[roy_libran]

On a separate note -

I think this BNCAP that he has referred to might be interesting.

If Maruti is so keen about it, I suspect that this is likely to be a watered down test with a skewed scoring methodology, purposely designed to mislead buyers into believing that their cars are now safe. SIAM is involved and we all have some idea of how that works.
Maruti presently has no incentive or reason to significantly redesign, retool and repackage their products, and the way they seem to have chosen to fight this emerging threat is by diluting the standard altogether.

I hope I am wildly wrong!

[amitayu]

But Tata and Mahindra have got good results at NCAP, right? Maybe they can build up a campaign on this issue to corner Maruti. I am sure both would love to eat into Maruti's market, and safety issue can be good point for negative campaign, especially is all others start harping on it.

[ron178]

In my opinion, this is just an excuse to avoid revealing the poor crashworthiness of most Maruti cars to the general public(although one might say that ship has already sailed).

The Global NCAP is an independent body. It is not bound to any Government either, and is thus likely to have unbiased ratings.

The Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Program(BNCAP/BNVSAP), on the other hand, will be a government body. I say this in no derogatory way whatsoever, but with the corruption prevalent here, Maruti, with its high market share, power and brand sentiment, can easily get its crash ratings bumped up a notch in the BNVSAP.

To reiterate, this is only a personal opinion and is not intended to offend any organisation, company or body.

The silver lining, though, is that the Global NCAP can still pull up a car from Suzuki's production line and independently crash test it.

[srvm]

Originally Posted by wheelguy

That's a classic reply by Maruti.

Source

Of course, they don't want to send cars to GNCAP. Look at where their cars (made for India) stand in crash ratings!

Cross-posting from another thread:

1. Maruti-Suzuki: Black marker
2. Hyundai: Red marker
3. Tata: Yellow marker
4. All other OEMs: Blue markers



Top 3 cars sold in India (Dzire, Baleno & Swift)
Expected Adult occupation protection score: 7 to 12.5 (Mean = 10)
Given past track record of OEM, my expectation is around 8 (borderline between 2 star and 3 star)

Full details here

[arjab]

It would be interesting if some NGO or safety watchdog or even the government publishes a list of fatal in-vehicle passenger car crashes, over the last 10 years: OEM'wise. Government should be having most of the accident data culled from police stations and other sources.
List should be published column-wise, with the OEM names and number of fatal crashes listed alongside.
Let it all hang out as the wise men say!

The public will automatically decide what to do and what to buy!

[ram87pune]

Originally Posted by AutoNoob

Indian/ EU regulations : Offset Frontal Crash @ 56kmph
GNCAP/ENCAP : Offset Frontal Crash @ 64kmph

Though speed difference may seem just 8kmph, but it really brings out the difference between a solidly built car and a tin can; and gives good indication how the two vehicles will behave in real world scenario.

On paper the difference may seem to be "only 8 kmph" but in reality during a crash test what matters is the kinetic energy of the vehicle. As you know kinetic energy is 1/2×mv^2.

Now let's take a small example. Let's assume the
Swift is being tested at Indian NCAP vs at GNCAP.
Lets assume the weight to be approximately 900 kg. Now the kinetic energy of the Swift at 56 kmph by using the above formula is 108889 J while the same for 64 kmph is 142222 J.

So as you can see there is a percentage increase of 30.6% which is huge. This I think is the reason why many cars are easily able to pass atleast the frontal crash test in the Indian crash test while failing miserably at GNCAP.

On a side note, if a car like the Eeco can be designed to pass these test then even bicycles can pass the Indian crash norms

[fhdowntheline]

A question is- if Baleno scores 5 stars as per Bharat Safety norms , how would Altroz fare? Also 5 stars? If so, shouldn’t the manufacturer clarify that the Altroz is capable of withstanding higher impact as per GNCAP ?

[greenhorn]

I am sure the tests maruti are lobbying the Indian govt for look like these

https://youtu.be/_A9A7wttUqw

On another note, saying that I'm only interested in regulatory compliance, and not a competitive product speaks volumes of their interest in this area. Ultimately, if Indian consumers are ok to make the trade-off of lower cost and better fuel economy for lower safety, there is nothing much we can do other than educate them. Issues such as emissions and safety need society to buy into them. If consumers are not ready, there is no point in shaming manufacturers.

BUTTT..... Maruti is a market leader, and well placed to drive that change. Pity they're taking the crowd pleaser route

[kavensri]

Sorry for a noob question.
Agree that Maruti will not voluntarily give their cars for GNCAP testing. But what stops GCNAP to go and test these cars? Can any of the Maruti competitor buy these Maruti cars and get them tested from GCNAP?

[Carma2017]

No matter how much the safety conscious Team BHPian wants GNCAP score to be part of customer psyche, the normal customer who is blissfully unaware of Auto portals and it's inhabitants, only cares about the value he / she gets for his/her buck as has been visible again and again.
Very recent Government data clearly shows that maximum fatalities(more than 80%) in India are caused by drivers and passengers not wearing seat belts. In such a scenario, a strong vehicle body does very little to protect the vehicle inhabitants. Educating customers is not news worthy but criticism of OEMs is. So, Suzuki does put money only where customer perceives it instead of for Auto journos and auto portals. Lately, they are going wrong in even doing that and others like KIA are doing it much better.

[srini1785]

Maruti's Moto :

Drive carefully for there is no safety
When you get hit, well , Its destiny

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by ram87pune

As you know kinetic energy is 1/2×mv^2.

Yes, I am aware of the mathematics involved, however I tried to keep it simple. Anyway, thanks for sharing the numbers.

This I think is the reason why many cars are easily able to pass atleast the frontal crash test in the Indian crash test while failing miserably at GNCAP.

True.

Also, the test speed of 64 km/h represents a car to car collision with each car travelling at around 55 km/h and crashing 50% of their width. The difference in speed is due to the energy absorbed by the deformable face of each car.

With the current cost vs. technology trend, it is quite difficult to achieve safety for speeds higher than 64kmph. The cost would become prohibitively high; and also it would impact heavily on weight/ emissions due to weight. That's probably the reason the test speed of 64kmph, for NCAP, has remained constant for many years and collision avoidance technologies are focused upon.

[GTO]

I have two points to make:

1. The original source appears to be a 100% click-bait article. I read the statement thrice and nowhere do I see anyone indirectly saying "we won't send cars to the GNCAP". Please correct me if I'm wrong.

2. Nobody can stop GNCAP from crash-testing cars, just like no one can stop Team-BHP from reviewing them. We can buy our own cars.

Therefore, I feel this discussion is rather pointless.

[Nazaar25]

I don't think BNCAP will be even half as stringent as the GNCAP and will not be shocked if the Baleno, Dzire, etc gets 4 stars over there!
I remember, GNCAP challenged MS to make a 5 star safety rated car and as a reply they did this.
They remind me of that one guy in our childhood who takes his bat/ball home when he gets out in cricket ;P

[PetrolheadRup]

Is there a way of knowing whether a car tested was sent by the manufacturer or was sourced independently by NCAP?
I am asking this because I don't think that Maruti itself sent cars like swift and wagon-r. Thus they were sourced by NCAP and it won't make any difference even if Maruti now says that it will not send cars to GNCAP.