The 2023 Chevy Equinox is a perennial bestseller, holding its own in the highly competitive crossover SUV class year after year, thanks to a clever fusion of performance, technology, and value. One of the most affordable vehicles in its class, the Equinox is notable for the fact that it doesn’t feel like an entry-level crossover, performing well above what its modest starting price might suggest. Loaded with modern safety, infotainment, and convenience features and offering some of the best cargo room in the segment, Chevy didn’t cut any corners when it came to the Equinox. The crossover SUV also boasts an impressively low ownership cost and was named the second-best SUV in its class by J.D. Power & Associates. The Equinox won high marks for its quality and reliability––which comes as little surprise given the brand’s American-made reputation––and impressive fuel economy adds to the model’s value.
While all these attributes are important, it’s the Equinox’s reputation for safety that has made the SUV such a strong contender in its class. Designed from the ground up with safety in mind and loaded with the latest and greatest in driver assistance technology, the Equinox is one SUV that you can feel comfortable with in a crisis. Before you start searching the web for “Chevy Equinox sales,” join us as we take a closer look at the Equinox’s full slate of safety technology and see how this Chevy crossover has earned a reputation as one of the best SUVs on the market.
Safety Through Automation
When you’re looking for a family-friendly SUV, few factors are quite as important as safety. Sure, cost and reliability are important considerations, but at the end of the day, they don’t amount to much if you can’t be confident about your family’s safety when you’re behind the wheel. The 2023 Equinox is well-equipped on the safety front, with a bevy of up-to-date safety features and a stellar five-star overall safety rating from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), which includes a five-star rating in both frontal and side crash tests.
It all starts with Chevy Safety Assist, the automaker’s entry in the hotly contested advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) arms race. Debuting in the Equinox in 2020 and the Trailblazer in 2021, Chevy Safety Assist expanded to a wide selection of Chevy models for the 2023 model year. The system comprises six features that work together to deliver a safe and stress-free driving experience. All the usual suspects are here, from vital safety features like forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking to more comfort-focused inclusions like the following distance indicator, IntelliBeam headlights, and lane keep assist with lane departure warning.
When it comes to avoiding costly accidents, Chevy’s forward collision warning is a vital part of the equation. The system alerts the driver when it detects an approaching obstacle or pedestrian, grabbing their attention with audio and visual cues to ensure that they brake or take evasive action. If that approach doesn’t work, the Equinox’s automatic emergency braking kicks into action, taking control of the brake pedal to stop a vehicle at lower speeds or slow it down at higher speeds.
Lane keep assist with lane departure warning is a driver’s best friend on the highway, keeping an eye on the road to make long drivers more pleasant than ever. Lane keep assist basically does for steering what automatic emergency braking does for stopping, leveraging technology to enhance your reflexes in one of the aspects of the driving experience. The system alerts a driver when they start to drift out of their lane and can even provide a gentle nudge in the right direction to get you back on track. The system works best on roads with well-marked lines and tends to have some difficulty on snowy or otherwise obscured surfaces, but it is a vital tool in the Equinox’s arsenal of safety features.
The Equinox’s following distance indicator helps drivers keep a safe distance from other vehicles, warning them when the gap between the SUV and the vehicle in front of it becomes a little too narrow for comfort. The system can be adjusted based on driving conditions, weather, and speed, ensuring that you’re always putting safety first, no matter what type of road conditions you might encounter. Lastly, there’s Chevy’s IntelliBeam headlights. With the ability to automatically adjust between high and low beams when detecting an oncoming vehicle, the IntelliBeam headlights make the road safer for both the Equinox driver and any other vehicle it might encounter after the sun goes down.
The Features Just Keep Coming
The six ADAS technologies described above represent the core of Chevy’s Safety Assist system, but they’re really just the tip of the iceberg. Available safety features include blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert. These systems are available on every Equinox model and can go a long way in improving your chances of avoiding a costly accident by keeping an extra set of eyes on the road.
On higher trims, Equinox drivers can even add two more features that truly up the SUV’s safety and convenience factors: adaptive cruise control and the HD 360-degree camera. Available on the LT trim and above, adaptive cruise control does just what it says on the box, allowing drivers to set a comfortable following distance that the system keeps in check through the use of radar and a windshield-mounted camera. The system can be activated whenever the Equinox is traveling faster than 15 mph, giving drivers the power to switch between a far, medium, or near following gap, depending on their preference.
The Equinox’s most novel safety feature might just be the HD Surround Vision 360-degree camera. By stitching together the feeds from four cameras mounted on the SUV’s front grille, trunk, and side mirrors, the HD Surround Vision system provides a bird’s-eye view of the area immediately surrounding the vehicle. It might seem a little hard to believe at first glance and might have you scanning the skies for a Chevy-branded drone, but it sure comes in handy when drivers are faced with tight parking situations or obstacle-laden surroundings like camp or construction sites. The system automatically kicks into gear as soon as the Equinox is put into reverse, displaying a composite view on the console display and making blind spots a thing of the past.
The Equinox Is Packed With Safety
If you’re looking for the best in safety, interior tech, and cargo room, few SUVs can match the 2023 Chevy Equinox. It’s easy to see why the model remains such a standout in its class––few other models boast the same blend of reliability, safety, affordability, and convenience quite like the Equinox. From advanced ADAS technology like automatic emergency braking and lane keep assist with lane departure warning to its impressive in-cabin technology, generous interior storage space, and more, the Equinox makes a compelling case as a family-friendly SUV that won’t break the bank.
It’s a refreshing approach from the legacy automaker, which has thoughtfully prioritized those factors that most appeal to the everyday driver while leaving behind the glitzy, flash-in-the-pan features that do little but add to the bottom line. That’s not to say the Equinox is a relic by any means––the recent 2022 refresh brought the SUV firmly into the modern age with an overhauled chassis and redesigned headlamps––but it represents a more thoughtful evolution than we’ve become accustomed to.
