For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Ford Mustang Mach-E are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Chevrolet Bolt doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the Mustang Mach-E and Bolt have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Mustang Mach-E 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 Bolt’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 Mustang Mach-E has standard Post Collision Braking, which automatically apply the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The Bolt 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.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Mustang Mach-E has a standard Reverse Brake Assist that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Bolt doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The Mustang Mach-E offers all-wheel drive to maximize traction under poor conditions, especially in ice and snow. The Bolt doesn’t offer all-wheel drive.
The Mustang Mach-E 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 Bolt’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Mustang Mach-E has standard Cross Traffic Alert and Cross Traffic Braking automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Chevrolet charges extra for Rear Cross Traffic Alert on the Bolt and the Bolt’s Rear Cross Traffic Alert does not include automatic braking.
The Mustang Mach-E’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 Bolt doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the Mustang Mach-E and the Bolt have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front and rear side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems and rearview cameras.
The Ford Mustang Mach-E weighs 770 to 1365 pounds more than the Chevrolet Bolt. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles 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, results indicate that the Ford Mustang Mach-E is safer than the Chevrolet Bolt:
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Mustang Mach-E |
Bolt |
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Rear Seat |
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STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.