The Q4 e-tron Sportback’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 Q4 e-tron Sportback and Outlander PHEV have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Q4 e-tron Sportback 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 Q4 e-tron Sportback has a standard Audi Connect CARE, 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 Q4 e-tron Sportback and the Outlander PHEV have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, 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, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning and available around view monitors.
The Audi Q4 e-tron Sportback weighs 639 pounds more than the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
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 Q4 e-tron Sportback with leather seats is safer than the Outlander PHEV:
|
Q4 e-tron Sportback |
Outlander PHEV |
Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
Head Restraint Design |
GOOD |
GOOD |
Distance from Back of Head |
12 mm |
48 mm |
Dynamic Test Rating |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
Seat Design |
Pass |
Fail |
Neck Force Rating |
Low |
Low |
Max Neck Shearing Force |
0 |
47 |
Max Neck Tension |
161 |
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 Q4 e-tron Sportback its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 128 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Outlander PHEV is not even a standard “Top Safety Pick.”