IIHS Releases 2026 Top Safety Picks With Minivans Mysteriously Absent

Each year, after careful consideration and vigorous analysis, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announces its Top Safety Pick winners, celebrating the passenger vehicles on sale that do the best to protect their occupants as well as the pedestrians around them.

Unsurprisingly, the list of 63 vehicles for the 2026 Model Year is comprised largely of SUVs with a slew of sedans thrown in for good measure, but there's a shocking segment of vehicles missing from the  2026 Top Safety Pick+ and Top Safety Pick winners: Minivans.

First, let's cover the good side of things in the form of Top Safety Pick+ winners for 2026. These cars have to meet the following criteria in the IIHS' testing regimen (with "G" representing "Good" and "A" meaning "Acceptable"):

• G Good rating in the small overlap front test
• G Good rating in the moderate overlap front test
• G Good rating in the side test
• AG Acceptable or good headlights (standard availability)
• G Good pedestrian front crash prevention (standard availability)
• AG Acceptable or good vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention 2.0 (standard availability)

Of the 63 vehicles selected for the awards this year, 45 qualified for the Top Safety Pick+ notation. This lengthy-ish list is as follows:

Small cars

• Kia K4
• Mazda 3 hatchback
• Mazda 3 sedan
• Nissan Sentra

Midsize cars

• Hyundai Sonata
• Toyota Camry

Midsize luxury car

• Audi A5

Large luxury car

• 2027 Audi A6 Sportback e-tron
• Genesis G80 built after June 2025

Small SUVs

• Genesis GV60
• Honda HR-V
• Hyundai Ioniq 5
• Hyundai Kona
• Hyundai Tucson
• Kia Sportage built after May 2025
• Mazda CX-30
• Mazda CX-50
• Subaru Forester

Midsize SUVs

• Honda Passport
• Hyundai Ioniq 9
• Hyundai Santa Fe
• Kia EV9
• Kia Sorento built after September 2025
• Mazda CX-70
• Mazda CX-70 PHEV
• Mazda CX-90
• Mazda CX-90 PHEV
• Nissan Murano
• Nissan Pathfinder
• Subaru Ascent
• Subaru Outback

Midsize luxury SUVs

• Audi Q5
• Audi Q5 Sportback
• 2027 Audi Q6 e-tron
• 2027 Audi Q6 Sportback e-tron
• BMW X3
• BMW X5
• Genesis Electrified GV70
• Genesis GV70
• Genesis GV80
• Infiniti QX60
• Lexus NX
• Large SUVs
• Rivian R1S
• Volvo EX90

Large pickup

• Tesla Cybertruck

Criteria for the still-high accolade of Top Safety Pick means the vehicle must meet the following requirements:

• G Good rating in the small overlap front test
• G Good rating in the moderate overlap front test
• G Good rating in the side test
• AG Acceptable or good headlights (standard availability)
• AG Acceptable or good pedestrian front crash prevention (standard availability)

And the winners are...

Small cars

• Honda Civic hatchback
• Hyundai Elantra
• Toyota Prius

Midsize car

• Honda Accord

Midsize luxury car

• Mercedes-Benz C-Class

Midsize SUVs

• Buick Enclave
• Ford Explorer
• Ford Mustang Mach-E
• Volkswagen Atlas
• Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport

Midsize luxury SUVs

• Lincoln Nautilus
• Mercedes-Benz GLC
• Volvo XC90
• Volvo XC90 Plug-in Hybrid

Large SUVs

• Audi Q7
• Infiniti QX80
• Nissan Armada

Large pickup

• Toyota Tundra crew cab

AutoGuide's Take:

Now, we must address the obvious elephant in the room here. Of all the minivans on sale today (Chrysler Pacifica and Voyager, Honda Odyssey, Kia Carnival, Toyota Sienna), not a single one made the cut for the IIHS Top Picks lists. Given that minivans are traditionally geared towards families, and families tend to prioritize safety, the fact that none of these offerings made the list(s) might come as a dealbreaker.

Yet looking at these vehicles, there's an underlying commonality: None of them are new, some having only been refreshed here and there for the last decade. On their current platforms, the Chrysler has been on sale since 2017, the Honda since 2018, and the Kia and Toyota both since 2020. In the modern automotive age and its corresponding purpose-driven motive to maximize safety, the Kia and Toyota are already old, and the Chrysler and Honda might as well be carbureted.

Modern minivans are excellent people movers, spectacularly practical, very comfortable, and not all that bad to drive. But they're apparently not the safest things out there, at least according to the people whose job it is to vet the cars that are the safest.

That said, it leaves a lot of room for improvement in the safety department when it comes to minivans, and while they aren't the coolest thing to show up to soccer practice in, they still absolutely have their place in the world. Here's to hoping the manufacturers take these results seriously and are working on the next generation of these people movers.

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