For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volkswagen ID.4 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 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV doesn’t offer pretensioners for the rear seat belts.
The ID.4’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Outlander PHEV doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the ID.4 and Outlander PHEV have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The ID.4 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 Outlander PHEV’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 ID.4 has a standard Automatic Post-Collision Braking System, which automatically applies the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The Outlander PHEV 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.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The ID.4 has standard Maneuver Braking that uses rear sensors to monitor and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a rear collision. The Outlander PHEV doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The ID.4’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 Outlander PHEV doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
The ID.4 has standard Car-Net, which uses a global positioning satellite (GPS) receiver and a cellular system to remotely unlock your doors if you lock your keys in, help track down your vehicle if it’s stolen or send emergency personnel to the scene if any airbags deploy. The Outlander PHEV doesn’t offer a GPS response system, so if you’re involved in an accident and you’re incapacitated help may not come as quickly.
Both the ID.4 and the Outlander PHEV have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact 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, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras and rear cross-path warning.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates the general design of front seat head restraints for their ability to protect front seat occupants from whiplash injuries. The IIHS also performs a dynamic test on those seats with “good” or “acceptable” geometry. In these ratings, the ID.4 with power recline seats is safer than the Outlander PHEV:
|
|
ID.4 |
Outlander PHEV |
| Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
| Head Restraint Design |
GOOD |
GOOD |
| Distance from Back of Head |
36 mm |
48 mm |
| Distance Below Top of Head |
-4 mm |
2 mm |
| Dynamic Test Rating |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
| Seat Design |
Pass |
Fail |
| Torso Acceleration |
9.7 g’s |
10.3 g’s |
| Neck Force Rating |
Low |
Low |
| Max Neck Shearing Force |
9 |
47 |
| Max Neck Tension |
219 |
488 |
(Lower numerical results are better in all tests.)
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 “Good” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the ID.4 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2021, a rating granted to only 76 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Outlander PHEV is not even a standard “Top Safety Pick.”