[ron178]

Trivia:

• As I reported late last year, they did test more cars than usual, because they had funds allocated for 2021 assuming that the new protocols (side impact = 2 cars per test) would come into force in 2021. I was a bit surprised with only four cars in the February publication.
• Based on the stickers on the cars they were tested in mid-November 2021.
• Here's the European Hyundai Bayon (i20 Cross)' Euro NCAP MPDB test. While Euro NCAP no longer does the 64km/h offset test and scores aren't comparable, it performed better, scoring 4.76 out of 8 (source) AFTER penalties for poor compatibility.
  
  
• My gut feeling says we might see another manufacturer enter the five star club very, very soon. I might be very wrong here. But if my assumption is right it might even be this week.
• The Creta would have scored two stars for adult protection without seatbelt reminders. Biomechanically it was worse than the Swift. On the other hand the i20 didn't score a seatbelt reminder point because of weak chest protection.

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

Not sure just curtain airbags and side airbags would improve Hyundai's rating.

They actually wouldn't help at all under the current protocols. Yes, I still maintain that they're important, and in some impacts not currently assessed by Global NCAP they could be the difference between life and death and I definitely encourage consumers to pick them. But honestly, seeing just how bad their engineering is for the frontal impact, I lose confidence in their engineering for the side impact even with airbags. But yes, call me crazy but I would still consider a three star car with side head airbags and ESC over a five star car without, but I would still sincerely question the performance of this optional equipment. Hyundai has no excuse to have frontal protection this bad.

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

Why cant they put the safety stars and mileage information on the window glass for everyone to see on the test drive cars ? Even the authorities here should start caring for the consumers more.

MIROS recently introduced that in Malaysia with ASEAN NCAP, and in the US it's been the case for decades (it's called the Monroney sticker) for NHTSA's US NCAP five-star safety ratings. We'll probably see it when there's a Bharat NCAP.

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

This could be due to difference in the engines. Brezza was tested with a diesel engine whereas Urban Cruiser has been tested with a petrol engine. The crumple zones would have acted in a different way and hence the results.

There wasn't that much of a difference in adult protection. Only the driver's chest going from marginal to acceptable - and if all biomechanical values are within a ±10% tolerance the audit can be considered successful. The difference between marginal and acceptable could be anywhere from 0.01 point to 2.66 points.

Originally Posted by nagr22

Interesting to see Urban Cruiser has a marginally better score for Adults and significantly better score for Children. Is it because the structure is different compared to Brezza?

No it's because Maruti Suzuki made the stupid decision of putting the 18 month-old child forward-facing in the Brezza (and Swift and Ertiga). This led to loss of all dynamic points for the Q1.5's head and neck. Toyota on the other hand put him rearward-facing and changed the child seat. It resulted in full protection. Globally, for newer models, Toyota and Volvo have been advocating keeping children rearward-facing as long as possible. In recent Latin NCAP tests you will see them putting even the Q3 rearward-facing.

Originally Posted by nitkel

While the results are disappointing for Hyundai, I'm quite surprised that GNCAP isn't willing to test any of the models from VAG or other Germans! I see this as a bias, conscious or not.

That's funny because in Latin America they get accusations all the time of being biased towards VW. In all seriousness, however, they have trouble getting cars to test. They have to make sure the purchase is completely transparent: either they visit the plant, select a random car from the distribution area and pay for the car and the manufacturer pays for the transportation etc. after the test, or the manufacturer covers all shipping costs from the start, or in the case of non-voluntary tests, they need to pick up the car straight at the dealer without pre-ordering: so if there's a waiting period they can't test it. In any case I'm hopeful VW might sponsor a test when the new protocols come into force.

Request: We had a lot of irrational discussions on the i10/Seltos thread and the mods had a lot of trouble taking care of it. In the end it led to the closure of what could have been a very valuable thread. Can we please avoid that again?

[lamborghini]

Not surprising given the results of sister Seltos.
Even the i20 was expected to follow this route unlike the previous generation Hyundai's which could have fared better (looking at how the previous gen Creta scored 4 stars).

Effectively this wipes out any future non CKD / CBU Hyundai's for us an option, which is a pity because the Creta & i20 are truly capable cars but unfortunately not ones I would want a driver driving my family around on the expressway in.

[nitkel]

While the results are disappointing for Hyundai, I'm quite surprised that GNCAP isn't willing to test any of the models from VAG or other Germans! I see this as a bias, conscious or not.

