Watch A Bunch Of Indian Market Cars Fold Like Paper In Crash Tests
These cars have three things in common: all are made for the Indian market, all were deemed to have ‘unstable’ body structures, and all were given zero stars in recent Global NCAP tests. It’s clear that while much of the world takes the safety of new cars for granted, you’re much less fortunate if you’re buying a car in a developing market.
As well as the shoddy bodyshells, these cars also have a complete lack of safety features. Only one - the Renault Kwid - was fitted with an airbag, and none of the cars even have seatbelt pre-tensioners.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Indian market cars spectacularly fail a Global NCAP test - a couple of years ago we were looking at another motley crew of budget cars that had scored 0 points. These tests don’t appear to show that much progress has happened in that time, and remember, these are big, global car companies that are more than capable of making cars for other markets that are perfectly safe.
Commenting on the lack of airbags in certain Kwid models, Global NCAP secretary general David Ward said:
“It is very surprising that a manufacturer like Renault introduced the Kwid initially lacking this essential feature [an airbag]. Global NCAP strongly believes that no manufacturer anywhere in the world should be developing new models that are so clearly sub-standard. Car makers must ensure that their new models pass the UN’s minimum crash test regulations, and support use of an airbag.”
The silver lining is that the Indian government will introduce mandatory crash tests for all new cars in late 2017, which should put a stop to manufacturers flogging such woefully inadequate cars in the country.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I reckon that is good population control measure the Indian government have.
I believe it’s pretty the same in South America
I thought in indian cities you’d never be moving fast enough to have a crash anyway?
Finally!
In India, people only care care about fuel efficiency and price, they could care less about other essentials and I hate this, I’m scared about buying a car in India!
That’s the indian approach on origami
Its not the car companies …its the government who doesn’t put in safety standards or rather has weak standards and the people themselves. Here no one takes safety into consideration while buying a car, its always mileage,price and space that is looked for. When car companies bring in safer cars, people ignore it because of higher prices.
90s style
The problem with developing countries is that the people have severely lack of concern in safety issues. Safety features, thicker body panels, stronger chassis, etc. certainly cost more money. Even with just a small increase in the whole car’s price, yet people still think that it’s a good amount of money to save. The car manufacturers surely go where the demands are, they don’t want to make a safe car but without any buyer, hence this circle is created. If the consumer reject to buy dangerous but cheap cars, the car manufacturers will surely make a safer one to cope with the demand. They already have the experience though. This is from my observation on local Indonesian market.
youre right nobody really gives a sh*t about safety here in india. luckily my car atleast got decent safety features
Damn this isn’t even funny, this is straight up scary, people wanting to safely arrive in their destination could get hurt just because manufacturers couldn’t cut the money on anything other than the safety functions. Things like that really piss me off. The lack of thinking about consequences is just disturbing
i was gonna make some volvo joke about this
but i didn’t just to be safe