[Mohan Mathew A]

It really is an eye opener. Pretty absurd.I admire your grasp of the whole thing. I loathe to believe that GNCAP has not realised it yet but probably realised it too late and now they don't want to tweak it lest it opens all sorts of other complications. But I don't see the affected manufacturers sitting quietly. Does BNCAP have the same flaw?

[GeeTee TSI]

As a user who prefers the easy and lazy option of just glancing at the star count, I only consider 4+ stars to be even mention worthy. A 2 which could have been a 1 or vice versa just doesn't matter in the scheme of things around 'safety'. I hope a 5 star is well and truly that with no scope for 'playing around'
While I just spoke my mind, the articulation and the insight about the 'catch' was a great read

[ron178]

Originally Posted by Mohan Mathew A

I loathe to believe that GNCAP has not realised it yet but probably realised it too late and now they don't want to tweak it lest it opens all sorts of other complications.

The first time it was added was as part of a haphazard “tweak”.

In late April 2016 (16th week - see image) Latin NCAP was conducting side impact testing on the Peugeot 208.


The 208 did very badly in the side impact but pretty well in the frontal impact (it had 4 stars in an older test), so surprisingly could qualify for 3 stars.

Realising the error Latin NCAP added the clause as an “addendum notice” the next month.



A month later they released the result.

But I don't see the affected manufacturers sitting quietly. Does BNCAP have the same flaw?

They have made a change that doesn’t quite seem to fix the problem.

[theAutomaniac]

I have said this earlier and will say again, Global NCAP is nothing but an organization filled with loopholes and poorly made rules. The results for a lot of cars are completely biased and have even resorted to hiding out information! The Swift for example, has been involved in three different controversies.

Then there is the trend of willfully picking and ignoring cars which may hurt the carmakers who favor them and favor those who don't regard them!

High time that Bharat NCAP is enforced as a compulsory test agency and GNCAP is shut. I anyway don't see a reason why we should allow a random European NGO with some random investors to test cars for us.

Hopefully Bharat NCAP has better rules enforced.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by theAutomaniac

Global NCAP is nothing but an organization filled with loopholes and poorly made rules. The results for a lot of cars are completely biased. The Swift for example, has been involved in three different controversies.

High time that Bharat NCAP is enforced as a compulsory test agency and GNCAP is shut. I anyway don't see a reason why we should allow a random European NGO with some random investors to test cars for us.

Don’t see any data to show the GNCAP is not doing a good job. There may be a small number of inconsistencies such as the one the OP has cited - but all the data is there for you to make a decision.

The fact is that Indian car makers have taken significant steps to improve safety of cars after GNCAP came in, and that has probably saved more lives than most actions that NGOs take. And thanks to GNCAP, anyone who buys a poorly rated car is making a conscious choice that he values other parameters above crash safety.

Not sure why BNCAP test results are not out yet - but let’s give them time to settle down and give them the benefit of the doubt that they will do a good job. But there no reason to bring nationalism in here - GNCAP did a job that no one in India was doing and many of my family members have picked cars (or refrained from buying cars) based on their ratings. And I for one am grateful to them for that.

If at all one should resent someone, it is the MNC car makers who deliberately engineer cars to be unsafe to boost their margins and share prices, because they believe Indian lives are worth less than those of Japanese or Europeans.

[ron178]

Originally Posted by theAutomaniac

High time that Bharat NCAP is enforced as a compulsory test agency and GNCAP is shut. I anyway don't see a reason why we should allow a random European NGO with some random investors to test cars for us.

I would be very cautious before making a sweeping generalisation like that. Notwithstanding the fact that it’s off topic for the thread - please keep in mind that Bharat NCAP has copy-pasted the Global NCAP protocols, loopholes and all. They have even modified the clause in question only to avoid penalising some cars but still not fixed the fatal logical error (most of the problematic “triangles” mentioned in my previous post continue to exist even with the constraints BNCAP has enforced).

The bigger problem lies with GNCAP not being able to handle when their stars are not reflective of what they think and making ‘jugaad’ changes like this one without much thought. This is in contrast to Euro NCAP who has often been known to pour complaints about some five star cars or even point out when a two-star car is “respectable” in some ways. This is unlike GNCAP who IMO always feel the need to pick a narrative and say something the media can quote that sounds “substantial” even if it need not be.

