Detroit Automakers Shut Out of Top Safety Awards

Published: March 31st, 2026

Not a single vehicle from Ford, General Motors, or Stellantis earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s highest safety honor this year, marking a stark contrast with foreign competitors that swept the organization’s 2026 Top Safety Pick+ awards announced Tuesday.

The shutout comes as the IIHS raised its testing standards to better reflect real-world crashes, requiring vehicles to protect rear-seat passengers and demonstrate advanced pedestrian detection. While 45 vehicles earned the top designation—up from 48 total awards in 2025—none came from Detroit’s Big Three, despite their dominance in the pickup truck and SUV segments that account for roughly 80 percent of new vehicle sales in the United States.

Tougher standards, wider gaps

The IIHS overhauled its moderate overlap front crash test for 2026, adding rear-seat crash test dummies to measure protection for passengers sitting behind the driver. Vehicles now must earn “Good” ratings across six crash tests, plus demonstrate “Superior” or “Advanced” front crash prevention for both vehicles and pedestrians, and provide at least “Acceptable” headlight performance.

“Vehicles must now achieve a ‘good’ rating in the updated moderate overlap front test and feature standard front crash prevention technology,” the IIHS stated in its announcement.

Despite the higher bar, 63 vehicles qualified for either Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ recognition—a 31 percent increase over last year’s 48 winners. The difference: foreign automakers invested in the structural changes and sensor technology needed to meet the new requirements.

Hyundai Motor Group led all manufacturers with 16 awards, including 15 Top Safety Pick+ designations. Hyundai alone captured seven awards, with models ranging from the $25,000 Kona compact SUV to the three-row Ioniq 9 electric vehicle. Genesis, the group’s luxury brand, earned Top Safety Pick+ for all five of its current models, including the GV70 and GV80 SUVs that compete directly with Cadillac and Lincoln.

Kia added four Top Safety Pick+ awards, including the K4 sedan, Sportage compact SUV, EV9 electric SUV, and Sorento midsize SUV. Subaru earned three Top Safety Pick+ honors for the Forester, Outback, and Ascent—extending the Forester’s streak to 20 consecutive years of top safety recognition.

Where Detroit falls short

The absence of Detroit brands becomes more striking when looking at specific vehicle categories. In the pickup truck segment—where Ford’s F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ram trucks have dominated U.S. sales for decades—only one vehicle earned Top Safety Pick+: the Tesla Cybertruck. Toyota’s Tundra crew cab managed the lower Top Safety Pick designation.

“Tougher standards appear to be hitting pickups especially hard, as the Cybertruck is the only one that managed to clear the bar for Top Safety Pick+ this year,” noted a Road & Track analysis of the results.

The pattern repeats across SUV segments. Mazda earned Top Safety Pick+ for four SUV models: the CX-30, CX-50, CX-70, and CX-90. Honda’s Passport and HR-V both made the list. Nissan’s Murano earned the top award. None of these manufacturers sell anywhere near the SUV volume of Detroit’s brands, yet they outperformed in independent safety testing.

Even in the midsize and full-size SUV categories where Chevrolet Tahoe, Ford Expedition, and Jeep Grand Cherokee compete, foreign competitors like the Hyundai Santa Fe and Subaru Ascent earned top honors while Detroit models did not appear on the list.

A 78-award gap

The 2026 results continue a pattern that has developed over the past decade. Subaru has accumulated 78 Top Safety Pick+ awards since the IIHS created the designation in 2013, reflecting consistent investment in crash structure design and driver assistance technology.

Detroit manufacturers have occasionally earned the top award for specific models in past years, but the 2026 shutout suggests the gap is widening as testing standards evolve. The IIHS updates its criteria roughly every two years to address emerging crash patterns identified in real-world collision data.

The 2026 changes specifically targeted rear-seat protection after IIHS research found that back-seat passengers face higher injury rates than front-seat occupants in many newer vehicles, despite improvements in airbag and restraint systems. The new moderate overlap test places a crash dummy in the rear seat to measure forces on the head, chest, and lower body during a 40 mph frontal offset crash.

Many of Detroit’s bestselling vehicles—including body-on-frame pickup trucks and large SUVs—use structural designs that prioritize towing capacity and payload over the crumple zones and energy-absorbing structures that perform well in IIHS testing. While these vehicles often earn strong ratings in federal government crash tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the IIHS applies more stringent criteria.

Safety on a budget

The 2026 winners also challenge the notion that top safety performance requires premium pricing. More than a dozen Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ vehicles start under $30,000, including the Kia K4 sedan, Hyundai Kona SUV, and Mazda3.

