2024 Mitsubishi Triton Garners 5-Star ANCAP Crash Test Score

New third-gen Mitsubishi Triton garners high 5-star score from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) recently.

It went rally racing prior to its debut, entered the Thai market with much fanfare, and even garnered a high 5-star score from the ASEAN NCAP crash-testing program. Now, the new third-generation Mitsubishi Triton can add a new achievement to its growing list of accolades.

That because the pick-up truck recently underwent another round of crash-testing, this time under arguably more stringent parameters of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

Said pick-up truck stood as the first dual-cab pick-up truck to be assessed via the ANCAP program’s stricter new 2023-2025 standards. From which, the Triton scored an admirable 5-star rating. The impressive score was awarded to the new Triton in both 4x2 and 4x4 driveline forms, which recently entered both the Australian and New Zealand markets.

The new Triton is the first dual-cab pick-up truck to be assessed by ANCAP under its stricter new 2023-2025 parameters.

According to ANCAP,  the Triton demonstrated high levels of protection for the driver, front-seat adult passenger, and child occupants in the majority of physical crash tests. Maximum scores were achieved through passenger in the frontal offset, the driver in the full-width frontal and oblique side pole, and both child dummies in the frontal- and side-impact tests.  

ANCAP did note that the Triton could do better when it comes to protecting the chest and upper legs of smaller rear passengers in the full-width frontal test. Here, ANCAP even adds that a ‘weak’ chest score was recorded, thus a penalty was applied for presenting an increased risk of abdominal injury.

When tested on the risk of injury to people in another vehicle if hit by the Triton in a collision, ANCAP says the Triton performed moderately well,  beating many other segment rivals too. It was only let down with a lower ‘safety assist’ score despite featuring autonomous emergency braking (AEB), which isn’t as sophisticated when it comes to T-bone intersection smashes and head-on collisions.

A full array of tests were performed and the ANCAP noted how the new Triton fared our respectably well in most areas.

As part of safety testing, ANCAP also put the Triton’s Driver Monitoring System through its paces. “The Triton met ANCAP protocol requirements in alerting for fatigue and distraction, however Mitsubishi’s implementation of this system could be improved by reducing unnecessary warnings to the driver,” says ANCAP CEO Carla Hoorweg.

In addition to visual warnings, the manufacturer can choose between haptic or audible alerts ihere to score points under ANCAP protocols.  However, distraction warnings when reversing, parking or during slow-speed manoeuvres below 10 KM/H, weren’t assessed or rewarded by ANCAP.

Though tipped for entry in the local market this year, it remains unclear as to when the new Triton (left) will debut locally. Presently, MMM still offers the outgoing model (right).

Nevertheless, this is still one enormous accolade for the Japanese tri-diamond marque and perhaps one of the staple best-sellers.

Closer to home, the new third-gen Triton is long tipped to enter the Malaysian market sometime this year, though Mitsubishi Motors Malaysia (MMM) has yet to announce this. Officially, the firm still has the outgoing version on sale still, even launching a special edition version of which early this year.