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 XT6 are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Range Rover Sport doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Cadillac XT6 has a standard driver’s side knee airbag mounted low on the dashboard. The knee airbag helps prevent the driver from sliding under the seatbelts or the main frontal airbag; this keeps the driver better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. A knee airbag also helps keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Range Rover Sport doesn’t offer knee airbags.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The XT6 Premium Luxury/Sport offers optional Reverse Automatic Braking that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Range Rover Sport doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
A passive infrared night vision system optional on the XT6 Premium Luxury/Sport 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 Range Rover Sport doesn’t offer a night vision system.
The XT6 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 Range Rover Sport’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the XT6 has standard Rear Cross Traffic Alert, helping the driver avoid collisions. Land Rover charges extra for rear cross-path warning on the Range Rover Sport.
Both the XT6 and the Range Rover Sport have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, plastic fuel tanks, 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 all wheel drive and 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 XT6 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 128 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Range Rover Sport has not been tested, yet.