[saikishor]

I have seen two cars in which the safety rating has increased because of the presence of airbags.


Chevrolet Beat
The car with airbags has scored 4 stars and the one without airbags has scored a clean duck.


Volkswagen Polo
Same goes with this German beauty which has aged like fine wine with time. The car with airbags has scored a competent 4 stars, while the one without airbags scored a golden duck.

What I fail to understand is, instead of testing only the base variant of a car, why not go a step ahead and test the higher variants as well?



Case in point: Kia Seltos
Ok there might be a ton of differences between the Australian spec Seltos and the Indian spec Seltos. But one thing for sure is that the no. of airbags in both of these cars are different. So why not test the higher spec variants of the car as well instead of just testing the base spec?

Would love to hear from members.

[Fastdriver]

It is their policy to persuade/convince/push car companies to make safer cars from the base variants so that car occupants' lives can be saved in the event of an accident and also to make the authorities concerned/public aware of safety measures to be introduced in the cars. Nowadays in India base variants of cars also come with airbags, I think because of awareness.

[Raghu M]

Agree with Fastdriver. The crash ratings come for a model from down to up. It is mostly based on the platform a car is built. In the suggestion you gave, the Venue/Creta for example would have close to 10 crash ratings. The line on offer along with features/engines is wide for these models. Companies could easily take advantage of it and play around with the ratings. Chance for companies to ask customers to pay a premium for high end spec models. Also, let's say a model is discontinued or revamped, the score would not be available. So, give a standard rating and let the car sell basis that IMO.

[CEF_Beasts]

Originally Posted by saikishor

What I fail to understand is, instead of testing only the base variant of a car, why not go a step ahead and test the higher variants as well?

Case in point: Kia Seltos
Ok there might be a ton of differences between the Australian spec Seltos and the Indian spec Seltos. But one thing for sure is that the no. of airbags in both of these cars are different. So why not test the higher spec variants of the car as well instead of just testing the base spec?

Answer to your question is that the GNCAP has to buy the car themselves unless sent voluntarily by the manufacturer (like Tata did for the Nexon and Altroz). So for this reason GNCAP picks the base variants of most cars.

Also in India, a car is still considered a luxury and very often people buy the base variants of cars and then modify them according to their needs (touchscreen, seatcovers, etc etc.)

Case in point are the Creta E and Seltos HTE variants, these variants sell in bucketloads and end up in aftermarket stores for modifications.

You can add as many airbags to a car but somewhere the weak structure may still come in the way. Now in case of the Seltos (2 airbag version) which underwent the front offset crash test, a 6 airbag Indian Seltos wouldn’t have churned out a different result because it was a front impact test which needed the front 2 airbags to open. Yes, the 6 airbag version would have given better results in the side impact test but not by a huge margin. Kia India has clearly cut costs in the manufacturing of the Seltos to give a lower starting price, compared to the Australian or American Seltos.

[Comrade]

Safety ratings should always be "minimum scored" in a crash test. That way, every buyer is covered. If a manufacturer starts advertizing higher score of the top variant (with a small disclaimer somewhere that public won't notice) as model's score across the variants, then it gives false sense of safety for buyers purchasing lower variants. "safer-than-tested/advertized" doesn't hurt anyone. but "less-safe-than-tested/advertized" will be keeping lot of innocent people in blind.

[abhishek46]

Originally Posted by saikishor

I have seen two cars in which the safety rating has increased because of the presence of airbags.

What I fail to understand is, instead of testing only the base variant of a car, why not go a step ahead and test the higher variants as well?

GNCAP has to spend considerable amount of time & money on each crash test.
It is imperative that when there is constraint on money, the testing agency will prefer the base variant to get the baseline lowest possible safety score. (Majority of the manufacturers do not send their vehicles voluntarily to GNCAP).

Coming to the topic of additional airbags, the usefulness of additional airbags is limited, if not completely nil, just from a testing score point of view.
For example, Additional Knee airbags help in case of frontal collision test.
However, additional airbags like rear airbags cant help much in getting a better score in frontal score, just because there are no crash dummies in the back.

[superguy282]

Quoting myself from another thread

Originally Posted by superguy282

--Effect of variants on safety scores--

GNCAP is a transparent organisation, releasing the footage from the crash testing immediately after the release of the crash scores. But due to this transparency, we have seen that some cars get tested with the Base model, whilst some of them are tested with the Top/Mid model. As no explanation is provided by GNCAP on the surface, most people cry foul.

What they ignore in the process is that GNCAP has a policy to test the minimum safety your getting whilst buying a model. It doesn't rate variants for safety it rates the model itself. And more specifically, the variant which has the standard features available in all variants.

Let's take a look at the Safety Feature distribution of a few cars:
Attachment 2093246
Here, the HTE-HTK+ variant of the Seltos get the safety features that are standard across all variants, hence the HTE was chosen for testing.

Attachment 2093245
In case of the S-Presso, the Lowermost STD variant offers the safety features that are standard, hence this was the one chosen.

Attachment 2093244
In case of the Nexon, the safety features are standard across all variants, hence no matter the variant, the rating will be the same.

