By the end of 2023, the Global NCAP safety test is likely to happen in India
Global NCAP recently announced that it has conducted the safety test of 50 made-in-India cars. Now though, the body looks forward to assessing passenger vehicles on Indian soil.
The ‘Safer Cars for India’ campaign began in 2014 and out of the 50 assessments, only 19 have been voluntary, meaning the manufacturer paid for the test to be done.
Conducting crash tests is an expensive affair and Global NCAP has secured the funds to be able to keep up its work till 2025. At present, the safety watchdog tests cars sold in India at the Germany-based motoring association ADAC’s technical centre present near Munich.
Global NCAP has spent about €3.2 million (over Rs. 27 crores) for the Safer Cars for India Campaign alone. In order to reduce costs in the future, the body wants to transfer testing to India.
Executive President, Global NCAP, David Ward is hopeful that it can be done as early as from the end of 2023. What’s more, he is also hopeful that a Bharat NCAP campaign, that has been spoken about time and again by the government since 2016, would materialise by 2025.
In addition, Ward also believes that a star labelling system, which is in practice is Malaysia, would raise consumer awareness about a product’s ability to safeguard its occupants, in addition to the Global NCAP safety test result.
But, the executive president of Global NCAP is wary of the importance given to safety systems rather than crash test results. Ward says making more and more safety gear mandatory is “good to try, but it should not be an absolute, and a law.”
Backing performance criteria, he says specifying some kind of technology is generally avoided as “technologies do change and innovation will always keep flowing.”