[Bibendum90949]

Global NCAP likely to conduct crash tests in India

With its recent round of crash tests, the Global NCAP has achieved a milestone of having tested 50 vehicles under its ‘Safer Cars for India’ test program. The program began in 2014 and has majorly contributed in increasing safety awareness in India.

Speaking to Autocar India after the announcement, David Ward, executive president, Global NCAP, said, “We’ve had tremendous support, especially from our partner Dr Rohit Baluja at Institute of Road Traffic Education and also the Indian government in terms of regulation, and the transport minister has taken it upon himself to further safety. When we launched, most said consumers would not take an interest in safety and this would never succeed here, but we’re so happy to see the progress and the rapidly rising consumer interest.”

Furthermore, Ward stated that manufacturers are actively taking part in the program and the number of zero star rated cars has drastically declined. “We thought at the beginning it would be foreign brands that would dominate, but it’s been a pleasant surprise to see Indian brands take the lead and continue to work towards safer cars,” he added.

Having tested so many cars in India, Ward, however, says that the aim of the program has been, and still is, to aid the creation of an India-specific NCAP. “Our intention was always for safer cars for India to be a pilot NCAP and we didn’t intend to keep going for this long,” Ward said. “There were discussions for a BNCAP (Bharat New Vehicle Assessment Program), but those are bogged down, and the government has said they are not sure where they are with it and have encouraged us to keep going.”

More on https://www.autocarindia.com/car-new...-423560-423560

Source : Autocar India

[Aditya]

Global NCAP likely to conduct crash tests in India - Post moved to a new thread.

[Venkatesh]

Interview with David Ward Executive President Global NCAP talks about Safer Cars for India journey so far, crash testing in India, plans for Bharat NCAP.

https://youtu.be/Xrf9TOd-fT4

[fiat_tarun]

With state of the art crash labs at ARAI and iCAT, this is very doable and like David Ward mentioned it's only the certification process that has to be completed.

With MoRTH and Gadkari ji taking up safety topics again, I anticipate the Bharat NCAP to shape up soon and these crash labs at ARAI & iCAT will play a big role in making it happen.

[anjan_c2007]

Earlier in 2017 the term Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Program (BVSAP) was coined that was officially used for the India specific NCAP test norms that were getting formulated since then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat...ssment_Program

BVSAP is too complicated for the average person to memorise. Bharat NCAP being used now is a better term and resembles NCAP closely and also conveys its India specific meaning. At the Apex level is the Global NCAP star ratings. In fact countries use similar terms for their country specific test norms like LatinNCAP for South American nations (since 2006), for Europe its called EuroNCAP (since 1996), for Assn of SE Asian Nations its called ASEANCAP (since 2011), in Korea NCAP its called KNCAP (since 1999), for Australasian its called ANCAP (since 1995) and for US its called USNCAP (since 1978). There are also the China NCAP that's called CHINANCAP (since 1996) and for Japan its JNCAP (since 1995).

India, the fifth largest car maker appears in the list as shown w.e.f. 2017, presumably the last in the list to implement these norms as of now. But despite this mention of 2017 we have had lakhs of ZERO NCAP rated cars flooding our roads even since 2017. Only now the buyers are getting educated and are realising what these safety ratings mean. We have lakhs and lakhs of ZERO rated by NCAP cars moving all around the country. Many of these are getting involved in accidents and are seriously injuring, miaming and even killing hundreds of their drivers and passengers. Who bears the responsibility for putting such cars on roads during the past decades knowing fully well that the Global NCAP test ratings have been adapted by many developed and other developing countries since the 1990's?

Some satirical apprehensions and fears :-

(1) Will Gadkariji ask them to test cars with only Flexi fuels and then with 100% ethanol only and thereafter will these tests be only for Hydrogen powered cars?

(2) Will they enact laws to involve the RTO officials compulsorily to parallelly certify the safety of the cars being tested. We may then get two ratings like:-

(i) BNCAP 3 stars
(ii) RTO 5 stars (with bribes)

[ron178]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

(2) Will they enact laws to involve the RTO officials compulsorily to parallelly certify the safety of the cars being tested. We may then get two ratings like:-

(i) BNCAP 3 stars
(ii) RTO 5 stars (with bribes)

Jokes aside, that is the way it's supposed to work in most markets (except the bribes part) and it's already somewhat happening in India with Global NCAP but will be complete with a permanent Bharat NCAP.

You normally have two levels of crash tests:

• A set of basic, minimum crash tests done by the government, that every car must pass during homologation. These include the UN's 56km/h offset frontal impact and a 50km/h barrier side impact with the trolley. In these tests a car only has to mitigate life-threatening injury to the occupants. Very similar tests have been applied in India since 2017(new cars)/2019(existing cars). No star rating issued but it's a basic pass/fail test.
• An independent consumer-information program to test cars (an NCAP) which is more demanding than the minimum regulation: speeds are higher and/or injury criteria are far more demanding: to score well injuries have to be so low the occupant can walk away from the crash, and it's also more foolproof in that there are penalties for things beyond dummy readings. These tests shouldn't be legally binding but are grades and published for consumers to make a buying decision.

[techmotor]

If this happens, I hope we would get to see a lot of untested car's crash and safety ratings. Previously manufacturers had to volunteer bearing the cost of shipping the cars to wherever the test was being conducted. Also this decision coming after our government announce Bharat NCAP seems very convenient, isn't it?. Anyway, interesting times ahead. Having more than one entity doing safety testing will lead to safer cars for India