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 Honda Clarity Fuel Cell 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 Clarity Fuel Cell doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the ID.4 and Clarity Fuel Cell 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 Clarity Fuel Cell’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 Clarity Fuel Cell 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 Clarity Fuel Cell doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The ID.4 has all-wheel drive to maximize traction under poor conditions, especially in ice and snow. The Clarity Fuel Cell doesn’t offer all-wheel drive.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the ID.4’s standard rear cross-path warning system uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. The Clarity Fuel Cell doesn’t offer a cross-path warning system.
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 Clarity Fuel Cell doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the ID.4 and the Clarity Fuel Cell 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 and rearview cameras.
The Volkswagen ID.4 weighs 434 to 793 pounds more than the Honda Clarity Fuel Cell. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
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 Clarity Fuel Cell has not been tested, yet.