For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Audi A7 have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The Cadillac CT5 doesn’t offer pretensioners for the rear seat belts.
The A7’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The CT5 doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the A7 and CT5 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The A7 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 CT5’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 A7 has a standard Secondary Collision Brake Assist, which automatically applies the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The CT5 doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the A7. But it costs extra on the CT5.
A passive infrared night vision system optional on the A7 Prestige helps the driver to more easily detect people, animals or other objects in front of the vehicle at night. Using an infrared camera to detect heat, the system then displays the image on a monitor in the dashboard. The CT5 doesn’t offer a night vision system.
Both the A7 and the CT5 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, available blind spot warning systems, around view monitors and rear cross-path warning.
The Audi A7 weighs 505 to 1114 pounds more than the Cadillac CT5. The NHTSA advises that heavier cars are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
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 Audi A7 is safer than the Cadillac CT5:
|
A7 |
CT5 |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Chest Movement |
.9 inches |
.9 inches |
Abdominal Force |
174 G’s |
209 G’s |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Spine Acceleration |
43 G’s |
57 G’s |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Max Damage Depth |
13 inches |
20 inches |
Hip Force |
514 lbs. |
558 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
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 standard headlight’s “Acceptable” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the A7 its highest rating: “Top Pick Plus” for 2021, a rating granted to only 73 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The CT5 has not been tested, yet.