BMW Gets A Four-Star Slap In The Face At Euro NCAP

BMW has just had one of those days where an unexpected bit of news slaps us across the face like a wet salmon in the hands of a ninja warrior.

The i3 city car, on which the company is pinning its electric vehicle sales hopes, has come back from an embarrassing encounter at Euro NCAP having only scored four stars out of five.

That won’t have pleased BMW, a company that usually prides itself on how safe its cars are. After all, if you’re going to build cars like this then you’ve got to provide a safety net for the dummies who think they’re experts at drifting.

The i3 had its results read out in front of a class of 11 of the latest vehicles to go through the rigorous safety testing. Its four-star rating puts it on a par with the Mercedes Citan Kombi; a people-mover based on a lumbering van, which in turn is based on a pretty primitive old Renault chassis. Oh dear, BMW.

We’re not saying that the i3 is about as safe as throwing darts at your own feet, but the results are pretty sub-par. Four stars is okay, but it’s nothing to shout about.

The new Mazda 3, for example, massively out-points the i3 across the board, scores an easy five stars and costs a lot less money to buy.

It seems the vast cost of the i3 is the result of the electric drivetrain, which is actually pretty peppy. Makes you wonder how expensive the £30,000 car would have been if BMW had stuffed it as full of safety gear as the 5-series...