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Global NCAP and Latin NCAP secretary general Alejandro Furas had a lot to say about Indian cars in a recent interview with Argentine automotive publication Motor1 Argentina.

Link to interview

Here are some interesting machine-translated snippets from the interview, originally in Spanish:

Interviewer: This year, the [crash] testing agency for the Indian market, Bharat NCAP, joined GlobalNCAP. And it surprised because from the beginning, even with the cheapest models on the market, five-star results were achieved. In terms of security, how backward is Latin America compared to countries like India?

Alejandro Furas: As we say, on the one hand there are the rules of the country and on the other the requirements of the local NCAP, bearing in mind that both complement each other and are not replaced. Having 5 stars in an NCAP if the requirement is low does not reflect a more demanding standard of the local market and vice versa. That is why both aspects, the standard and the NCAP, are complementary, not substitutes and both must be present in the market.

This one caught my attention:

Bharat NCAP uses as a basis the current Global NCAP protocols that are established on the previous Latin NCAP protocols, but they use them with certain flexibilities that have not been recommended, and that allow better results of the brands, in addition to the fact that the laboratory they use is a laboratory that at some point has presented deviations from the Euro NCAP laboratories, for example ADAC. Global NCAP has offered training and support to the government of India but there has not yet been a response in this regard. Public opinion in India tends to see Global NCAP as a credible source and the results of Bharat NCAP are questioned.

That said, he also had quite a bit of praise for India's safety regulations and thinks Latin America should take inspiration:

On the other hand, the safety standards that the government requires in India for cars are [frontal] impact, side impact, Electronic Stability Control and Pedestrian Protection, among others. For motorcycles, ABS is mandatory from a certain displacement. Beyond the standards, everything that is sold in the market already offers side and curtain airbags as standard or as an option, on the way to standardize them. This clearly shows that if the models do not offer them as standard, they have technically solved the incorporation of curtain airbags, something that in our region still does not happen: Fiat Cronos, Argo, Pulse, Fastback, Strada, VW Polo, among others. This scenario has largely been achieved in India through the work of Global NCAP. India has current technical standards for cars that are much more advanced than Latin America from demand to control. India is a clear example of how the improved governance rules and the combined pressure of an NCAP Program accelerate changes. It seems that this mechanism demonstrated again and again in its implementation and positive results does not penetrate the understanding of the authorities and governments of our region.

Mr Furas appears to think quite highly of Indian manufacturing:

The replacement of one of the best-selling models in India is offered with 6 standard airbags and got five stars from Global NCAP a few weeks ago, this brand has approximately 50% of the Indian market, if this is not one more proof of what needs to be done, it is difficult for me to understand the reasons why we are still so behind. It should be remembered that India starts the regulatory evolution and its fleet much later and more relegated than Latin America and today they have already surpassed us. The Indian industry has displaced the same products exported from Brazil, for example, with the same level of safety and quality. India will soon produce global models, that is, vehicles that are only produced in India for the whole world, even Europe. I think that in Latin America we still can't even dream about that.