The latest round of Euro NCAP results cover four cars which gain four or five stars.

Today, Euro NCAP releases the results of four new cars.  The MINI Countryman and Škoda Kodiaq are both awarded a five-star rating.  

Nissan’s new Micra gets four stars with standard equipment and five stars with the optional safety pack (1).  The Suzuki Swift is rated as three stars as standard and four stars with the optional safety equipment.

All cars reach the five star levels for adult occupant protection, child protection and pedestrian protection.  The differences come in the fitment of advanced driver assistance systems.  

The Škoda Kodiaq is equipped as standard with an AEB system that detects pedestrians as well as other cars.  The Kodiaq’s five-star rating continues Škoda’s recent good form: all recently tested Škodas have been rated as five stars. 

The MINI has AEB car-to-car as standard and pedestrian detection as an option.  Nissan put AEB pedestrian and lane assistance in the option pack (‘Euro NCAP 5* Pack’) of the Micra, nudging the four-star rating with standard equipment into five-star territory with the option pack fitted.  

Only the Suzuki Swift does not offer AEB pedestrian, with AEB car-to-car in its ‘Radar Brake Support’ option pack.

Euro NCAP Secretary General, Michiel van Ratingen, said, “Euro NCAP started rewarding AEB pedestrian systems last year and we have seen a rapid uptake of the technology.   

We hope to see as fast an adoption of AEB systems that detect cyclists when tests of those systems form part of the rating next year.  

For twenty years, Euro NCAP has been pushing manufacturers to fit new and better safety technologies: originally, such things as airbags and pre-tensioners and, nowadays, advanced driver assistance systems that will form the building blocks for the automated vehicles of tomorrow.”

EURO NCAP - Jaguar takes a double award with both the new XE and XF saloons's getting the full Five Star awards.

The Jaguar XE and all-new Jaguar XF saloons have been awarded the maximum five star rating in Euro NCAP’s 2015 safety tests. XE and XF scored highly in every category – Adult Occupant, Child Occupant, Pedestrian and Safety Assist – and are among the most highly-rated models in their respective segments.

As well as outstanding crash protection, the XE and XF also benefit from a range of active safety systems including Autonomous Emergency Braking (fitted as standard in Europe), which uses a forward-facing stereo camera to detect vehicles which could pose a threat of collision: the system can give the driver visual and audible warnings and automatically apply the brakes if a collision is deemed imminent.

“The XE and XF were engineered without compromise: we placed just as much focus on safety as we did on dynamics, performance, refinement and efficiency, and our stringent in-house standards far exceed the requirements of legislative and consumer tests.

“Everything from the aluminium alloys we developed for the body structures to the state-of-the-art stereo camera at the heart of the Autonomous Emergency Braking system has been painstakingly optimised to deliver world-class levels of safety.”

Kevin Stride, Vehicle Line Director, Jaguar XE, XF, F-PACE

The XE and XF are developed from Jaguar’s Lightweight Aluminium Architecture: the inherently light yet stiff and strong body structures deliver exceptional occupant protection, further enhanced by driver and passenger airbags, side airbags and curtain airbags. In the event of an impact with pedestrians, deployable bonnets help to mitigate serious injuries.

Both models offer a full suite of active safety technologies and advanced driver assistance systems* including Dynamic Stability Control, Traction Control, Emergency Brake Assist, Lane Departure Warning, Blind Spot Monitoring, Closing Vehicle Sensing, Reverse Traffic Detection, Traffic Sign Recognition and Adaptive Cruise Control.

Additional features offered in the XF – and which will be offered in the 2017 Model Year XE – include Lane Keep Assist, Driver Condition Monitor and Adaptive Speed Limiter.

• Qoros 3 Sedan scores maximum five stars in Euro NCAP crash tests
• Highest overall score so far in 2013
• Amongst the best ever tested by Euro NCAP
• First car from a brand headquartered in China to achieve  five stars

In a ground-breaking result, Qoros’ first production vehicle, the compact (C-segment) Qoros 3 Sedan, has been awarded the maximum five-star rating in the Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) crash tests.  Qoros is the first international brand headquartered in China to produce a car awarded five stars by Euro NCAP.

The Qoros 3 Sedan scored highly in all four areas of the Euro NCAP tests and has the best overall performance of all vehicles assessed so far in 2013, placing it amongst the very best ever tested by Euro NCAP.

The Euro NCAP test procedure is an accredited benchmark for vehicle accident safety and is recognised by governments, automobile clubs and consumer associations across Europe.  As one of the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative independent crash safety tests, it assesses occupant protection in different impact scenarios, as well as the effectiveness of safety assistance systems and the level of protection for pedestrians.

Volker Steinwascher, Vice Chairman of Qoros, said: “The safety of our vehicles was one of our key development goals from the start.  It’s a crucial demonstration that our customers are the most important consideration and it also says a great deal about the engineering integrity of the car as a whole.  So, while we expected a very good result in the Euro NCAP test, we are naturally very happy with how the car performed.  The Qoros engineering team invested an incredible amount of time and commitment in developing one of the safest vehicles ever assessed by Euro NCAP.”

