[sreejithkk]

Originally Posted by amalji

A hypothetical conversation.
The car will be ruthlessly tagged as over prized. And it will be a bummer. Don't you know what happened to the All new Ford Fiesta which was otherwise a well built car?
happened to Ford India as they kept cutting on features instead of safety to stay profitable ?

Yes, in India features/reliability/looks matters over safety. However I would not consider Fords as the example of safety unless it was proved by GNCAP. The only ford cars that are tested by GNCAP (first gen and 2nd gen Figo) just scored 0 and 3 stars. If once can gauge a car's safety by panel thickness, I would have never expected the Etios to score 4 star.

Also there are models from Mahindra and Tata and even Suzuki/Toyota that provides excellent (5 star) and reasonable (4 star) safety with out overpricing or cutting down too much features that too in more price sensitive CSUV segment.

The biggest issue is we have very few cars that are tested, and for the untested cars, people go by their rating in other markets and hence consider them safer, which is usually not applicable in India. This is already proved by rating of Creta, Seltos, Swift (4 star in ASEAN NCAP), Ertiga (4 star in ASEAN NCAP) albeit they sharing the identical kerb weight in these markets.

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by amalji

Engineer: The only thing we can do is on the steel quality. Maybe, we can save around 1 Lakh with it. Add tax on top of it and it is worth 2 Lakhs of savings. What do you think?

Small correction in this assumption. The savings for all such steel reduction (5star to 2 star) is just in range of 4000~8000 rupees for OEM. After adding taxes etc. it costs about 7000~15000 rupees to customer.

And this is where I hate all these manufacturers. Just to cater to the majority (uninformed) customers, OEMs are playing with lives of many.

Moral of the Story: We get what we deserve. What we prioritize as a market is what we get.

True. Some (like Mr. Bhargawa) may say, in India people don't want to pay even this much extra, don't even wear seat-belts, drive irrationally. So, OEMs don't have any moral responsibility.

And these top-shots are the very people sitting in SIAM, advisory bodies resisting push from government to make safety as mandatory aspect. Just ask them where is BNVSAP ? GNCAP is moving to updated evaluation method this year and mandatory BNVSAP rating is not even on horizon.

[Bhargav7]

Originally Posted by AutoNoob

True. Some (like Mr. Bhargawa) may say, in India people don't want to pay even this much extra, don't even wear seat-belts, drive irrationally. So, OEMs don't have any moral responsibility.

Wondered why I was pulled into this discussion, and then I realised

Originally Posted by AutoNoob

Small correction in this assumption. The savings for all such steel reduction (5star to 2 star) is just in range of 4000~8000 rupees for OEM. After adding taxes etc. it costs about 7000~15000 rupees to customer.

This is a laughably small amount to save. But again, I am not surprised as manufacturers omit seat belts for the rear center passengers which probably saves like 500 rupees.

[greenhorn]

Question: The Indian i20 got 3 stars in global NCAP, while the Euro i20 got 4 stars in Euro NCAP, which I understand is tougher.

Is it because of the extra airbags, or because the steel is also different?

[bijims]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

question - the indian i20 got 3 stars in global ncap, while the euro i20 got 4 stars in euro ncap, which i understand is tougher. Is it because of the extra airbags, or because the steel is also different ?

The Indian i20 (BI3) differs from the European i20 (BC3) and has been built to cater to the Indian market, with concessions made in the body structure to keep costs in check. This is the main reason for the 3-star rating of the i20 in the crash test. The same car even with 6 airbags isn't likely to score over 3 stars owing to the body shell integrity. The same can be seen in the Indian Creta as well as compared to its international counterparts, the same goes for the Carens and Seltos which are related in platform to the Creta, all of them have scored 3 stars in the Global NCAP.

[ron178]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

Question: The Indian i20 got 3 stars in global NCAP, while the Euro i20 got 4 stars in Euro NCAP, which I understand is tougher.

Euro NCAP is not tougher in that the frontal offset test is structurally more demanding (it is not) but in that the assessment itself is wider-ranging, i.e., there are more tests.

A lot of people think the Indian i20's 3-star rating is entirely because of its structure but that is not true. Structurally it was as good as a mid-4-star car like the Tigor or 4th-gen City. The bigger problem was a problematic driver airbag. Compression of the driver's chest was quite high, and the driver's head also either bottomed out the airbag or recorded high deceleration (GNCAP did not specify which) which is uncommon in modern cars. I don't know how hard it is to get seatbelts and airbags right in the 2020s but Hyundai never bothered to acknowledge the problem or fix it (at least they haven't said anything).

As for the i20's 4-star Euro NCAP rating, there are a number of factors. In the frontal offset test itself the Bayon was average, with 4.76/8 (not comparable with GNCAP because it's a different kind of crash test). In Euro NCAP to get a good rating you have to perform well across four broad areas of assessment, and the European i20 has the safety technologies to match: AEB, lane support, ISA, six airbags, i-Size, etc.

Even with six airbags, and a better structure and driver airbag, the Indian i20 would still probably be a Euro NCAP 0 star car.

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

Is it because of the extra airbags, or because the steel is also different?

This thread (Kia Seltos body structure facts & comparison with the Hyundai Creta) will answer many of your questions.