[ron178]

Since 1998, Peugeot and Citroën have been producing their Partner and Berlingo vans in Argentina. Barring a couple of facelifts and feature updates, Stellantis continues to produce the first generation in Argentina today as is.

2023 Peugeot Partner Patagónica

In contrast, the Partner and Berlingo twins sold in Europe are now in their third generation and feature numerous safety improvements over their predecessors.


2023 Peugeot Rifter

Today at 7:30PM, Global NCAP will present the results of a car-to-car crash test between a Peugeot Partner Patagónica (the passenger version of the Argentine Partner) and a Peugeot Rifter (the passenger version of the European Partner) to call out Stellantis' double standard on safety for emerging markets.


Live stream:
https://www.youtube.com/live/kt-dmM-...SkxslJtjfRQuYh

[ron178]

Here is the result:

https://youtu.be/iag22zrVDKE?si=LnnsE-diulX5fd_m

Correction: the Rifter was made in Europe but purchased in Chile, where it is exported.

[svsantosh]

Let us analyze this situation, when was the last time you saw Alejandro Furas (GNCAP Secretary General) hold a crow-bar to prove a point.

Damn, he had to drive the nail hard I feel!

[Cresterk]

Unsurprised really.

The same result would be expected if you crash tested a 'made for India' car from some of the global brands such as Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki etc to their European or American counterpart.

[V.Narayan]

What was the purpose of this other than virtue signaling. After all one is an older model built to the laws & standards of Argentina by the way and the other is a newer model built to the standards of the European Union. There is a reason countries of the Global South do not always follow the much higher (and more expensive) standards of the European Union. And that is to make the car, a reasonable car, still affordable to the middle class of those economies.

Safety standards are good, better safety standards are better but a safety standard which means fewer can afford it and are therefore compelled to ride 2-wheelers are counter productive. I notice in the last few years even on Team BHP virtue signaling on safety ratings has become an industry as if to say that a car rated 2 stars is unsafe - maybe relative to a 5 star rated one but not in absolute terms.

The first second and third safety criterion with a car is your driving, your driving and your driving. The 4th criterion are wearing seat belts. The fifth criterion are all the safety devices and electronics and structural technical details we go ga-ga about. All this rating business is for that last 20% - even less in my opinion. At least that is my view - clocking 45 years of driving next month.

[Hayek]

Think the reason Latin NCAP carried out this test is because these two versions are sold in the same region - viz two neighbouring countries - Chile and Argentina which are part of Mercosur as either full or associate members.

So this is not the same as a car sold in the USA and in India being different - more like different cars being sold in Greece and Romania.

Do think GNCAP has played a critical role in increasing awareness about the importance of crash safety, and it does seem to be yielding results as borne out by the recent Sterling performance of the New Verna. Of course, as they say, the most important part of a car is the “Nut behind the Wheel”, and being in a 5 star rated car will not save you if you drive rashly or fail to wear seat belts. But this increases the odds of surviving if a crash takes place - which is why I would always stick to highly rated cars as far as possible.

[sandeepmdas]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

What was the purpose of this other than virtue signaling. .... And that is to make the car, a reasonable car, still affordable to the middle class of those economies.

Just out of curiosity I asked Google Bard to check the pricing of the Partner in France and in Argentina, in USD:

France: The 2023 Peugeot Partner is available in van body types and ranges in price from $30,041 to $40,878.

Argentina: The 2022 Peugeot Partner's price range is $20,460–$39,160. (Bard sir is mum on 2023 data)

Now that is $9581 difference, base model Gen1 vs Gen3, converted to 33,54,148 Argentinian Pesos. But this gap narrows down to a mere $1718, when we look at the top model.

Argentina is not a poor country, GDP is $13,686; but France is at $40,964. (2022 data). Still there's some reason in GNCAP's argument, considering the price comparison between the top variants, IMHO.

[Vikki@Hyderabad]

Irrespective of how careful one is while driving, accidents are bounds to happen - which is why they're called 'accidents'. They have to call out these double standards, not just to show a mirror to the companies, but the country's regulations as well. I think a couple of airbags in all the cars sold in India since whenever they started to catch on in the developed world could have at least saved 10-20% of the accident victims, which I'm sure is a sizable number. Stricter regulations might have made a car a bit more expensive and slightly out of reach for the common man (I'm one too), but an added cost of 20-30K for a few basic safety features wouldn't matter too much either. Education on seat belts can save even more. And most of all, a bit of traffic sense could do wonders in terms of the number of accidents on our roads. Nonetheless, we need someone like GNCAP to counter "We comply with all the regulations of the country." I don't see anything wrong in what the GNCAP has done here.

[kaushikduttajsr]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The first second and third safety criterion with a car is your driving, your driving and your driving. .

Sir, this is gold, I couldn't agree with you more.

At Mahindra & Mahindra, my 1st organization, we were literally taught how to drive defensively. I thank the gentleman who guided me to drive safely amidst a road full of road ragers.