Roger Malkusson, Executive Director of Vehicle Integration at Qoros, said: “We have been working towards this result for many years.  Our safety team is made up of experts from many different countries and our efforts have been focused on delivering a thoroughly well engineered car that achieved maximum safety scores.  We are very proud to have achieved the top rating of five stars.”

Occupant protection
The Qoros 3 Sedan scored the best result for Adult Occupant Protection in Euro NCAP’s 2013 programme so far.  The safety passenger cell of the Qoros 3 Sedan proved to be extremely robust in front-end, side impact and pole impact collisions.  

The body and structure of the car are designed to minimise the exposure of passengers to risks in the event of collisions, with the forces on the vehicle diverted along predefined load paths and absorbed by generously-sized deformation zones.  As the potentially huge impact energy generated in a collision is largely dissipated, the integrity of the passenger cell is maintained.

The comprehensive suite of standard passive safety equipment (designed to keep occupants safe in the event of an accident) provides the driver and passengers, irrespective of their size and seating position, with maximum protection against injury.  These include front and side airbags, side head curtain airbags for the front and rear seats, three-point automatic seat belts on all seats and dual belt tensioners for front passengers.  In the event of a rear-end collision, the front seat headrests are designed to reduce the risk of whiplash injuries.

Child safety is also a major consideration, with ISOFIX child seat anchorages in the rear, with top tether hooks, and a passenger airbag disconnect switch for the front passenger seat position.

The Qoros 3 Sedan also scored maximum points for child restraint in the front and side crash tests.   A new addition to this year’s Euro NCAP procedure assesses the vehicle’s compatibility with a wide range of child seats.  The Qoros 3 Sedan excelled, proving to be compatible with the full range of the Euro NCAP top pick child seats.

Pedestrian Protection
Qoros’ first production car also achieved an impressive result in the Pedestrian protection test thanks to a development programme that included meticulous work with Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE).

Andy Piper, Chief Engineer of Vehicle Safety and Homologation explains: “The 2013 Euro NCAP protocol demands very accurate computer simulations when calculating the Pedestrian protection performance.  As industry standard pedestrian models were not sophisticated enough for this purpose, Qoros’ expert safety team developed its own models.  The outcome is that we are proud to have developed one of the best Pedestrian protection systems ever assessed by Euro NCAP without any compromise to our distinctive styling or our class leading aerodynamics performance.”

Safety Assistance Systems
The newly revised Euro NCAP test criteria includes an assessment of a vehicle’s active Safety Assistance Systems (those designed to help prevent accidents) and here, too, the Qoros 3 Sedan recorded an excellent result.  The saloon is equipped as standard with ABS (Antilock Braking System), ESP (Dynamic Stability Control / Electronic Stability Program), EBA (Electronic Brake Assist), Braking Control System , seat belt reminders for all occupants and a driver-set speed limiting device to help motorists observe speed limits.

A detailed review of the Euro NCAP test results:

Adult Occupant: 95%
Child Occupant: 87%
Pedestrian: 77%
Safety Assistance Systems: 81%
Overall result: 88% = Five stars

The four test criteria have different weighting when calculating the overall score. Adult Occupant protection has a 50 per cent weighting, Child Occupant and Pedestrian protection categories each have a 20 per cent weighting, and Safety Assistance Systems has a 10 per cent weighting.

The overall result is not published by Euro NCAP but is used at the end of each calendar year to determine the Best in Class award.

The Euro NCAP crash test procedure
The European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) is an independent consortium with eleven members made up of government representatives, automobile clubs and consumer protection organisations.  The transport ministries of Sweden, France, the UK, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Catalonia and Germany are involved, alongside the FIA, the German Automobile Club (ADAC), International Consumer Research and Testing (ICRT) organisation, and the Thatcham Research Centre run by British motor insurers.

Euro NCAP are continually adapting its assessment protocols, challenging manufacturers to deliver even safer vehicles.  The 2013 assessment is the most challenging so far, with the Pedestrian protection procedure being even more comprehensive than 2012 along with tougher scoring criteria in the Safety Assistance Systems assessments.

Qoros’ international team of safety experts
As part of its objective to produce vehicles that either meet or exceed the stringent European requirements for quality and safety, Qoros recruited leading automobile experts from all over the world dedicated at ensuring a high level of safety for all Qoros vehicles, their efforts are directed towards developing features that are intended to prevent accidents (active safety systems) as well as minimise the consequences of accidents (passive safety systems).

The design of the Qoros 3 Sedan’s architecture has taken account of the very latest developments in accident safety and occupant protection.  Advanced computer simulations played a major role in the development process, reducing the number of crash tests needed but also allowing the engineers to explore the robustness of the Qoros 3 Sedan in many different scenarios.