Tesla Model Y
Tesla North America said the 2026 Model Y has earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety‘s Top Safety Pick+ award, the highest IIHS trophy, and followed up by pointing to the Institute’s fresh ratings page for the redesigned four-door SUV.
The IIHS scorecard for the 2026 Tesla Model Y lists Good marks across small overlap front, the updated moderate overlap front test, the updated side test, headlights, vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention, and pedestrian crash prevention, ratings the Institute says apply to 2026 and 2027 models. Small overlap and side results were assigned from tests Tesla ran, which IIHS still scores itself, and the Model Y was redesigned for 2026. Seat belt reminders are the soft spot, rated Marginal because the unbelted alert is too short and the second row has no startup status alert, which did not keep Tesla from claiming Top Safety Pick+.
Premium and Performance trims use LED projector lamps with high-beam assist and a Good headlight rating, and the Base trim also scored Good even with some low-beam glare on a right-hand curve. Automatic Emergency Braking avoided every passenger-car and motorcycle target in the 2.0 vehicle-to-vehicle runs and the pedestrian cases IIHS published. The award is the latest TSP+ for Model Y, not a new crash-test lab, and Tesla did not say the Marginal belt reminder is getting a software fix.