The Kia K4, starting around $25,000, earned Top Safety Pick+ despite competing in the compact sedan segment that Detroit largely abandoned in recent years. The Hyundai Sonata and Toyota Camry—both midsize sedans with base prices under $30,000—also made the top tier.

By contrast, many of Detroit’s volume sellers carry significantly higher price tags. The average transaction price for a full-size pickup truck exceeded $57,000 in 2025, according to industry data. The Chevrolet Tahoe starts above $56,000, and the Ford Expedition begins around $58,000. None earned Top Safety Pick+ recognition.

What this means for buyers

The IIHS awards carry weight with safety-conscious consumers and influence insurance rates, resale values, and fleet purchasing decisions. The organization’s crash tests have driven design changes across the industry since the group introduced its small overlap front test in 2012, which initially caught most automakers—including Detroit brands—unprepared.

For families shopping for SUVs or trucks, the 2026 results create a clear hierarchy. Vehicles like the Hyundai Tucson and Santa Fe, Kia Sportage and Sorento, Subaru Outback and Forester, and Mazda CX-50 and CX-70 offer documented superior protection in crashes and better systems to avoid collisions in the first place.

The Tesla Cybertruck’s Top Safety Pick+ status makes it the only pickup truck buyers can choose if they prioritize the highest independent safety ratings, though its unconventional design and high price limit its appeal. The Toyota Tundra offers a more traditional alternative with the lower Top Safety Pick designation.

Fleet managers and corporate buyers who prioritize safety metrics face similar choices. While Detroit brands offer advantages in parts availability, service networks, and specific capability requirements, the IIHS results provide objective data for procurement decisions where occupant protection ranks high.

Consumers can review complete test results and ratings for specific vehicles at IIHS.org, where the organization publishes detailed crash test videos, sensor performance evaluations, and headlight beam pattern analysis. The site allows side-by-side comparisons of vehicles in the same class.

The engineering challenge

Earning Top Safety Pick+ requires coordinated investment across multiple engineering domains. Vehicle structures must manage crash energy to protect occupants in front, side, and rollover crashes. Restraint systems including airbags and seatbelts must deploy appropriately for occupants of different sizes in different seating positions. Advanced driver assistance systems must reliably detect vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists to prevent crashes.

Headlight performance—often overlooked by consumers—factors heavily into the awards. The IIHS tests how well headlights illuminate straightaways and curves without creating excessive glare for oncoming drivers. Many vehicles lose Top Safety Pick+ eligibility not because of crash test performance but because their headlights provide inadequate visibility or blind other drivers.

The rear-seat protection requirement added for 2026 presents particular challenges for vehicles with truck-based architectures. The structural rigidity needed for towing and payload capacity can work against the controlled deformation that protects passengers in crashes. Automakers must balance these competing demands, and the IIHS results suggest foreign manufacturers have made different engineering trade-offs than Detroit.

Some Detroit vehicles earned the lower Top Safety Pick designation, indicating strong crash performance but falling short in headlight quality or crash prevention technology. The distinction matters: Top Safety Pick+ represents the highest level of safety equipment available today, while Top Safety Pick indicates very good but not optimal performance.

Market implications

Detroit’s Big Three sold roughly 6.2 million vehicles in the United States in 2025, with pickup trucks and SUVs accounting for the vast majority of that volume. The F-Series alone sold more than 750,000 units, making it America’s bestselling vehicle for the 49th consecutive year.

Whether the IIHS results will affect those sales remains unclear. Many truck buyers prioritize capability, brand loyalty, and dealer relationships over safety ratings. But the awards create an opening for competitors in segments where Detroit has long dominated.

Hyundai and Kia have gained U.S. market share steadily over the past decade, and their strong IIHS performance provides marketing ammunition. Subaru has built its brand identity partly on safety, and the 78 Top Safety Pick+ awards since 2013 support that positioning.

The results also matter for corporate reputation. Detroit automakers have spent billions on marketing campaigns emphasizing American engineering, reliability, and safety. When independent testing shows their vehicles trailing foreign competitors on objective safety measures, it undercuts those messages.

All three Detroit manufacturers have announced major investments in electric vehicle development, with new EV trucks and SUVs launching over the next two years. Those clean-sheet designs offer opportunities to incorporate safety structures and sensor systems that meet IIHS standards without the constraints of existing architectures. Whether Detroit engineers seize that opportunity will become clear in future IIHS testing cycles.

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