Toyota Hiace: Six years old, but still rated five stars by ANCAP safety

It’s been six years since the Philippines hosted the world premiere of the 6th generation Toyota Hiace, and it has remained relatively unchanged since then. Nevertheless, a recent test has proved it’s still one of the safest people movers in the market today.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program, or more commonly known as ANCAP, subjects new and recently updated vehicles to the most stringent tests when it comes to vehicle safety. This is where the Hiace was re-evaluated for 2025 and passed with flying colors, achieving a five-star safety rating.

Toyota expanded the list of crash protection and crash avoidance features of the Hiace for the Australian and New Zealand markets, which made it fare better in the more demanding MPDB frontal offset and far-side impact tests. Both of these tests were introduced to the ANCAP test regime in 2020, after the Hiace’s original 2019 assessment.

In the four evaluation criteria, the Hiace scored 80% for Adult Occupant Protection, 86% for Child Occupant Protection, 87% for Vulnerable Road User Protection, and 81% in the Safety Assist assessment.

Of note, the Hiace that was evaluated featured Toyota Safety Sense, which is present in the cargo variants for the Australia and New Zealand markets, but is only available in the Super Grandia Elite variant in the country.

The results reaffirm the proactive approach adopted by Toyota to ensure the Hiace remains competitive and their customers are provided peace of mind with safety improvements.