Nissan LEAF gets highest safety rating from NHTSA
This is undoubtedly one of the questions that we get asked most often, and now we have an answer – 5 Stars.
The question is obviously, what is the government’s safety rating of the LEAF. Since the government had not released results before now, there was no answer. In April, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) gave the LEAF their highest rating. While we felt that this was (and is) in many ways a more rigorous testing method than that used by Uncle Sam, the questions remained. Now we can say that the LEAF is truly one of the safest vehicles on the road. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave the LEAF its highest available rating – 5 stars overall. Also, the 2011 tests have been made more rigorous than prior year evaluations. Here is the language used by the NHTSA:
Starting with 2011 models, NHTSA has introduced tougher tests and rigorous new 5-Star Safety Ratings that provide more information about vehicle safety and crash avoidance technologies. Because of the more stringent tests, ratings for 2011 and newer vehicles should not be compared to ratings for 1990-2010 models. Overall vehicle score and frontal crash ratings should ONLY be compared to other vehicles of similar size and weight.
Information about the LEAF test can be found directly on the NHTSA website.