The Ford Kuga excelled throughout new, independent, safety tests that evaluated ‘assisted driving’ features such as those that automatically accelerate, brake, and steer on your behalf, Euro NCAP revealed. This sports-utility vehicle’s overall grading was therefore ‘good’. This placed it above the cars rated ‘entry’ and ‘moderate’ – and one place below those rated ‘very good’.
Euro NCAP Technical Director, Richard Schram, therefore praised this family workhorse. ‘The Ford Kuga demonstrates across a wide variety of cars tested that the good grading is achievable on a high-volume family sports-utility vehicle’, he explained. ‘Ford impressed in our first ever assisted driving technology grading. It showed high performance in all areas’, Mr Schram stated.
Ford Co-Pilot360
Ford Co-Pilot360 is an umbrella term for a wide range of assisted driving features. Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control, for example. This enables you to set a speed such as forty miles per-hour. The vehicle now automatically maintains this speed for you. There is no need to manually operate the throttle.
But what if you are travelling at forty miles per-hour and there is a slower car ahead? In this scenario, the system automatically slows your car to maintain a safe distance. Once the slower vehicle increases speed, the system accelerates back to forty. Adaptive Cruise Control incorporates further features. For starters:
- Speed Sign Recognition (reads traffic signs and adapts the car’s speed to stay in the limit – but without exceeding your stated preference, e.g. forty)
- Lane Centring (scans lane makings relative to the car’s position then – if it has wandered off line – slightly nudges your steering in the right direction)
- Stop-and-Go (automatically stops your vehicle if the traffic ahead is stationary, then accelerates if it starts to move within three seconds).
Ford praises assisted driving technology
Ford of Europe Director of Safety Engineering, Stuart Southgate, praised assisted driving systems. ‘For the freedom and independence it gives us, driving on today’s busy roads can be a demanding and stressful experience’, he argued.
‘That is why we designed technologies to take some of the strain from drivers and help them focus more clearly on the road. We worked hard to make Kuga’s assisted driving experience as intuitive, natural, and engaging as possible so that drivers enjoy taking full advantage of the technologies’, Mr Southgate said.
Further plaudits
The Ford Kuga can now add its ‘good’ assisted driving rating to previous plaudits. In 2019, Euro NCAP awarded it a maximum 5 star safety rating in separate tests. Among other things, these evaluated how well the vehicle protects adult occupants if there is a collision, child occupants, and pedestrians.
