Both the Telluride and Pilot 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 Pilot’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.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Telluride are reminded to check the back seat when a sensor determines the back seat is occupied. The Pilot doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Kia Telluride has a standard driver’s side knee airbag mounted low on the dashboard. The knee airbag helps prevent the driver from sliding under the seatbelts or the main frontal airbag; this keeps the driver better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. A knee airbag also helps keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Pilot doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The Telluride SX has a standard Surround View Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Pilot only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Telluride has a standard cross-path warning system, which uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. Only the Pilot EX/EX-L/SE/Touring/Elite/Black Edition has a cross-path warning system.
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 Pilot doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Telluride and the Pilot have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact 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, rearview cameras and available all wheel drive.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Kia Telluride is safer than the Honda Pilot:
|
Telluride |
Pilot |
|
Passenger |
|
STARS |
4 Stars |
4 Stars |
Chest Compression |
.4 inches |
.6 inches |
Neck Compression |
91 lbs. |
478 lbs. |
Leg Forces (l/r) |
351/369 lbs. |
478/436 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
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 Honda Pilot:
|
Telluride |
Pilot |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
41 |
109 |
Chest Movement |
.5 inches |
.6 inches |
Abdominal Force |
93 G’s |
101 G’s |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
137 |
233 |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Max Damage Depth |
14 inches |
15 inches |
Hip Force |
640 lbs. |
838 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the Telluride is .9% to 3.2% less likely to roll over than the Pilot.
For its top level performance in IIHS driver and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, side impact, roof strength and head restraint tests, its standard vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention system, its standard vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention system, and its available headlight’s “Acceptable” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the Telluride the rating of “Top Pick” for 2021, a rating granted to only 120 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Pilot last would have qualified as a “Top Pick” in 2019.