Team-BHP - Understanding Euro NCAP safety tests

Quote:

Originally Posted by sibi6613 (Post 4522963)

I was wondering how Tata Nexon has received a 5 star rating and the Marazzo a 4 star rating when they don't have any other safety features other than ABS, EBD and 2 airbags when Active Safety Systems contribute a lot to the final score?

Avinash_clt has already posted about this pretty clearly here. Please take a look.

Yes, there are differences in India spec and cars in sold in European or American markets. The differences range from sheet metal thickness to safety feature deletion. Even the ignis fared quite well in the euro ncap tests. Kia Seltos too misses out on collision avoidance system and the build quality has also been reported unsatisfactory by some bhpians so it is possible that there might be some difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vinod (Post 4645836)

Do you know where I can find the complete list of NCAP ratings for india models ? I tried searching online, but most talk about the sub 10 lakh cars, i'd like to see the full list.

Hello Vinod, wouldn't it be better to wait till the new BS-VI & Indian NCAP regulations come into effect next year (April, I think). A lot of people I'm guessing are waiting for that date after which One should be able to assume that all cars sold here would need to comply. Though as I understand, the NCAP benchmarks in India & elsewhere (Europe, US etc) such as collison test speeds & modes may not be the same.

Apart from this, adding a few air-bags, collison avoidance systems, lane-change alerts etc. are all devices - as prone to failure as every single device ever designed by human ingenuity.

The casualty statistics resulting from the failure of air-bags deployment in real-world accidents would make for very interesting reading. As far as I know such comprehensive information is not available in the public domain so far. But our forum has several posts highlighting such incidents - including one involving one of our ex-members, who unfortunately passed away in an accident involving his Mercedes S-Class, in which the airbags did not deploy - when his car was travelling at 80+ km/hr. Manufacturers usually come with very interesting defense statements, such as angle of collison, critical speeds etc!

Few manufacturers are are willing to invest in R&D work for structural reinforcement of the kind that Volvo has been doing all along. To me that is taking the safety issue seriously.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shashanka (Post 4645845)

Yes, ideally would want to wait till April next year, but family wanted a car now, as our current car is pretty much dead. So mostly looking to get it soon.

The kind of detail that you mentioned is what i'm also looking for but it is very hard to come across. I thought i wasn't searching in the right places and people here might be able to point me in the right direction. But oh well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vinod (Post 4645836)

Do you know where I can find the complete list of NCAP ratings for india models ? I tried searching online, but most talk about the sub 10 lakh cars, i'd like to see the full list.

A pretty late reply but here it is:

http://www.globalncap.org/results/

Note: This list contains all the India specific models that have been tested by Global NCAP till date. No other model has been tested and their safety ratings remain ambiguous.

Latest Euro NCAP safety test results.

Golf, Puma and Juke Join the Ranks of Top Performers, MG Surges While Opel Zafira Life Tanks.

Euro NCAP rounds off a busy year with the results of ten more vehicles. Five stars were awarded to the Ford Puma, MG ZS EV, MG HS, Nissan Juke, VW Golf and Audi Q8. Three stars were handed out to the Aiways U5, the VW up! and its twins, the SEAT Mii and Škoda CITIGO.

Source

I am still not clear on the NCAP version of safety ratings. The tests are done
at 64kmph. But in reality when two car moves and crashes head on at say 60kmph the impact is supposed to be twice than what it was tested. So should we actually take the test ratings with pinch of salt?
Also there is no crash test for the rear side. I have seen cases where lots of cars getting rear ended. So how do we actually validate the rear end safety.
I apologize if this topic is already discussed.

The safety tests are in the perspective of what we 'can' achieve with current technology. There are not many cars, even which are now rated 5 stars, which can stand the crash test over 64KMPH. So, testing over 64KMPH will not make much sense because almost none of the cars will pass that. Other way round, if we don't have crash tests at all, we
will not be able to differentiate between a 'totally' unsafe car and a 'somewhat' safe car. (These meaning of these words are to be taken in the context and not literally) So, you see, the safety we speak about today is relative. Thankfully, we are now seeing 'side' crash tests. Hopefully as tech progresses, we will have rear crash test available too as a parameter to judge overall safety. This is currently too much to expect when cars barely are able to score above 3 stars in frontal crash tests.

I would not really say if we should take the crash results with any measure of salt, but yes, knowing the background helps us to know what to expect out of a car. It is simply not to be taken as an elixir of life if you drive a 5* rated car.

Regards,
Saket

Quote:

Originally Posted by vennarbank (Post 4740627)

Coincidentally I learned of the same case yesterday from this youtube Video. It is quite informative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itrLe0KQvTI

Note that the video is about US crash tests and have different ratings from GNCAP

Quote:

Originally Posted by vennarbank (Post 4740627)

Also there is no crash test for the rear side. I have seen cases where lots of cars getting rear ended. So how do we actually validate the rear end safety..

I'm taking a guess here assuming that the passenger safety risk is quite low in the case of rear ending due to inertia keeping the passenger in seat and boot space in cars to absorb the impact.

But seeing how close the third row seat head rests are to the rear end in renault triber, Being rear ended also can cause serious injuries there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vennarbank (Post 4740627)

But in reality when two car moves and crashes head on at say 60kmph the impact is supposed to be twice than what it was tested. .

If two identical cars crash head on, both doing identical speed, it is the same as one car crashing into a immovable object such a wall.

But other than that these test crashes are likely to be somewhat different to what might experience in real life. Although, over the years the tests have been adjusted to reflect more realistic scenario’s.

The most relevant aspect I think, it gives a standard for cars manufacturer to compare the various models against one another. Higher ratings tend to be a safer car, statistically at least.

Jeroen