THE Kia EV6 electric coupe/crossover and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class family car have been awarded top safety rankings in the latest round of Euro NCAP tests.

Volvo's C40 Recharge EV and Volkswagen's new Multivan MPV also scored top marks while the new Vauxhall Astra and its sister model the Peugeot 308 were both rated as four star performers in the small family category.

The sixth generation Vauxhall Astra and third generation Peugeot 308 are both based on the Stellantis EMP2 platform and scored very similarly across all four areas of assessment.

Both the offset test and the full-width crash test highlighted marginal chest injury protection for average male and small female drivers, and neither car was equipped with a centre airbag for far-side crash protection, a countermeasure which is increasingly common on modern cars.

Both cars offer plenty of crash avoidance technology but do not include some of the latest advancements introduced in the market. The cars' four-star ratings apply also to their PHEV variants.

All of the five-star cars in the latest test series demonstrated excellent crash protection with scores of 90 per cent or more, compared to 76 per cent and 80 per cent for the Stellantis' cars.

The largest differences between the EV6, C-Class, C40 Recharge and the Multivan can be found in the ‘Vulnerable Road User' protection they offer, in particular front-end performance, where the C-Class, fitted with an active bonnet, outperformed the Kia EV6 by a significant margin.

On overall assistance technology, the Volvo C40 Recharge came out on top.

Despite its somewhat different, boxy shape, the VW Multivan put in a solid all-round result that was on a par with the cars tested.

Mercedes-Benz's Car-to-X Communication, part of the optional Mercedes-me service, is given a Euro NCAP Advanced reward.

The system utilises data from other vehicles to provide an early warning, via a cloud-based service, of potential hazards in a car's vicinity before they could otherwise be detected.

Michiel van Ratingen, secretary general of Euro NCAP, said: "On the whole, we see good scores for crash protection which is, of course, reassuring. But crash avoidance is as important as crash protection and the benefits of simply not being in a collision are, of course, immeasurably greater.

"We will keep the emphasis on all areas of safety in the coming years and some manufacturers will have to continue to up their game in this area if they are not going to be left behind by the competition."