Still, the results for the eC3/Wagon R/current Swift being skewed doesn’t change the fact that they are now well behind the latest even in the segment when it comes to safety, stars or otherwise. At least decent regulations have forced them to be designed keeping safety principles in mind, but there has been little ambition from Suzuki and particularly Stellantis to do much more than that.

Originally Posted by theAutomaniac

Then there is the trend of willfully picking and ignoring cars which may hurt the carmakers who favor them

I concede existing data suggests that but you might just be in for a surprise in the last week of April.

Anyway, let’s please stick to the problem at hand in this thread. There are plenty of other threads to discuss GNCAP as an organisation, the subjective parts of the ratings and the organisation on the whole.

[theabstractmind]

All technical explanations aside, if GNCAP is trying to normalise scores to achieve consistency and the rules are applied consistently, I don't see a reason why it should be a problem. If GNCAP is giving a ZERO star for lack of pretensioners, it is great, as the seatbelts won't be of much use anyway irrespective of the impact score.

And really, the argument here is very marginal. I am not good at maths, but logically there is nothing wrong in what GNCAP has done. I would be more worried if it allows a 3 star to get a 4 star or 5 - which look like mathematical impossibility as 3 star itself can be achieved when the impact scores are meeting a certain benchmark. I must say, the argument here is moot.

This looks more a post to get an acceptability to a particular model/models than actually argue on the merits. If there's a more than reasonable difference in frontal and side impact, it is clear that the manufacturer tried to cut some corners. So if that practice is penalized, so be it.

[ron178]

Originally Posted by theabstractmind

I would be more worried if it allows a 3 star to get a 4 star or 5 - which look like mathematical impossibility as 3 star itself can be achieved when the impact scores are meeting a certain benchmark.

Ah, but that’s the problem. If the score is in the middle of the 4-star band but the star rating is 3 because one test score is way better than the other, the manufacturer might very well have room to reduce that one "too-much-better" score to avoid the penalty, but still qualify for 4 stars.

It depends of course on how you look at it. If you consider that the car that "became" 3-star after applying the penalty is, indeed a 3-star car fair and square - which it seems you do - then that 3-star car can become 4-star by making it worse. That is the biggest problem with the penalty or I would not have made a thread about it.

This looks more a post to get an acceptability to a particular model/models

Frankly I couldn't defend the ë-C3's safety even if I wanted to. If you are worried about a conflict of interest let's see what happened a few years ago in South America.

This Mexican Nissan March had a score good for 3 stars, with an average frontal impact and a pretty good side impact. But it didn't have seatbelt reminders so it was limited to 2. And one more star was taken off because of the difference in front and side impact (even though the side impact couldn't possibly have given it any advantage).

But then look at this Renault (Dacia) Sandero. It had a very bad frontal structure, a very bad side structure and poorly protected chests in both tests (hence a 1 star cap). Clearly much worse than the March. But since its frontal impact was as bad as its side impact, Latin NCAP didn't penalize it, because it was consistently poor.

[theabstractmind]

Originally Posted by ron178

Ah, but that’s the problem. If the score is in the middle of the 4-star band but the star rating is 3 because one test score is way better than the other, the manufacturer might very well have room to reduce that one "too-much-better" score to avoid the penalty, but still qualify for 4 stars.

It depends of course on how you look at it. If you consider that the car that "became" 3-star after applying the penalty is, indeed a 3-star car fair and square - which it seems you do - then that 3-star car can become 4-star by making it worse. That is the biggest problem with the penalty or I would not have made a thread about it.

Thanks for the response. Hypothetically, say A car scores 4 on Frontal Impact and 2 on Side impact, the car will be given a penalty and downgraded to 3 star. However if a car scores say 3 on both, it will still be rated 3. It still makes sense, doesn't it? How can I ignore the fact that I will be only safer if I get hit from front but likely to die if I get hit from the side?

Now let us say a car scores 4 in frontal Impact and 3 in Side impact, and the variation of 1 star is acceptable, in that case the average works out to 3.5, which is still better than the average of 3 in the previous two cases. So if the car gets to retain a 4 star, it till means it has a better rating. The only anomaly would be if the car scores say 3.5 for frontal impact and 3 for side impact, then the car may gain half a point by rounding up. This is where your argument probably lies. I think this is still arguably a better, not ideal scenario, but most improbable. Unless someone wants to cut corners (I won't name those car makers) to deliberately design the car for only the minimal, it is reasonable to expect that car makers will continue to aim for a higher rating. We know well which car makers fall in either of these categories.

