For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Audi A6 Allroad 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 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The A6 Allroad’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Atlas Cross Sport doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the A6 Allroad and Atlas Cross Sport have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The A6 Allroad 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 Atlas Cross Sport’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 Audi A6 Allroad has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags helps prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Atlas Cross Sport doesn’t offer knee airbags.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the A6 Allroad. But it costs extra on the Atlas Cross Sport.
A passive infrared night vision system optional on the A6 Allroad Prestige 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 Atlas Cross Sport doesn’t offer a night vision system.
Both the A6 Allroad and the Atlas Cross Sport 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, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, available blind spot warning systems and rear cross-path warning.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Audi A6 Allroad is safer than the Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport:
|
|
A6 Allroad |
Atlas Cross Sport |
|
|
Driver |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
| HIC |
197 |
307 |
| Neck Injury Risk |
30% |
30% |
| Neck Stress |
322 lbs. |
412 lbs. |
|
|
Passenger |
|
| STARS |
4 Stars |
4 Stars |
| Chest Compression |
.5 inches |
.7 inches |
| Neck Compression |
98 lbs. |
117 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH and into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Audi A6 Allroad is safer than the Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport:
|
|
A6 Allroad |
Atlas Cross Sport |
|
|
Rear Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| HIC |
135 |
208 |
|
|
Into Pole |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Max Damage Depth |
13 inches |
13 inches |
| Spine Acceleration |
39 G’s |
41 G’s |
| Hip Force |
514 lbs. |
594 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the A6 Allroad, with its five-star roll-over rating, is 6.2% to 8% less likely to roll over than the Atlas Cross Sport, which received a four-star rating.
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 A6 Allroad its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 128 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Atlas Cross Sport is not even a standard “Top Safety Pick.”