The 5 Smallest Cars That Nonetheless Get IIHS Top Safety Pick Ratings – Jalopnik

Gas costs are hitting file highs, common new-car costs set their very own data in June at $51,974 (through Automotive News), and common month-to-month automotive funds additionally marked a brand new peak this yr. This is sufficient to get extra new-car buyers interested by shopping for small vehicles. But even then, they nonetheless should marvel if another person’s massive automobile may kill them in a crash.

Now, there is not any combating physics, which signifies that, usually talking, smaller/lighter automobiles are going to get the worst of it in collisions with greater/heavier ones. That’s why small-car buyers might need to try 2026 fashions that obtained Top Safety Pick scores from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). It should not be too powerful, both, since there are solely eight of them for 2026: Honda Civic (hatchback solely), Hyundai Elantra, Kia K4, Mazda 3 (hatchback and sedan), Nissan Sentra, Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid (we’ll clarify later), and Toyota Prius.

These machines qualify by scoring Good scores within the IIHS crash checks for small and reasonable frontal-overlap impacts, in addition to for aspect impacts. They additionally all scored the required Good or Acceptable scores for his or her commonplace headlights and commonplace pedestrian front-crash prevention tech. Understandably, although, many of the vehicles right here certified for Top Safety Pick+ honors by getting a Good grade of their pedestrian programs and an Acceptable/Good mark for vehicle-to-vehicle front-crash prevention. We then narrowed issues all the way down to the 5 very smallest choices by size, rating them from longest to shortest. Note that the biggest compact vehicles on our record, the Elantra and K4, earned each Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ scores, respectively.

The 2026 Nissan Sentra seems to be extra interesting than ever because of its latest redesign, however that wasn’t the one change for the higher. After final incomes a Top Safety Pick in 2022, the Sentra was as soon as once more honored by the IIHS, this time additionally assembly the standards for the added “+” designation. IIHS gave the Sentra an Acceptable ranking for its commonplace V2V entrance crash-prevention system, and the automotive aced all the opposite checks, together with those for child-seat utilization.

What probably helped right here is that, as a part of the automotive’s redesign, Nissan engineers made it some extent to considerably reinforce its underlying unibody construction. The Sentra’s upgrades for 2026 did not cease there, both. Blind-spot intervention is newly commonplace, becoming a member of adaptive cruise management, lane-departure warning/prevention, and a driver-attention monitor on the automotive’s record of ordinary options. 

Another factor boosting the Sentra’s enchantment is that its dimensions — 183.3 inches in size — are complemented by an particularly high-value MSRP. In this case, it is $23,845 with vacation spot included. Only the marginally bigger Kia K4 is marginally cheaper. Kia stickers its 185.4-inch sedan at $22,290 with its personal $1,245 vacation spot cost.

On the best tires, the Toyota Prius is nearly as a lot enjoyable to drive as a Volkswagen GTI — however it helps make up for any dynamic disadvantages with a Top Safety Pick+ ranking that the GTI cannot match. Meanwhile, most all vehicles could have hassle matching the Prius’ EPA line of 57 mpg metropolis/56 mpg freeway/57 mpg mixed. As for the security division, the Prius — stretching 181.1 inches — is all Good, with only a single Acceptable ranking — for its headlights. To be clear, the Prius even took dwelling Good marks for its rear-seat reminder and LATCH setup. The Prius additionally packs a very spectacular record of ordinary ADAS tech that features Toyota’s Proactive Driving Assist for semi-autonomous journey.

One factor to bear in mind, nonetheless, is that Toyota now not calls the Prius PHEV the Prime mannequin. The automaker now lumps all Prii below the identical nameplate no matter powertrain, and the IIHS has basically adopted go well with. The consequence is that the IIHS scores for the 2026 Prius are primarily based solely on checks of the standard hybrid — there have been no separate crash checks for the PHEV.

Because these are the very best of the very best compacts in relation to security, you may assume every automotive did certainly get Good marks in all 5 check classes except we are saying in any other case. For instance, the 2026 Honda Civic hatchback was named a Top Safety Pick — with out the “+” — regardless that it met TPS+ standards with an Acceptable mark for its V2V front-crash tech. The subject was that its Acceptable grade for pedestrian front-crash avoidance wasn’t excessive sufficient for the additional honor.

There’s a cause we have been emphasizing the 179-inch-long hatchback: whereas extra vehicles general obtained 2026 Top Safety Pick Awards, the 184.8-inch Civic sedan wasn’t one in all them. Unlike the hatch, it obtained solely an Acceptable grade within the up to date reasonable front-overlap check, which put even an everyday TPS ranking out of attain. According to the IIHS, the difficulty was poor efficiency of its rear passenger restraints and dummy kinematics, which refers back to the methods the crash-test dummy moved round throughout the analysis. Just be aware that the IIHS additionally checks automobiles’ seatbelt reminders and LATCH {hardware}, and whereas the marks aren’t a part of the TPS consideration, the Civic hatch obtained a Marginal within the former and went unrated within the latter, whereas the sedan obtained Good and Good+ scores for every, respectively.

This one additionally wants just a little little bit of a disclaimer: The IIHS has separate pages for the 2026 Mazda3’s two separate physique types, however they’re supposedly so comparable that the group simply examined the sedan mannequin after which carried over its scores to the hatchback. Yet the scores themselves have been stellar, with just one.5 Acceptable grades. Here’s what we imply by that: When it involves know-how, the IIHS gave the Mazda3’s V2V entrance crash-prevent setup an Acceptable grade, however then went on to guage headlights in two trim ranges. In extra reasonably priced trims akin to the two.5 S, 2.5 S Select Sport, 2.5 S Preferred, and a couple of.5 S Carbon Edition, the Mazda3’s LED projector headlights have been deemed Acceptable. However, for the uplevel 2.5 S Premium and a couple of.5 Turbo Premium Plus, curve-adaptive lighting is commonplace, and that raised the automotive’s headlamp marks to Good.

In the tip, the most important distinction between the 2 physique types got here all the way down to their measurement and value. The Mazda3 sedan is 183.5 inches lengthy, with an MSRP of $24,965 with vacation spot fees, and the hatch checks in at solely 175.6 inches, has a beginning value of $26,965. Either approach, we predict the Mazda3 is maybe the very best automotive for a brand new driver.

Okay, here is the factor concerning the 2026 Subaru Crosstrek no matter its powertrain: Despite the truth that Subaru and its followers regard the Crosstrek as an SUV, or at the least a crossover, the IIHS categorizes the automobile as a wagon. Sure, the Crosstrek is constructed on the identical platform because the Subaru Impreza hatchback, however many CUVs now share their underpinnings with vehicles. And that features Crosstrek rivals just like the Toyota Corolla Cross, which the IIHS calls a small SUV.

Something else to bear in mind is that the Top Safety Pick+ award goes solely to the Crosstrek Hybrid, and not the gas-only version. It appears that, someplace throughout the means of hybridization, Subaru modified the Crosstrek’s construction sufficient to go from a Marginal grade within the entrance moderate-overlap crash check to a Good. For what it is value, the Crosstrek additional stands out because the smallest of the smallest vehicles with Top Safety Pick standing, at a mere 176.4 inches, and it is the one one with Good grades in each check and commonplace all-wheel drive. Needless to say, the Hybrid solved all of our issues with the gas-only Crosstrek.