For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Audi A7 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 Cadillac CT5 doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The A7’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The CT5 doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the A7 and CT5 have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The A7 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 CT5’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 A7 has a standard Secondary Collision Brake Assist, which automatically applies the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The CT5 doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the A7. But it costs extra on the CT5.
Both the A7 and CT5 offer rear cross-traffic warning, but the A7 with Rear Cross-Traffic Assist also has Automatic Brake Activation (automatically applies the brakes) to better prevent a collision when backing near traffic. The CT5’s Rear Cross Traffic Alert doesn’t automatically brake.
Both the A7 and the CT5 have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee 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, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, available blind spot warning systems and around view monitors.
The Audi A7 weighs 505 to 673 pounds more than the Cadillac CT5. The NHTSA advises that heavier cars are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
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 A7 is safer than the Cadillac CT5:
|
|
A7 |
CT5 |
|
|
Front Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Chest Movement |
.9 inches |
.9 inches |
| Abdominal Force |
174 lbs. |
209 lbs. |
|
|
Rear Seat |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Spine Acceleration |
43 G’s |
57 G’s |
|
|
Into Pole |
|
| STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
| Max Damage Depth |
13 inches |
20 inches |
| Hip Force |
514 lbs. |
558 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
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 A7 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 128 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The CT5 has not been tested, yet.