Now this brings us to an important point:
- If the variant having the minimum safety feature is tested, would higher variants having additional safety features increase the crash rating?
Yes, they will. One cannot comment how much of an increase it would be, but the crash rating will surely increase nonetheless.

This also begs the question, why do manufacturers not test the top models of the respective cars voluntarily and release their scores seperately?
- As I've mentioned above, NCAP tests models and not variants which is why even if the manufacturer sends in the top model for testing, it cannot publish the test scores unless and until all the safety features of that model are standard across the range. Recently the Mahindra Thar was tested and it scored a impressive 4 stars for the top variant. In order to publish these scores Mahindra had to kill off the lower variants that came with lesser safety features. Without doing so, GNCAP would've never given us the results.

Counter-argument/T & C :
- Unless the structure of the higher variants is altered, the structural integrity of the lower variants will be applicable to the higher variants as well.
For e.g GTX+ model of Kia Seltos will still have it's structural integrity rated as Unstable even if the crash rating increases due to additional safety features.

Conclusion
GNCAP gives you the minimum amount of safety that your getting, and it may or may not be indicative of the safety that your particular variant demonstrates.

[VKumar]

It's the metal that protects you from the impact of metal. Clothes don't protect you from a hammer impact, do they?

The day a truck's front bumper or rear chassis extension is in front of your eyes while moving at 24 meters per second, it's only the metal that doesn't simply crumple and the A pillars those won't simply get crushed like an A4 sheet - that will save you, airbags, even if 20 of them, are not going to help you in case the metal has come past your A pillars or has crushed the protective metallic shell.

IMO, dual front airbags with a competent chassis are any day better than a paper boat with 6 airbags. After all, it's the metal extrusion that decides what will hit you and what will crush you. So, if the chassis is unstable, additional side airbags can at max change the result of a small frontal overlap crash slightly or side crash ratings quite decently, but if it's a simple head on or complete overlap, I doubt if having six airbags can deliver any major advantage.

BUT, if it's a rollover, I would love to have side airbags too.

I normally take safety quite seriously, but I still don't believe the star ratings completely too. If I have to collide with an over enthusiastically driven bus, or an overloaded uncontrolled truck, I would prefer to be inside a 3 star rated Seltos or 0 star rated Scorpio than a 5 star rated City or Vento, or Altroz - because there is a difference between colliding with a heavy vehicle, and simply going under it.

Coming to NCAP, if a car has 0 airbags, it's a by default zero rating for such cars I believe. Hence, a zero for a car without airbags can be taken with a pinch of salt.

[GTO]

Mod Note: Thread moved to the Road Safety section! Thanks for sharing

[landcruiser123]

Make basic safety features standard across the range. That's the only answer.

Originally Posted by saikishor

What I fail to understand is, instead of testing only the base variant of a car, why not go a step ahead and test the higher variants as well?

Two reasons:
1. Fairness - A person should get all safety features whether he's buying the base or the topmost trim
2. Expensive - The crash test is a simulated scientific experiment with requiring cars(expensive), dummies (very expensive), data collection, data analysis etc.

You don't want to start generating a lot of metal, plastic, rubber waster to test 3 variants of the same car when you can just test 1.

[livelyyoungman]

Not everyone buys the top end variant of a car. Life is life whether driving a top variant or the base variant. And that is also the reason on why it is the base or entry variant that is being tested. Added as mentioned testing the base variant ensures that the bare minimum is met. More over it does not instill false sense of security for the base variant buyers (@Comrade had made this comment in his post)

[ToThePoint]

Originally Posted by saikishor

What I fail to understand is, instead of testing only the base variant of a car, why not go a step ahead and test the higher variants as well?

Couple reasons:
1. G-NCAP is a charity run program, so it's not possible for them to purchase multiple variants of one car, let alone all cars in the market. That's the primary reason not all cars have been tested so far and it takes both time and money, but at least they have taken the initiative. Manufacturers can provide test cars or improvised variants like in the case of VW polo, Renault Kwid and such which scored Zero in first test.

2. Testing base version means a baseline safety level is established which the buyer gets even when he purchases the most affordable version. Higher trims can only add more onto this baseline.

[SoumenD]

Polo had scored 0 because AFAIK, if a car doesn’t come with airbags by default the score awarded by GNCAP is 0. Even if it is structurally stable the score will remain 0. This has been discussed in older threads as well. Any car without airbags gets a 0 by default.

Incase of kia seltos even if higher variants come with more active safety features, underlying structure remains same. So that part wouldn’t really change IMO. Star rating might increase though, but structurally would still be rated unstable.

[itsbaman]

Testing base variant is the right way to do it. It establishes the fact that safety mustn't be luxury or optional. Safety should be bare minimum requirement.

[Sidban85]

Is it possible for having a Gofundme or Kickstarter or Ketto campaign to crowdfund cars and send them to GNCAP?

I am sure there are many on the fence owners of Ecosport, Safari, Creta or Kushaq who would love to contribute and even small amounts like Rs 1000 per person can be a small price to pay for mental peace before buying a car.

No need to feel the subjective weight of car doors or marketing material hyperbole but actual tests for validation.

And once a few cars are tested via crowdfunding, manufacturers will sit up and take notice that there is nothing and nowhere to hide.

If above is possible, TeamBHP is the right forum to initiate such a thing. What say?