Re: How Maruti cracked the Compact MPV code with the 2nd-gen Ertiga & XL6 Quote:
Originally Posted by diwakarmuthu I see a reference to meeting the norms, but the results are not public or they did not get tested. |
It's not a norm and hence is impossible to 'meet'. It's a consumer test for buyers to compare crashworthiness performance among different cars (in the same size class), currently only for urban frontal car-to-car crashes.
I'm quite sure that when they say 'meeting norms' they mean minimum ECE crash tests which you can 'pass'. The Government has applied them since 2019. Frontal impact is at 56km/h (vs 64 in GNCAP) and without child dummies. Global NCAP's scoring is such that even a one star car passes ECE regulation, sometimes even zero (because of the lower speed). In the NCAP test (despite higher speed) injury above the maximum allowed in the ECE test means 0 points for that body part (if for head, neck or chest then zero overall too). Plus in the GNCAP cars are penalised for factors that could reduce the relevance or hamper the repeatability of the result. The maximum 4 points ('green'/good) means not only a <5% risk of serious or worse injury from dummy readings, but also that the response is quite 'robust'. This is quite a bit tougher than the government norms so 'meeting norms' does not guarantee a high NCAP result for the Ertiga or any other car on sale for that matter.
The problem is deciding, as a consumer, how much importance you want to give to the test: it's worth noting that the GNCAP's test for India is essentially a very old Latin NCAP test for unregulated emerging markets. Presently it currently covers only an offset frontal impact which represents a 55km/h-to-55km/h head-on crash between two cars of similar mass. This isn't an extremely common type of crash in India. Protection to critical body regions like the head, neck and chest is important and I'd recommend avoiding cars that have poor (S-Presso) or weak (i10, Swift, i20) protection to critical body regions but beyond that some cars, like the Ertiga, also lose points for protection of the feet and legs, which IMHO is not as important as protecting critical body regions in other crashes (i.e., side thorax and head airbags) and more importantly, crash prevention (ESC, blind spot detection etc.).
The pre-facelift Ertiga achieved three stars for adult and child occupant protection in the test. For the adults the main reason for the loss of score was high intrusion into the driver's footwell which threatened the driver's feet (and some minor instability of structural performance of the passenger compartment). Protection to the head, neck and chest was marginal or better, which IMO is quite respectable. It also gets ESC as optional, and side thorax airbags but not head airbags. Quote:
Originally Posted by diwakarmuthu why doesn't Maruti and Hyundai publish their NCAP ratings |
They really don't have to, plus on top of that both of them have beef with Global NCAP, especially because of their recent work in Latin America. Even manufacturers that welcome testing rarely sponsor testing for new models unless it's a retest to avoid the embarrassment of a bad result (Polo, Mobilio). Honda for example didn't sponsor the Jazz for years but when they were selected by Global NCAP they were very pleased. I reckon VW should be the same. I don't know what it is: one theory is that it is quite expensive to have the cars shipped to Germany where the test laboratory is.
Last edited by ron178 : 5th May 2022 at 14:06.
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