[Cresterk]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Safety standards are good, better safety standards are better but a safety standard which means fewer can afford it and are therefore compelled to ride 2-wheelers are counter productive.

Agree with this. Any kind of car is safer than a 2 or 3 wheeler which is what the majority of the population uses for transport, especially considering the traffic situations here.

The first second and third safety criterion with a car is your driving, your driving and your driving. The 4th criterion are wearing seat belts. The fifth criterion are all the safety devices and electronics and structural technical details we go ga-ga about. All this rating business is for that last 20% - even less in my opinion. At least that is my view - clocking 45 years of driving next month.

I believe everyone has the right to decide how much risk they want to take in life.

Someone wants to go sky diving?
Someone wants to live in a remote area that is a hundred km away from any hospitals or clinics?
Someone wants to go rock climbing with no ropes?
Someone wants to go swimming right out into the deep ocean?
Someone wants to buy a car with no airbags and an unstable bodyshell?

All should be completely up to them as long as they know the risks involved.
None of these are guaranteed to end up with death or injury. They do have higher risks compared to the alternatives. But in the end, the person is free to choose what he wants because he is only causing risk to himself.

What does irk me is selective laws about what is and isn't allowed. Why is it that not wearing a seatbelt or helmet is illegal with penalties if you do not comply? The only person being put at risk for not doing so is the one who chose not to wear it. The only harm it causes will be the harm to that person, not harm to any innocent bystanders or 3rd parties. Does this mean that putting ourselves at increased risk is illegal?

In the same vein, why is it that selling cars with very poor safety ratings is legal with no penalties to the manufacturers? Is putting ourselves at increased risk okay then? Can I also skip wearing seatbelts in a 0 star rated car?

I always wear my seatbelt. Not because it is what the law requires, but because it is proven to keep people safer during crashes and I care about my safety. Just because I wear my seatbelt or drive a car with high safety ratings does not mean that I am planning to get into crashes. Only that in the unfortunate even of a crash due to circumstances beyond my control, I want the risk to my health to be as low as possible.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Cresterk

Agree with this. Any kind of car is safer than a 2 or 3 wheeler which is what the majority of the population uses for transport, especially considering the traffic situations here.

I believe everyone has the right to decide how much risk they want to take in life.

All should be completely up to them as long as they know the risks involved.
None of these are guaranteed to end up with death or injury. They do have higher risks compared to the alternatives. But in the end, the person is free to choose what he wants because he is only causing risk to himself.

Pardon my saying this, no offense meant, but this sounds like a puerile self-centered I, me, myself - kind of statement. It does not take into account the burden, time and cost imposed on Govt agencies such as the Coast Guard or Army or Fire Dept in bailing you out when you are in deep trouble. All paid for by us tax payers. The large number of occasions when the Army or Air Force are called out to rescue trapped mountaineers is an example. These organizations have several other more pressing responsibilities than to keep bailing out mountaineers stuck somewhere. Each one of us is free to take risks but if the attitude is so "I" focused then don't expect to be rescued if you are left dangling one step away from death.

In the same vein, why is it that selling cars with very poor safety ratings is legal with no penalties to the manufacturers? Is putting ourselves at increased risk okay then? Can I also skip wearing seatbelts in a 0 star rated car?

I think you have missed the core point of my post altogether. It is a misnomer to think that a 5-star rated car is X times safer than a 1-Star rated car. 15 years back these ratings were non-existent at least in the Indian context. Now they are being put on a pedestal as God's truth despite the fact that the rating test are only a narrow band of circumstances a car might find itself. A cautiously driven 0-rated car is safer than a rashly driven 5-star rated car. Too much is being placed on the shoulders of these ratings when 80% or more of the story is in our driving and caution.

An airliner has a hundred times more safety devices than a car. But an airliner flies safe and stays safe because of the pilot not those devices. There is that 1 in 1,000,000 chance of us getting hit for zero fault of ours - yes it could happen - then in that case depending on the circumstances a 5-star rated car is a better bet than a 0-star rated car.


A 0-rated car is not intrinsically unsafe; nor is a 5-star rated care intrinsically safe; it is the driving that makes it so.


The first 18 years of my driving life I drove what today would be called 0-rated cars - Maruti 800, Premier Padmini, Standard Herald - got by just fine without a single incident. Today I drive Lexus and Volvo both top rated cars but the driving style comes first, second and third. If it is a 5-star rated car that is the cherry on the cake - it is not the cake itself.

If a person thinks a 5-star rating is a license to kill then that is what, sadly, he may achieve.

[anjan_c2007]

Why NCAP is only targeting Peugeot? Most carmakers have such Jekyll and Hyde personalities and if well researched the list of these MNC's could be long.

The Suzuki Swift sold in the UK in 2012 had an Euro four star safety rating. Such a safety rating was alien to car buyers in India then and still is for many. The Swifts sold in India then had a ZERO (untested) Global NCAP safety rating. Nothing has improved and the millions of buyers who are making such cars best sellers here vouch for those paltry few stars the Swift has lately earned.

