Living up to their reputation of building the safest vehicles on the road, Subaru just announced that its three-row 7-seater Ascent (to be called Evoltis locally) has just been named a 2020 Top Safety Pick+ by the U.S.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or IIHS.

The 2021 Ascent earned the nod when equipped with the Steering Responsive LED Headlights (SRH) with High Beam Assist.

The Ascent offers a spacious interior with flexible seating options and a long roster of safety, driver assist, and in-vehicle technologies.

To earn a 2020 Top Safety Pick+ or Top Safety Pick award, vehicles must earn ‘Good’ ratings in each of IIHS’s six crashworthiness evaluations: driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, and head restraint tests.

In addition, vehicles must also earn ‘Good’ or ‘Acceptable’ headlight ratings and offer available front crash prevention that earns ‘Advanced or ‘Superior’ ratings in both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations.

The Ascent comes standard with Subaru EyeSight Driver Assist Technology, which includes automatic emergency braking, and it earns the ‘Superior’ rating for both evaluations. The Subaru models that have won the IIHS award are equipped with EyeSight.

The requirement to achieve a ‘Good’ rating for the passenger-side small overlap front collision was new for both IIHS awards starting in 2020. The small overlap tests are designed to replicate what happens when just the front corner of the vehicle collides with another vehicle or an object such as a tree or utility pole.

For 2020, IIHS had incorporated pedestrian crash prevention ratings into its Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ awards for the first time. Subaru and other automakers have made a voluntary commitment to make automatic emergency braking standard on virtually all their models by 2022. This voluntary commitment calls only for systems that help avoid crashes with other vehicles, but with its EyeSight technology, Subaru is among some that have also committed to include vehicle-to-pedestrian safety functionality.

Such technology, IIHS has determined, could help reduce rising pedestrian fatalities, which have increased 53 percent since reaching a low point in 2009. More than 6,000 pedestrians were killed in crashes in 2018 in the U.S. alone.

The 2021 Ascent joins eight other Subaru models in receiving an IIHS award this year.

The 2021 Evoltis is slated to arrive in the third quarter of this year, although the on-going pandemic might delay the timing to the last part of the year.

2020 IIHS Top Safety Pick+ Winners

• 2020 Crosstrek Hybrid
• 2020 Forester
• 2020 Legacy
• 2020 Outback

2020 IIHS Top Safety Pick Winners

• 2021 Crosstrek (with EyeSight and specific headlights)
• 2020 Impreza sedan and five-door (with EyeSight and specific headlights)
• 2020 WRX (with EyeSight and specific headlights)