
- Traffic Sign Recognition and Adaptive Speed Limiter – Informs the driver of the current speed limit and adjusts the vehicle speed when entering new speed limit zones automatically.
- Wade Sensing – Ultrasonic sensors in the door mirrors provide real-time information about the water depth when wading.
- eCall+: System is designed to send an automatic message to an emergency call centre in case of a crash or collision, which includes additional location information and the number of seat belts in use.
- Multi Collision Brake: Automatically applies the brakes to prevent or mitigate a subsequent impact when the vehicle has been involved in a collision of sufficient severity.