[ron178]

Originally Posted by lamborghini

(looking at how the previous gen Creta scored 4 stars).

It actually didn't, that one was exported to Latin America and was LHD. In fact I think the intrusion problems with the expensive Hyundais are resulting from the fact that they're only developing the left hand-drive versions for good crashworthiness, followed by a shoddy, low-budget RHD conversion for India. That exported Creta, for example, had a similar structure to the Seltos (no UHSS reinforcements) and a left-hand drive version of the 'cheaper' Seltos was tested by China NCAP last year and scored well in their frontal offset test. Those reinforcements in the SP2 Seltos (US/AU) seem to be there for the IIHS' small overlap test and not the 40% offset test.

In the case of the lower Hyundais however I think it's the same case as Maruti Suzuki: saving costs by using cheaper welding or cold-stamped steel.

[mathewspaul]

Really sad to see the results. It is somewhat acceptable if the cars tested are A and B segment, but to see this with a moderately expensive vehicle like Creta . I guess the Koreans are blinding our eyes with bling filled tin cans.

if this is about parts cost, wonder how Mahindra and tata are able to sell much safer cares with similar features (better in case of XUV700) at the same price point.

[fhdowntheline]

Originally Posted by rainmaster

Despite of poor crash rating, I still see lot of Seltos and Creta recommendations by BHPians in what car threads. No matter how good the product is, if it’s not safe we should refrain from recommending such cars. We are in an unfortunate situation where we don’t have proper competitor for Seltos/Creta.
Test results shows how gullible we are and how manufacturers treat us like a third world market.

I dont understand why we must single out Hyundai/Kia? I can say the same for almost all cars in any price range. How many of these have been tested by GNCAP ? If we start recommending purely on the basis of scores, the current automobile market will shrink to less than half of what it is, and the purchase cost will go through the roof. We can go on debating the specifics of this issue ad-nauseum, but I am pretty sure no country in the world has all its road worthy cars rated at the highest level of safety ratings. So is the case with India. You dont like a 3-star rated car costing 20L? Good luck finding a 4/5 star rated car in that category and even if there is one, good luck with waiting forever to have it delivered.

[mathewspaul]

Originally Posted by joeva1706

This is marginally better than the Kia Seltos, but a matter of concern for the Korean siblings.

Actually, Creta scored poorer than Seltos (8.00 against 8.03 of the Seltos).

[sunikkat]

Nothing surprising here, as honestly other than Tucson none of the Hyundai cars feels have a good build. So the result was expected.

When I bought i20 for my city run in December, I was expecting i20 to score similar to i10 (2 stars). But still went ahead with it due to lack of proper auto gearbox options in that segment. So infact I am kind of happy with the i20 results with 3 stars and faring better than Creta. But seriously Hyundai could do much better on this.

[fiat_tarun]

Originally Posted by Carma2017

...
NCAP as a metric of safety, although flawed and not in line with Indian road conditions...

Why do you say it's not in line with Indian road conditions? The current GNCAP test for India is the most basic and gives points for seat belt reminders, ABS, etc., which are relevant in all situations.

Also the very fact that GNCAP current norms in India are absolutely incomparable to Norms all over the world, just reduces their value further.

In fact it's the other way around. Some cars in our market are getting such poor scores in such a basic test that the world has moved on from years ago shows how bad it really is!

... July 2022 version of GNCAP norms, nearly all cars currently in Indian market would lose further one star due to upgraded requirements...

There is no co-relation between the current scoring and the new test protocol coming into effect from July '22. The new test protocol tests for front, side, pole impact and requires minimum fitment rates for ESP, side and curtain airbags to achieve even a 3 star rating. More details here (Understanding Global NCAP's new crash tests for India in 2022)

[Carma2017]

Originally Posted by fiat_tarun

Why do you say it's not in line with Indian road conditions? ....


In fact it's the other way around. Some cars in our market are getting such poor scores in such a basic test that the world has moved on from years ago shows how bad it really is! .....


There is no co-relation between the current scoring and the new test protocol... here (Understanding Global NCAP's new crash tests for India in 2022)

The top / average speed of Indian vehicles is different from their counterparts worldwide. The actual seat belt usage again is different from other countries. If you refer to RASSI data for Indian 4W accidents, more than 80% fatalities / serious injuries are caused by non usage of seat belts. The extent of pot holes/ irregular speed breakers causes very different accident load cases than what is mandated by NCAP in India. I could go on but as a starter, unbelted crash tests similar to the USA is a must to have as a minimum level of safety check and can be a game changer.

