Paul Esch-Laurent / Unsplash
Car safety ratings have become more demanding — and more meaningful — than at any point in the history of consumer testing. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit funded by the insurance industry, has spent three decades developing crash tests that push vehicle structures and emergency technology well beyond what regulators require. Consumer Reports, the independent product-testing nonprofit, incorporates IIHS results into its own Overall Scores alongside its evaluations of braking, handling, control usability, and whether proven crash-prevention technology comes standard on base trims. Together, the two organizations provide the most rigorous independent picture of new-car safety available to U.S. buyers.
For 2026, the IIHS raised the bar again. Vehicles seeking either of its two awards — Top Safety Pick and the higher-tier Top Safety Pick Plus — now need a Good rating in an updated moderate-overlap front crash test that, for the first time, places a dummy in the rear seat to assess how well the back of the cabin holds up. Before this change, automakers could earn recognition even if their back-seat occupants fared poorly.
The results filtered out a number of models that had won in prior years and rewarded the brands that had invested most heavily in structural engineering and crash-prevention software. Sixty-three vehicles made the 2026 list. Of those, 45 earned TSP Plus, the designation reserved for vehicles that also pass a new vehicle-to-vehicle crash prevention test at highway speeds, including scenarios involving motorcycles and semi-trailers. The other 18 earned the standard TSP, which still requires Good ratings across the full battery of frontal and side crash evaluations, along with acceptable or better performance in pedestrian braking and headlight assessments.
