Hyundai Ioniq 5 vs Ford Mustang Mach-E vs Volkswagen ID.4: safety and reliability

With these cars at the forefront of their respective manufacturers’ technological development, it’s no surprise that all come with a wide range of safety features and driver aids.

All three were crash-tested by Euro NCAP in 2021, and all gained the maximum five-star scores. There’s very little in it, but the ID.4 ultimately got the best set of results if you drill down into the scores. It managed  93% for adult occupant protection, 89% for child protection and scored 85% for its safety assist systems.

In comparison, the Mach-E was awarded 92%, 86% and 82% in the same categories. The Ioniq, meanwhile, scored 88% for adult protection, 86% for child protection and 88% for its safety features.

Autonomous emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance, traffic-sign recognition and adaptive cruise control are all standard across the ID.4 range. Front and rear parking sensors are also standard, but 1st Edition models like the one we tested also come with a reversing camera, as well as automatic headlights. 

The Hyundai especially is excellent in this area, with Level 2 autonomous driving capability, which is ideal for long motorway journeys. The Ioniq 5 also comes with lane-keeping assistance, plus automatic emergency braking, seven airbags and even a system that prevents the rear doors from opening if it detects an oncoming car.

Meanwhile all Mach-Es come with lane-keeping assistance and lane-departure warning, as well as automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, evasive-steering assistance and pre-collision assistance, with active parking assistance the only extra you get by upgrading from a Standard Range to an Extended Range model.

All three are too new to have been in the hands of owners for very long, so there’s no data on each model’s long-term reliability. However, in the 2022 Driver Power survey, Hyundai ranked best, in 11th position, followed by Volkswagen in 18th and Ford in 25th – all out of 29 brands.