Regional safety body ASEAN NCAP has announced a proposed move to a single unified safety rating for every car model sold in South East Asia by 2017, according to The Sun – this will replace the current multiple-rating system used for variants of the same car with differing levels of safety equipment.
Secretary-general Khairil Anwar Abu Kassim told the publication that the move was aimed to eliminate confusion among consumers, as well as the manipulation of the ratings by certain manufacturers when marketing their cars. He elaborated that only the lowest variant of a particular model from within the region will be evaluated in crash tests come 2017.
“We found that the dual rating system has been manipulated by some manufacturers in their car advertisements,” Khairil said. “For example, a car model which received a three-star safety rating was marketed [with a five-star rating], which was actually awarded to a different variant of the same model.”
The agency has been testing different variants of the same model (sometimes from different countries in the region) since the programme began three years ago. The most stark example of the multiple rating system can be seen on the Kia Picanto – the car sold in Malaysia with six airbags as standard scored a four-star rating, while the version offered in Thailand with no airbags netted no stars.
In addition, ASEAN NCAP appears to be moving towards a single overall rating for each car, incorporating both adult occupant protection (AOP) and child occupant protection (COP) in 2017 – the scores for these two are currently presented as separate star ratings. “It will be 50% for AOP and 25% for COP to ensure a vehicle receives the highest star award and also provides the best protection for the child inside a car,” he said.
Safety assist technologies (SAT) such as ABS, stability control, blind spot monitoring and automated emergency braking (AEB) will also be evaluated within the next 14 months, contributing another 25% to the overall rating. “Crash avoidance is our next objective.” Khairil said. “This reflects our effort to put pressure on the car manufacturers to install more safety features and produce safer cars.”
The proposal was outlined at the recent ASEAN NCAP 2017-2020 road map presented at an international conference in Bandung, Indonesia recently, and is said to be a natural progression of the programme.
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Good test the most basic model and let that be the score for the entire range (as it should be in the first place). This would really get the manufacturers off their collective asses and stop short changing buyers.
Please slap on some minimum requirements while at it.
1) No city auto stop, Max 4 stars
2) No ESP, Max 3 stars
3) No side and curtain airbags, Max 2 stars.
4) No isofix/latch/Top tethers – Fail.
…oh how I can wish…..
Ask UMW to put VSC on all their cars. They think they are GLC, they can give the rakyat dirt and we accept it.
Why buy a new car when the safety spec is the same as your old car? And UMW is wondering why their cars are not moving off the lots.
I just buy a lightly used secondhand car. Have been all this while. Use for 5 years… repeat.
If you look hard enough, there are plenty of good used cars under 20K nowadays. I bought a late 2009 (5.5 years old) Hyundai Matrix for 18K earlier this year (before GST) and all it needed was a standard service, a drive shaft boot and a new set of tyres.
If I had bought a new C segment 5 seat MPV equivalent to the Matrix, I loose 18K in the FIRST YEAR on depreciation.
A few years back, I bought a 4 year old Naza Citra with 10k original mileage (!) for less than 1/2 the price of a new one. Yes, it still had the new car smell.
Why the hell do you need to get hung up on the new car smell anyway, unless you are getting better safety equipment with the new car.
Thank ANCAP..
That will be butthurt for Toyota who own by cronies UMW that always cheated about their’re assessment..
i prefer they should start with 2 airbags+abs+isofix as standard for all range…max 3 stars. to get 4, must have esp..and so on..
Our Proton Persona fail all this.
Proton Inspira also fail…
current persona and the inspira are outdated models. more importantly, we should hope for future models to have better overall safety.. failing which, if a new Persona from Proton has a poor rating, you can always choose another car with a better rating, which is why Asean NCAP can be a useful tool for car buyers, and for putting pressure on car manufacturers to improve safety.
will be a good move to eradicate misleading representation/advertising by unscrupulous manufacturers/distributors/reseller.
but I wonder if people and/or authorities in not-so-well-off countries in ASEAN actually cares.
u wanna talk about cars misleading consumers , lets talk about FC ratings they claim !
Great move, it’s silly that the top variant have 5 stars (which they slap all over the car description and boast so much on it) but the entry level has less than that.
as everyone knows, Malaysia well known with its’ very high vehicle price tag, therefore no reason for Malaysia to stick with low safety requirement, instead of ANCAP, we should employ ENCAP as our baseline. Because Malaysian paid at more premium price compared to other countries for their vehicles, they should get premium rating vehicles as well.
ANCAP is under the purvue of ENCAP. the testing methodology is sound.. they just do not have all the resources of ENCAP today, but are building up to it. Also, just cause we pay more for imported/CKD cars doesnt mean these cars have a higher level of specification. Their prices are priced high not because the value of the car is jacked up by additional stuff, but because of Malaysian Govt duties.
yes, fully understand this. Consumer point of view, the final price is what you paid for the car. besides the people, the Govt need to understand that until today their people are still paying premium vehicle price that they are not getting as premium as what they have paid. should someone review it, if not the whole vehicle tax but at least tax free for safety item/feature etc? just opinion. i believe they can do better than this.
No need all safety.. See Perodua & Toyota.. No VSC no 6 airbag, can sold as pisang panas.. See Preve, suprima s, Iriz, Picanto, Rio & Cerato, 6 airbag have VSC, can not sell.. But Saga & Persona can sold, but no vsc & 6 airbag..
how come Perodua/Toyota cars can’t have safety features like 6 airbags and all,.. they are raking in more profits from sales than Proton,..if they care sooo much abt their buying customers then they can reduce their profit margins and have more safety features,..it is all abt economies of scale what,.. i think Proton barely make any large profits but still their main intention is to make cars with safety features