2018 Volkswagen Atlas Debuts As A Top Safety Pick

Aug 17, 2017

In its first year on the market, the Volkswagen Atlas is already living up to the reputation of safety that comes with the Volkswagen name. The Atlas, when equipped with available Forward Collision Warning and Autonomous Emergency Braking, debuts as a top safety pick by the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS). It joins the Golf family, the Jetta, and the Passat on this year’s IIHS list.

The 2017 top safety pick award is issued to vehicles that have earned “Good” ratings in IIHS crash tests evaluated in five categories: frontal impact moderate overlap; frontal impact small overlap; side impact; roof strength; and head restraints. It must also offer an autonomous emergency braking system (AEB) that earns at least an advanced rating for front crash prevention. The 2018 Atlas earned a “Superior” rating on the AEB test.

“Volkswagen’s commitment to safety and driver assistance technology is unwavering. We take great responsibility to ensure our driver assistance technologies get smarter,” said Hendrik Muth, Senior Vice President, Product Marketing and Strategy. “The Atlas is an example of our ongoing commitment to offering these features, and we are proud it has been recognized as an IIHS 2017 top safety pick.”

The Atlas is the only vehicle in its class to offer the Automatic Post-Collision Braking System, which is standard across all trims. This system builds on the premise that a collision is rarely a single, instantaneous action, but rather a series of events that follow the initial impact—the most significant of which can cause additional collisions. The Automatic Post-Collision Braking System addresses this by applying the brakes when a primary collision is detected by the airbag sensors, thus helping reduce residual kinetic energy and, in turn, the chance of additional damage.

If you would like to get a closer look at the new Volkswagen Atlas, or schedule a test drive, please contact our team at Southwest Volkswagen and we will be happy to help assist you.