According to recent reports, Maruti Suzuki has confirmed that they will not be sending their cars to the Global NCAP for crash tests. The brand feels that their vehicles follow all the safety regulations that have been made mandatory by the Indian government including the all-new pedestrian and offset side-impact safety norms while they would not allow any third party agency to rate their vehicles no matter what the other manufacturers are doing.
Commenting on opting out of sending the cars to NCAP, CV Raman, Senior Executive Director – Engineering of Maruti Suzuki India said – “As far as Maruti Suzuki is concerned, we believe that all safety regulations which are mandated by the government and the recently introduced offset side-impact and pedestrian regulation we are meeting..going forward SIAM as a body with the manufacturer are working to bring out the BNCAP. Anything that is led or driven by the government and recognized by the government is something that we would be looking at. Any other agency, it’s okay for the strategy of other manufacturers but Maruti Suzuki would like to work within the ambit of the Indian government regulations.”
The first-ever NCAP crash test was held back in 2014 in which all the participants including the Hyundai i10, Ford Figo, Maruti Suzuki Alto 800 as well as the Tata Nano failed to clear the safety regulations. The GNCAP further decided to declare one of the best selling cars in the Indian automobile segment, the Maruti Suzuki Alto 800 as highly unsafe for the passengers with an unstable shell that wouldn’t be capable of offering safety even with the airbags. In addition to the Alto 800, the Maruti Eeco was another one that bagged 0 out of 5 stars in the Global NCAP crash test ratings.
At present, Maruti Vitara Brezza is the only SUV under the brand’s portfolio that has been awarded four stars by the Global NCAP in crash tests for the adult occupant safety and two stars for the child occupant safety. Other worthy cars that have been awarded five stars in the crash tests include the likes of the recently launched Tata Altroz and the Tata Nexon while the Maruti Ertiga and Swift have been rated with three and two stars respectively.