The Renault Kwid sold in India around 2016 was rated ZERO but the ones built at the same plant in India and exported to Latin America had quite a few stars, though Kwids sold in the African continent had just one or two stars.

Such is the sorry saga of safety and quality of the mass produced cars by MNC's for the common man. A very prominent segregation of safety norms for the developed (the carmaker can be shown the exit door to leave) and developing markets ( where ZERO safety is also rewarded by way of bumper sales figures, national awards and by propelling the carmaker to #1 ) is distinct and perceptible.

Most of the luxury marques (luxury in Indian parlance) do better and offer almost the same safety rating with similar features as they do in developed markets.

My argument is that leaving aside classification of persons (drivers) as either safe or unsafe/rash/uncouth drivers to decode their categories, while beginning at ground zero ( not the NCAP zero), the car we buy as on date needs to have a four or five star safety. This gives us a level playfield to start with. Thereafter, all human factors need to come into play.

[ron178]

This test was not intended as much for consumer information as to show that there is a big difference between what some manufacturers sell and what they are capable of engineering. Also to capture the attention of governments of weakly regulated markets to prevent the sale of clearly outdated products.

This can in no way be compared to even the worst M1 category Indian cars sold as new today. We are now regulated well enough for front and side impacts that disasters like these cannot be sold, with a few exceptions that "barely" clear the tests (will not take names yet but next GNCAP release for India might make it clear).

Regardless of what it implies I think we can agree it is fascinating to watch.

As usual I have a bone to pick with GNCAP about this test. The video is rife with inaccuracies.
- Even the lightest Rifter is heavier than the Partner Patagónica, and equivalent variants have around an 80-100kg difference, so I'm not sure how much can be attributed to the Partner's crashworthiness.
- As pointed out, the price difference, which Global NCAP always conveniently ignores.
- They say the Rifter (which they bought in Chile) has 6 airbags as standard. It actually has only 4.
- Furas says in a very intriguing interview with Motor1 Argentina (worth a read) that the Partner's platform is too old to even be updated to a respectable level of crashworthiness. In 2005 the same generation of Partner/Berlingo (but built in Europe) was awarded 4 stars by Euro NCAP.
- Seems driven more by beef between GNCAP and Stellantis. The interview makes it clear.

Agree completely about the hype about safety ratings. When understood correctly with their limitations (which are much, much more than is usually projected in conversation) and viewed as part of a much more holistic idea of safety, they are useful, just like a lot of other parts of the safe systems approach. However today, more often than not, they are used as a tool by the pretentious to feign superiority by virtue of their choice of car (i.e., the "if you are educated you will care about safety ratings" narrative) when the reality is far more complex. GNCAP of course happily plays along with the blanket statement "safety sells". But that is a conversation for another thread...

[The Rationalist]

Those who think that safety ratings are a gimmick should only buy cars with the lowest ratings. Why waste money when one’s driving skills are enough on our roads!

As a doctor, I have worked in many states and hospitals where I had the bare minimum facilites and also where the state of the art facilites are there. When treating life threatening infections most of us use antibioics hoping that the given antibiotic will work against the infection since we don’t know which bacteria we are dealing with. In the best hospitals I can get the help of MALDI-TOF machine which will tell me precisely which bacteria is causing the infection and whether it is possible to be killed by my given antibiotic, that too 24 hours earlier than other conventional methods. That can be the decisive factor between life and death of a patient. Right now I have returned from Pune after working in such a hospital to a very basic hospital where only the conventional methods are there. I hope that my skills and experience will be enough to save a patient, but deep inside I know what the truth is. I feel frustrated at times, but my present workplace can’t afford those machines. How much ever skilled and experienced a doctor is, without the best infrastructure, there is so much he can deliver. There’s a saying ‘Garbage in garbage out’.

My advice to fellow folks is, if possible buy a high safety rated car. This coming from someone who is driving a 3* rated car according to previous protocol (it will score 0 if tested as per new protocol). Am I skilled driver, you bet, 20+ years of driving and no accidents yet. But will that be enough? Well thats anybody’s guess and I hope that it will be enough just like I hope that my antibiotics will work when I’m not fully sure which bacteria I’m dealing with and what it’s resistance to said antibiotic is.

PS: I don’t prescribe to the notion that having more number of years experience makes anyone a better person automatically, if so anyone who has lived for 100 years would be the best person when it comes to ask advice for. Sadly that’s not the truth, so please don’t think I was boasting when I quoted my 20+ years of driving experience.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

Those who think that safety ratings are a gimmick should only buy cars with the lowest ratings. Why waste money when one’s driving skills are enough on our roads!

Why this all or nothing approach? Why this approach that if someone disagrees with your view they be damned? Why should a person (like me) who believes that cautious & alert driving + seatbelts are 4/5ths or more of the story of keeping safe buy only low rated cars to please you? Why can a buyer not hold the view that these devices are the smallest component of staying safe though being positioned as the most important. Why can you not accept that others might hold different views that are as valid as your own?

By the way, I run several hospitals and your analogy of medical equipment does not hold water here - apples and oranges.