The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has just finished their assessment of the 2015 Honda Fit, and they have awarded the vehicle a full five-star rating according to their New Car Assessment Program. The score wasn’t that surprising to everyone, as the car’s design has been focusing on safety to a large extent, but it’s definitely still nice to see it stated officially by a major authority like that.
The Fit received a major redesign in 2014, and it’s currently deemed a very safe, balanced vehicle that offers a great value to buyers, and has been the favorite of many critics who’ve had a chance to get behind the wheel of the 2015 Fit. Among the many new ideas incorporated into the redesign of the Fit, the car uses a new type of body structure designed through “Advanced Compatibility Engineering”. This makes the car much safer in frontal crashes, as the body can handle energy dissipation much more efficiently.
That’s not all though – the body structure is not only made stronger as a whole, but the company’s engineers have also introduced extra energy pathways that should help spread the energy throughout the car’s body even more effectively in the event of a crash.
It’s good to see that Honda have been paying attention to previous criticism about the Fit’s design, as the score that it received initially was just a “Marginal” one, prompting the company to put extra work into the car’s bumper, which was deemed one of its weak points in the assessment. Honda managed to implement all of their changes directly on the production line, while buyers who had already gotten an earlier Fit model had to send in their cars to have their bumpers reinforced.
The NHTSA has been including some new tests in their regular assessment programs, which have prompted auto manufacturers – not just Honda – to take another look at how their cars behave in a collision. One of the points that was specifically focused on is the event of a collision with another vehicle, a test where many cars usually scored poorly, as the point of contact was small and positioned in a way that caused the energy to bypass most dissipating mechanisms in the car’s body.
The new Fit now comes with various additional gadgets that can make the driving experience smoother and safer as well, such as a rearview camera and Honda’s own LaneWatch system for alerting drivers when they’re getting too close to the edge of the road. All in all, the new 2015 Fit is shaping up to be the definite answer to the needs of most safety-conscious buyers, as well as those who want a comfortable ride overall.