For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Hyundai Kona have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision. The Toyota Corolla Hatchback doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
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 Kona are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Corolla Hatchback doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Kona offers all-wheel drive to maximize traction under poor conditions, especially in ice and snow. The Corolla Hatchback doesn’t offer all-wheel drive.
The Kona Limited has a standard Surround View Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Corolla Hatchback only offers a rear monitor.
The Kona has a standard blind spot warning system that uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them. A system to reveal vehicles in the Corolla Hatchback’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Kona has standard Rear Cross-Traffic Collision Warning and Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Toyota charges extra for Rear Cross-Traffic Alert on the Corolla Hatchback and the Corolla Hatchback’s Rear Cross-Traffic Alert does not include automatic braking.
Both the Kona and the Corolla Hatchback have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front wheel drive, 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 and driver alert monitors.