Both the GV80 and Cayenne have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The GV80 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 Cayenne’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 GV80 are reminded to check the back seat when a sensor determines the back seat is occupied. The Cayenne doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The GV80 has a standard front seat center airbag, which deploys between the driver and front passenger, protecting them from injuries caused by striking each other in serious side impacts. The Cayenne doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The GV80 offers optional Parking Collision-Avoidance Assist-Reverse that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Cayenne doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The GV80’s standard lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane and gently nudges the vehicle back towards its lane. A lane departure warning system costs extra on the Cayenne.
The GV80 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 and moves the vehicle back into its lane. A system to reveal vehicles in the Cayenne’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the GV80’s standard Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist uses sensors in the rear to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side and automatically engage the brakes. The Cayenne doesn’t offer a rear cross-path warning system.
The GV80’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 Cayenne doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the GV80 and the Cayenne have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front and rear side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, rearview cameras and available around view monitors.
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 GV80 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 128 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Cayenne has not been tested, yet.