Kia Seltos is among top selling midsize SUVs in India, with close to one lakh units sold since its launch, the car has been a runaway success in India.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a US-based nonprofit organisation headquartered at Arlington in Virginia, recently crash-tested the 2021 Kia Seltos sold in the USA. Naturally, we were very interested in how the Seltos’ American cousin fared.

The trim that was tested was the SX Turbo, which is the top-spec variant that has a base price of $27,890 (Rs. 20.42 lakhs) and is powered by a 1.6-litre 4-cylinder turbo petrol that makes 175 HP and 264 Nm and is mated to a 7-speed DCT.

That particular model has a plethora of safety features including front, side and curtain airbags, side guard door beams, low tyre pressure indicator, discs all round, torque vectoring corner control, ABS, TC and ESC.

Since the Kia Seltos IIHS test car was the top SX Turbo trim, it also had features such as Blind-Spot Detection and Collision Avoidance Assist, Rear Cross-Traffic Alert and Avoidance, Auto Emergency Braking, Lane Departure Warning, Lane-Keeping Technology and Safe Exit Assist.

In all, IIHS tested the following parameters – Small overlap front driver and passenger-side, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, head restraints and seats, front crash prevention – vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian, headlights and child seat anchors.

Among the above parameters, only the headlights were deemed poor and the child seat anchors deemed acceptable, down due to latch ease of use. The car scored highly in the first five tests and got the top “Good” rating, while the front crash prevention for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian was termed superior in both cases.

If we were to nitpick, then we would have to state that IIHS found the passenger-side lower leg portion was found only “Acceptable”. Also, to note is that for some tests, two different variants were used, like for the headlight test (to test halogen and LED headlight effectiveness) and for the roof strength.

Overall, the Kia Seltos IIHS crash test results show that the car is indeed very safe. The Seltos sold in India can also be had with 6-airbags, all-wheel disc brakes, ABS, ESC, HAC, VSM and tyre pressure monitor, to name a few.