In the field I work, this calibration is not unheard of. So is the penalization. Because we want to remove anomalies. So while the argument you have put forward is possible (full credit to you for bringing it up), it is improbable. If any results throw up a better result than what the car deserves due to the anomalies you mentioned, I will surely acknowledge. Doesn't ring a bell, though.

[INDIAFIRST]

Originally Posted by 07CR

Extremely well put. I never gave much importance to GNCAP tests, since they have had so many loopholes. Thanks for pointing one more glaring one.

I just wish BNCAP improves on the GNCAPs loopholes.

Can anyone throw light on BNCAP? Multiple media reports including Autocar India in December 23 had mentioned that results should be out in a month.

It's 3 months since then and I see no results!

Originally Posted by ron178

Unfortunately this is not just about penalising cars that are already at the bottom of the safety ladder.

A few points:

1. 1 Would Maruti really be worried if a 2 star Swift was downgraded to 1 Star or a 1 star Ignis to Zero star? While reams of electronic print have been devoted to Maruti and their poor crash test ratings, the Swift still sells in multiples of 10,000 each month. Sadly the shift in Indian customers approach is far too slow. Features & mileage are more important than safety.
2. 2. How would this same performance affected BNCAP results for Ignis & Swift?

By the way I love your laconic sense of humour!

[ron178]

Originally Posted by theabstractmind

Thanks for the response. Hypothetically, say A car scores 4 on Frontal Impact and 2 on Side impact, the car will be given a penalty and downgraded to 3 star. However if a car scores say 3 on both, it will still be rated 3. It still makes sense, doesn't it? How can I ignore the fact that I will be only safer if I get hit from front but likely to die if I get hit from the side?

Really appreciate you taking the time out to explain your point of view.

I will try to explain simply using your system with individual stars in each test.

Let’s assume the overall rating is usually ⌊(front stars + side stars)/2⌋ and if front and side differ by at least 2 then a star is deducted overall.

Car 1 scores 2 stars in the frontal test and 4 stars in the side test but because of a critical issue in the frontal test, testers decided they would not allow more than 1 star overall.

Now the overall rating will be 1 star regardless of whether the side test score is 1 star or 5 stars. But testers still decide to cut one more star because the side score is too different. Now Car 1 is a 0 star car.

Now Car 2 comes along repeating the same disaster in the frontal impact (2 stars and critical issue). But this one’s side impact is also equally bad (2 stars). Once again the critical issue limits the rating to 1 star but since the side impact is also bad there is no further penalty for difference, and it keeps a 1 star rating.

Summary
2 stars frontal (with critical issue) + 4 stars side = 0 stars overall
2 stars frontal (with critical issue) + 2 stars side = 1 star overall.

I hope I could explain the problem simply (sorry précis writing is not my forte).
---

Now you would think this is only in exceptionally bad cases like the ë-C3/Marutis when there is a critical issue limiting the rating to 1 star but that is not true. The same thing can happen if one of the extra requirements for a higher rating (ESC, pole test, pedestrian protection) is not being met.

We could sit and actually compute the probabilities with some assumptions…but thanks to certain manufacturers it’s very unlikely the test scores will fit any standard distribution.

[theabstractmind]

Originally Posted by ron178

Summary
2 stars frontal (with critical issue) + 4 stars side = 0 stars overall
2 stars frontal (with critical issue) + 2 stars side = 1 star overall.
.

Spot on explanation. And point well taken.

The merit of this phenomenon or anomaly is that it is will penalize any car manufacturer who tries to circumvent the rules and basically still makes an unsafe car. Even a car with say a 5 on frontal impact and 3 on side impact will get penalized even without the critical issue. In case of a critical issue, it would anyway end up getting Zero, and which is fair, isn't it?

Anyway, to conclude in a layman's terms, To a buyer with safety on mind, a 3 star is as bad as no star. The anomaly does not seem likely to impact a car which gets a 4 or 5 star. So, for those to whom safety is relative, they would anyway buy the car with no star or 3 star. To the safety conscious, however, it has no impact.

I would take the anomaly with a pinch of salt, but be happy because it penalizes only those making a half hearted attempt. Purely my personal opinion. No one right choice here.