GNCAP in India has mandated only the Offset Crash test as a checking parameter which is over and above the Government regulatory tests. Yes, there are some differences in scoring but by degrading what it means to have a 5 star rating, they have unnecessarily made some vehicles seem more safer than they actually are.

My position has been always that India needs and deserves extremely stringent crash requirements considering how education growth, economic growth and car sales have grown independent of each other.

The new protocol is an evolution of current protocol with newer tests for star ratings. An ESP and pole test would only be required for 4 and 5 stars. 3 stars are still easier to get.

[gjnnbagal]

Creta is Creta, undisputed king in its segment. No matter how polarising (current model front fascia) it looked, no matter how Hyundai Caught in offending twitter controversy, similarly, 3 star GNCAP rating will work just fine, it won’t affect the sale figures

[GTO]

Very sad, very sad. You know why? Because after the GNCAP disaster of the Seltos, I would've expected a responsible group like Hyundai-Kia to make suitable amends and build safer cars. Hyundai knew what was coming their way after seeing how the Seltos fared. They could've built a safer Creta. I used to think (and hope) that Kia would also start building a safer Seltos after the GNCAP shame.

Alas. This is nothing but cheap cost-cutting & profit greed because the group does sell safer cars in other countries.

[PrasunBannerjee]

I think I can look into the future now! Here's what's about to happen.

• A mocking post coming from Tata Altroz soon for the i20, and might heavily promote it especially via social media. Expecting it to be a really witty one.
  
• People might cancel some of the bookings and some waiting time might come down, sales might dwindle a bit, and add up in Tata and Mahindra's favour (but for a while)
  
• Top bosses in certain companies will now be furious, because of a PR disaster and a bad repute which it will bring.
  
• The PR/MarCom department of certain companies (one, maybe 2) might twist arms of their heavily paid external media channels (the more premium/known/upmarket/reputed ones) to start questioning about two Indian products which sit in higher price range and not yet tested for GNCAP, to shift the narrative and attention, and in the meanwhile might launch more features on their lineup and make ordinary people forget what really happened. Oh not to forget, a proper facelift will make them forget if not a mid life refresh. The worried bosses from the previous point will now take a breath of fresh air as their long waiting lines will again become longer.
  
• The company which is being fired at in the previous point will take help of its army of youtubers (as well as micro and mini influencers) which have more reach in smaller towns to bash its competition to tackle situations. I can already imagine lots of crazy YouTube thumbnails which will come out in coming days.

Let's see how right or wrong I am with my predictions, I'm not blessed with superpowers anyway. But would be really interested to see how the market reacts to things.


One request to Tata: You are going on the right path. Please don't let this get into your head. Please don't start deleting any more features (Altroz now has semi digital console only on XZ+, not even on XZ(O) ), bring proper facelifts on time, plonk in better engines, add more feel-good features to keep adding more customers to your stable, and not to forget, make your sales experience worth remembering (but not in a negative way). Altroz can very well have optional ventilated seats and sunroof on absolute top end now, one strong bargaining point with the i20. Your other cars now have it!

Well deserved growth is on path, all the best!

[car_guy1998]

Very sad to see that one of the best sellers of India has scored 3 star rating in GNCAP and I was quite surprised that its cheaper sibling, i20 has fared better than Creta.

I hope now Hyundai will wake up and realise that safety is the key factor for every car buyer, not these feature gimmicks and improve the safety of the Creta as well as i20 by adding features like ESP, TC as well as additional airbags from the base variant itself, just like how Kia added these safety features and additional airbags from base variant in Seltos/Carens and improve the structural integrity of the car in order to score better again in GNCAP crash test.

Originally Posted by ron178

[*]My gut feeling says we might see another manufacturer enter the five star club very, very soon. I might be very wrong here. But if my assumption is right it might even be this week.

Any information that which manufacturer is going to enter 5-star club soon? I guess the cars this time won't be from Tata or Mahindra. My hard guess would be either Honda (City) or Kia (Carens) or Maruti (Baleno) or any other manufacturer.

[Sidban85]

Any MG cars to be tested soon?