The 2019 Volkswagen Arteon, a new large car, earns top ratings for crashworthiness and front crash prevention, but misses out on a 2019 safety award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety due to its headlight performance.
The Arteon, which was introduced for the 2019 model year, earns good crashworthiness ratings in six Institute evaluations. These include the driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests.
The large car comes standard with a superior-rated front crash prevention system. It avoided collisions in 12 and 25 mph track tests and has a forward collision warning component that meets the criteria set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
All three of the Arteon’s available headlight options rate poor. Its base headlights — static LED projectors — earn the rating largely because of deficiencies in visibility. Its other two systems — curve adaptive LED projectors with and without high-beam assist — rate poor due to excessive glare. Headlights are evaluated for both visibility and glare because glare can reduce visibility for other road users.
An acceptable headlight rating would have given the Arteon a 2019 TOP SAFETY PICK award, and a good headlight rating would have given it the higher-tier TOP SAFETY PICK+ award.
The Arteon earns an acceptable rating for ease of use of its Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) hardware, which is a system of attachment hardware for child restraints.
