Both the Telluride and XT6 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Telluride has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The XT6’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
The Telluride’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The XT6 doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Telluride and the XT6 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, front wheel drive, height adjustable front shoulder belts, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning, available all wheel drive and around view monitors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Kia Telluride is safer than the Cadillac XT6:
|
Telluride |
XT6 |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
41 |
98 |
Chest Movement |
.5 inches |
.7 inches |
Abdominal Force |
93 G’s |
117 G’s |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
137 |
180 |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Hip Force |
640 lbs. |
666 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.