Team-BHP - GNCAP: 0 stars for Citroën ë-C3

How long does Citroen want to continue being in denial mode regarding it's state in Indian Market is beyond my understanding.

Going by the results, it is only evident that the eC3 lacks most of the major safety features based on tge Goobal NCAP results. I am not sure how cheap translates to Value for Money according to Citroen? And I am not sure if the Management at Stellantis and Citroen India considers most of the Indian buyers as a lower/ developing category , given the kind of features offered to C3 , C3 aircross and even eC3.

Frankly it makes no sense if Citroen in their 3 year journey in Indian market is not making efoort to amend their offerings.

Good powertrains and very good engineering fundamentals let down by their flabbergasting decisions.

On a Slightly OT note, I wish the Ministry of Roadways and transport should consider reviewing cars that fail the NCAP teating ( Atleast The cars with 0-3 stars and the ones with Unstablw body shell).

If the calls for Citroen to go out of market made here stand, then same should apply to most Maruti Suzuki vehicles.

Firstly, the question must be asked of local Indian standards which enable cars to be homologated
and launched in the first place.

Not defending Citroen or anyone else but if they say their vehicles comply with local standards or norms then its the local norms or standards which have to be questioned and changed.

My apologies if this is a bit OT.

Isn't GNCAP optional? As in, car makers voluntarily submit their vehicles for testing?

So why would Citroen send the car for testing? They would know how safe their vehicle is, and testing it would not do them any good. I am not implying that the rating is wrong or anything; just wondering why a manufacturer would do it to itself.

Why is Citroen justifying a premium price tag when they lack premium features, including fundamental aspects like safety? While safety ratings may parallel those of Suzuki, with only an "unstable footwell" to distinguish, it's perplexing that the C3 is priced higher than its Suzuki counterparts. Such discrepancies are particularly disheartening in today's interconnected world, where negative experiences can swiftly gain traction on social media. Highly disappointing.

The last straw that broke camel's back! Citroen had nothing going for it. Weak, unknown brand, feature-deficient car, comparatively higher priced (in relation to Punch/Tiago), poor dealer network & after-sales and now this. At a time when its rival Punch/Tiago are riding high on safety front. I don't know how its dealers are surviving. Europeans and Americans don't get our market, do they? When will they learn lessons?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sagsaw (Post 5741555)

Europeans and Americans are not used to engineering cars at poor safety regulations.

American as well as European safety standards are very stringent.

Hence the problem. They are unable to build tin cans on wheels at cheap price.

So they end up building nothing cars. Neither safe nor unsafe and neither cheap value.

Disagree... Nissan Renault have achieved 4 stars with Kiger Magnite as well. Both of them are French.

It would be difficult to recover from here, Citroen India, unless some miracle happens. I was always thinking being new to the market, they couldn't understand the features' needed in their cars. Those could be added in the product lifecycle, but, once Brand image is lost, its lost for ever. Indians are less forgiving on brands/models which are deemed as failure at first launch, take for example, S-cross, Marazzo, Aria, which wont recover no matter what strategy you bring.

What is Citroen in India's image now?
Poorly built cars which are low features with a 3 cylinder motor and a legacy of making comfortable suspension.

Time is ripe to shut shop and leave. Stellantis please scrap your plan of introducing one more brand I think it was a EV brand Leapmotor or something. You have an uncanny ability to break everything you touch!

As an owner of C3 Turbo, it is very sad to see these results. It is a blunder from the brand, despite of a well-engineered product they could not get things right. C3 deserves a better score, and its build is comparatively better than many other cars in its segment, I guess people who owns it and has driven it would agree. Now coming to few questions, I have on these results:

1. How come these results are out just after few major announcements from Citroen, is it a coincidence:
a. Entire range of Citroen cars will get 6 airbags as standard and other mandatory safety features.
b. Citroen signs an agreement with a major electric mobility company to deliver 4000 eC3s in 2024.

2. Now the assumption is that these results are applicable to C3 ICE version also as they share the same platform, then why eC3 was tested and not the C3 ICE version. If results are going to be the same, why would they go for a costlier model to test?

3. It is stated that despite of a decent score it is awarded 0 stars because of some standard safety equipment missing. Was it not known before the test, it is like you know what the result will be and still test it.

There are some speculations that some cars were never tested knowing that it had some issues and later tested once the issues were resolved in facelift. If it is true, why was not that opportunity given for Citroen to test their cars once they fix the issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by skpprabhu (Post 5741675)

1. How come these results are out just after few major announcements from Citroen, is it a coincidence:
a. Entire range of Citroen cars will get 6 airbags as standard and other mandatory safety features.

Simple, Global NCAP tested the ë-C3 in December. Stellantis then decided to announce more safety equipment.

Quote:

It is stated that despite of a decent score it is awarded 0 stars because of some standard safety equipment missing. Was it not known before the test, it is like you know what the result will be and still test it.

That’s not true - the ë-C3 would have scored 2 stars had the passenger’s chest not been penalised due to high loads measured on the shoulder portion of the belt. (This is a feature of GNCAP’s new protocols). The loadcell installed on the seatbelt recorded forces in excess of 6kN so although compression of the passenger dummy’s ribs indicated only a moderately high risk of serious injury, 2 points were shaved off the passenger chest score which pulled it down to ‘poor’ protection (result capped at 1 star).

After that GNCAP also applied their (ridiculous) 1-star penalty for >35% difference in front and side impact score, resulting in 0 stars overall (even though it makes much more sense IMO to apply it before capping the result, not after it.

Still there is no way GNCAP could have known it’s a zero-star car without testing it.

The result is not for the petrol C3 as EV and ICE need to be rated separately due to mass differences and other factors. Also I am not sure but I somewhat remember after the Latin NCAP result that some people were saying the Indian C3 has pretensioners (ë-C3 doesn’t)

I think the C3 wasn't designed to crack the crash safety tests. If they chose to include some of the safety features as standard the results could've been quite different. Does anybody know if these missing features like ESC, seatbelt pretensioners are available starting from the second variant?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sameerg (Post 5741437)

Isn't GNCAP optional? As in, car makers voluntarily submit their vehicles for testing?

So why would Citroen send the car for testing? They would know how safe their vehicle is, and testing it would not do them any good. I am not implying that the rating is wrong or anything; just wondering why a manufacturer would do it to itself.

Sometimes GNCAP themselves source cars and crash test them. I don't think Citroen provided cars for testing. There are also some weird rules - like a car can only score 5 stars if the manufacturer themselves gave the cars for testing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ron178 (Post 5741797)

The result is not for the petrol C3 as EV and ICE need to be rated separately due to mass differences and other factors. Also I am not sure but I somewhat remember after the Latin NCAP result that some people were saying the Indian C3 has pretensioners (ë-C3 doesn’t)

This should be clarified as the (e) in the eC3 has gone in many discussions and it is about C3 only lol: anyways I am not defending that C3 will have a huge difference, but this result automatically makes everyone think that it is for both.

My concern is why to test a vehicle when it is not ready for the new protocols or equipped with mandatory safety features and bash them. This turns out to be a bad marketing strategy over real safety. In a country like India, it is never going to be easy to gain the reputation and confidence from the customers.

An interesting point to note now would be to compare sales nos. between now and the next few months. I thought the crash ratings hardly matter in an economy like India. Although people are sitting up and taking note, I am not sure it will seriously dent any sales nos. for C3 (not that it has great nos. to begin with). Maruti has scored zero earlier, nothing changed for them, except better sales nos. and bigger market share. Now Citroen is no Maruti but still, the EV space is not that crowded yet. Would look forward to see the sales nos.