HAVAL Motors Australia is "very surprised" by the announcement that the all-new H9 SUV has scored a four-star result under ANCAP's crash test protocols.
HMA spokesperson Andrew Ellis said while the result was unexpected and had arrived as a shock, it had galvanised the company to drive further improvement.
"Our engineers have been working very hard to deliver a five-star safety rating and all our testing indicated that we would achieve this result. The results of the ANCAP test were clearly unexpected," he said.
HAVAL's Vice President of Global R&D, Suguya Fukusato, said "our engineers are now analysing all the data from the tests, so we can achieve the five star result our customers demand and that we as a company expect".
To achieve five stars, a score of 32.5 points is required overall. The H9 achieved 30.7 points.
The H9 missed the five-star minimum frontal offset test by 0.45 points. If it had achieved the minimum points the H9 would have proceeded to the pole test and, with 32.7 points, achieved a five star ANCAP rating.
"Safety will never be an option on HAVAL and we will be looking to test the H9 as soon as possible in conjunction with ANCAP," Ellis said.